My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land • Hacker News Board

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#171

Post by nickff » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #167

nickff wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obamacare is socialist in the sense that it enabled a great deal of government control over the healthcare market, which is a rather large sector of the economy, almost indisputably one of the 'commanding heights'.

This is logic that suggests that any regulation of any major market is intrinsically "socialist". Perhaps that's true, but if it's true it's only true in the sense that it illustrates how treacherous the word "socialism" is.

There is the saying "why own the farm If you can own the farmer?", which has been attributed to various totalitarians (and whose true origin I am unaware of), that highlights the fact that owning the actual means of production is unnecessary if you control the owner. This can be through regulation, corruption, or other means.

I don't see socialism as a 'treacherous' word, but 'socialism' is more a spectrum than a boolean variable. For instance, I am sure you are more socialist than I am, but that does not make you the same as Castro or Mao.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#172

Post by robk » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

junto wrote: post #48

Venezuela is on the brink. It has a socialist majority because previously the rich bleed them dry. Now the boot is on the other foot and the socialists are starving out the middle and upper classes who traditionally voted for the elite that controlled the media in Venezuela. So sad. At some point it will flip again and the cycle will repeat itself. Meanwhile the US continues to pressure the socialist government throu…

How is this America's fault?

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#173

Post by MaxfordAndSons » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

throw89234 wrote: post #45

I grow-up in similar conditions. It is always funny when some spoiled kid with $500 handbag calls me privileged cis-gender white male.

That's an odd turn... care to elaborate on the connection between government caused economic crises in South America and identity politics among (what I assume are) North American urbanites?

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#174

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:17 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #162

guard-of-terra wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE

Arguably the social policies of Nazi Germany likely would have kept the birthrate high for another 2-3 generations, after that.. its hard to say. Alternative histories of Germany winning the war are many, and interesting (and scary) though experiments.

Nobody got 2-3 generations in their position, I think they could only aim for a half generation of high-ish birthrate. That's what USA got, and it was arguably less urbanized to begin with.

They'll still have massive debt and huge costs of security and investments in freshly acquired "lebensraum". Honestly I think they'll crumble anyway.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#175

Post by willholloway » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

htaunay wrote: post #155

I'm reading a lot of comments exclusively blaming communism, but when I lived in Caracas during the first years of the Chavez presidency, I witnessed an overwhelming public support in his favor. Elections were won with ~70% of the votes, and I also recall various referendum-like votes which Chavez won easily as well. Another fact that surprised me was that every Sunday he would give these 4h long speeches, and a crow…

Chavez was immensely popular. A coup by the army was overturned by mass protests.

His government was very successful by most economic metrics during his time in his office. It is his successor that has dropped the ball with his bungling of the currency mess. And that's the root cause of all this suffering, a bad currency system, and low oil prices.

You call them populist programs with little ROI, but they were investments and initiatives that were improving the lives of giant swathes of the nation's citizens.

If the price of oil was still $100 per barrel the country wouldn't be in this situation, and we wouldn't have all this gnashing of teeth over the inevitable downfall of socialism.

From my position, capitalist economies shouldn't be so arrogant right now. Instead of blaming the economic system of the country, take it as a warning for what happens when natural resource assets stop producing bounty, or currency exchange moves against being in your favor.

American Capitalism would not be immune from an ecological recession caused by plausible threats like warming and ocean acidification and biodiversity loss, and America might not always have the subsidy of the petrodollar. The dollar's status as reserve currency is equal to a finger on the scale in all American's economic favor.

Venezuela's present could be our future.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#176

Post by techcode » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

That's similar to how it was in 90's Yugoslavia during international sanctions.

We didn't have so much crime (definitely no violent stuff like kidnaping), and cellphone was still big grey brick Fox Mulder would pull out of his jacket ... So sharing knowledge you've found bread or milk was spreading slower.

For those asking how come farmers aren't making huge money in such cases - they still need to buy other stuff and that's equally/proportionally expensive.

In case of Yugoslavia, I think pretty much all petrol/gas was smuggled in (because international sanctions) from nearby countries.

Once you consider that mass producing food means you need to power machines (like tractor) and ultimately transport it somehow to consumers ... Imagine how many jerry cans had to be smuggled ...

And IMHO you're mixing cause and effect when you mention state-controlled economies as a cause of this. It mostly fails because (for one reason or another) country is effectively blocked from trading with the rest of the world, and doesn't have enough variety in materials/resources to be on it's own.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#177

Post by doozy » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:22 PM UTC

huherto wrote: post #156

doozy wrote: post #116

As someone who lives next door to Venezuela, it seems to me the situation over there has really hit the proverbial fan. Venezuela has been in a disastrous economic situation for years, but nowhere as bad what we are seeing these days. Just yesterday their government opened the border with Colombia for 12 hours (they have kept it closed for a year) and about 125 thousand people crossed into Colombia to buy basic groce…

Are people in Venezuela allowed to leave. Can you explain ? > 30% did not cross back. Not surprisingly. It can easily become a humanitarian problem for Colombia. What is the political sentiment in Colombia about this ?

