51–60 of 80 posts
The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
On Friday, the government-run oil giant PDVSA owes $985 million. Maybe an ignorant question... who do they owe... who own's these bonds?
The article names a number of the bond holders. In general terms, almost every hedge fund owns some amount of the $140B in outstanding debt.
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It's difficult to figure out what's really going on there. I followed Abby Martin's reporting on the ground recently, and it's quite eye opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYWrPiUeWY
I've only seen a few pieces by Martin, but everyone was a gross distortion of the situation covered. She's a propagandist pushing anti-Western narratives, not a journalist summarizing the facts. I suspect her coverage here may be influenced by her anti-Western feelings.
On August 25, 2017, US President Donald Trump issued an executive order limiting the government of Venezuela's ability to access certain types of international financing. This would certainly curtail the governments ability to ease the pressure of bond payments. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/25/exec... when you cant sell assets, you cant repay a bond. PDVSA, the nationalized oil asset of the st…
The ability of external powers is a point I bring up when people go on about Venezuela being a failed socialist state. With the stroke of their pens, other nations have limited what Venezuela can achieve on its own, and are forced to play the game as usual. How anyone can say it a symbol of failed socialism states when you're being squeezed by international super powers into a corner with no real access, I have no id…
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> one becomes immediately suspicious of the US intent. I suggest your read or watch this and you'll be immediately less suspicious [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit...
I've read and enjoyed it. Knowing good people who work and have worked for Bechtel, et cetera , I can assure you that the riveting read it makes contains some truths and many exaggerations. The laws the U.S. is deploying here are designed to prevent a despot from pilfering a population's wealth to pay cronies. Letting Maduro liquidate PDVSA to pay debts which should be defaulted on is precisely the intent of the law,…
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54% of the population supported the Maduro government in the election.[1] If you think Trump is taking the "correct action," you're against democracy at this point. [1] https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-election-resu...
You're really citing results from an authoritarian regime known for scrubbing numbers and propaganda as evidence of popular support?
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It's difficult to figure out what's really going on there. I followed Abby Martin's reporting on the ground recently, and it's quite eye opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYWrPiUeWY
I've only seen a few pieces by Martin, but everyone was a gross distortion of the situation covered. She's a propagandist pushing anti-Western narratives, not a journalist summarizing the facts. I suspect her coverage here may be influenced by her anti-Western feelings.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
54% of the population supported the Maduro government in the election.[1] If you think Trump is taking the "correct action," you're against democracy at this point. [1] https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-election-resu...
You're really citing results from an authoritarian regime known for scrubbing numbers and propaganda as evidence of popular support?
"...key opposition candidates in the governor's races in Venezuela are gradually accepting the results as legitimate, except for one controversial close race that is being challenged in the State of Bolivar where opposition has some serious allegations due to the discrepancy in the results that the CNE announced, that's the election commission in Venezuela, the results that they announce and the printout of the report that was given to each party by the voting machines."
"ALEXANDER MAIN: First of all, it's really nothing new... Already in 2002, much of the corporate media internationally was suggesting that the presidency of Chávez had become something of a dictatorship and completely ignoring some of the anti-democratic activities of the opposition parties in Venezuela, and namely a coup d'etat was supported by most of Venezuela's opposition parties in April of 2002. This was initially represented as some sort of a popular uprising against the dictatorship, and it was really, I think, thanks to the reaction of other governments in the region that clearly saw that there was a coup d'etat that the narrative began to change around that.
"Soon afterwards, we got back into this tradition of suggesting that there was creeping authoritarianism going on in Venezuela. Very little was said about the fact that nearly every year, sometimes twice a year in Venezuela, you had elections being held at different institutional levels. These elections would typically have very big turnouts, they'd be very transparent, very free and fair... In fact, it can be argued that the electoral system in Venezuela has gotten more and more refined in terms of the degree of transparency, to the extent that in fact, it [speaks] in part to that transparency and the internal checks and balances that today you do have this controversy in the state of Bolivar... They can do this, in fact, because they have records from electronic voting machines, which everyone believes... the fact is that you have a system that's in place that can very easily allow for verification... It really is sort of a direct contradiction of this constant claim that the country is slipping into dictatorship. You don't have that when you have constant elections in which people, the majority of voters participate and where you can have confidence in the results."
[1] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=...
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The president of the U.S. undermining the results of a free and fair Latin American election is not "progress". That's par for course since at least 1904.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine
Getting a non authoritarian regine in place would be progress in almost every way. The Monroe Doctrine precedes 1904. It's interesting that the Venezuelans have been in favor of it at times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_crisis_of_1895
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regardless of what you think of Trump, this is the correct action. The maduro govt is not just full of issues, they are murdering and starving their own population and any funds are used to prop up the privileged few elite in the aristocracy. El mercosur is about to expulse venezuela so this is not just some yankee only EEUU foreign agression bs. If you support the Maduro government, you're against humanity at this p…
54% of the population supported the Maduro government in the election.[1] If you think Trump is taking the "correct action," you're against democracy at this point. [1] https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-election-resu...