Venezuelans have been leaving the country for the last decade or so. There are huge numbers of them here already.

It's not easy for them to leave because their currency is basically worthless and access to hard currency is restricted to the well-connected.

Also the Venezuelan government closed the border about one year ago. They also kicked out all Colombians from Venezuela. According to the Venezuelan government everything bad that happens there is consequence of the vast Colombian-American right wing conspiracy.

Colombians are generally cool about Venezuelans, as the two countries are very similar to each other and have a long history together (at one point they were part of the same country). Neither the people nor the government opposes Venezuelan immigration, as far as I can tell.

But Colombia ain't exactly the land of milk and honey and Venezuelans know it. If they are not rushing in greater numbers to the border is because they know that, while there may not be any shortages or blackouts here, jobs are also few and far between.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#178

Post by saryant » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

Aloha wrote: post #138

chiph wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can find a copy, read Steeltown USSR https://www.amazon.com/Steeltown-USSR-Soviet-Society-Gorbach... The factory was producing substandard steel. Often they'd ship it to customers and it would arrive in an unusable condition because it had been stored outside and was more rust than steel. But they'd try and use it anyway, because if they complained the bureaucrats in Moscow would brand them troublemakers and r…

About Yeltsin: "During a visit to the United States in 1989 he became more convinced than ever that Russia had been ruinously damaged by its centralized, state-run economic system, where people stood in long lines to buy the most basic needs of life and more often than not found the shelves bare. He was overwhelmed by what he saw at a Houston supermarket, by the kaleidoscopic variety of meats and vegetables available…

Boris Yeltsin's grocery store visit: http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-...

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#179

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

rangibaby wrote: post #165

guard-of-terra wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As we know today, Germans never had any manpower to make use of much lebensraum. They were at Peak German at that time, after which their birth rate declined dramatically. They won't have the men to settle any of those lands they were supposed to colonize. Anyway, USSR lost the most lives fighting Germany and gained least benefits out of that. Just check: https://www.ifitweremyhome.com/compare/RU/DE

Your first paragraph is "the Nazis didn't have enough coal to burn 6M Jews"-level dishonesty. They would have found a way to populate all that sweet, sweet land, like any colonizer in the past or present. I agree with the second one. The "spoils" claimed weren't much compared to the destruction inflicted on their country and people. That has nothing to do with my original comment though.

Do you see many colonizers in present? I don't.

I see rapid decolonization. Japanese leave rural areas and northern territories. Russians fled Central Asia, pushed off Caucasus, large swaths of land become anthropic deserts. French in no position to colonize Africa anymore, if anything they're getting colonized. Chinese flock to Southern coast and no longer push that hard demographically on Uighurs/Tibetans.

Germans don't even seem to flock to their Northern, Baltic shore. And it has better climate than absolute most of their supposed "sraum".

Arguable, Polish and Balts skip their countries for greener pastures. If anybody in EU will be lacking room they can move there any minute.

Re: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-Day Hunt for Food in a Starving Land

#180

Post by red_blobs » Mon, Jul 18, 2016, 6:23 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #72

beloch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Several countries that are fairly socialist have higher living standards than the U.S., where "socialism" is an epithet for some reason. McCarthy lives on I suppose. Venezuela's problem is totalitarianism . In a socialist country, it is possible for the government to be governed by law and have limits placed on its power. That is not what's been going in in Venezuala.

> countries that are fairly socialist Please describe the ways in which some countries are "fairly" socialist but aren't actually socialist. I'm not aware of a single example of a socialist nation succeeding in any regard towards creating prosperity for its people. Nor am I aware of a successful national experiment in socialism in the last two centuries of various attempts. Every historical attempt has ended extraord…

"they all have property rights enshrined into the core of their economies, they all allow for the vast accumulation of wealth without forced redistribution"

I disagree. These nations do not allow vast accumulations of wealth. They have significant taxes that actually prohibit vast accumulations of wealth, by design. It's also a form of forced redistribution, because you are required to pay excessive tax rates..and if you don't, you be sent to prison or be subjected to some form of punishment.

In fact, if you look at the average wages across all industries in a country like Sweden, they are relatively the same.

Here are some stats: http://lostinstockholm.com/2012/01/10/average-salaries-in-sw...

Why are they the same? Because the government will tax the money away before you can ever get to those higher amounts.

"The nations you refer to, are actually welfare states, not Socialist - there is a very big difference."

I feel like this is the 'no true scotsman' argument all over again. At a certain tax rate, the government owns the means of production.

We can keep playing semantics and call it 'socialist' or 'welfare state', but the reality is that no matter what you call it, high taxes and excessive government regulations is not something that is conducive to a prospering nation.

Even look at California as a small example: The high tax rates and regulations have started squeezing out the middle class and in many parts of the state, you only have two classes of people: poor and rich.