Another American backed coup happening in Venezuela

listermint wrote: »

Look you've been found out.

China is not a communist country I'm not debating this crap with you anymore. You are being ridiculous.

Would you care to enlighten us what political system operates in China?

Where does the tens of billions worth of trade with US go ,
The population is starving yet all we've seen on here it's America's fault,
They were warned decades ago to modernise their oil production and bring diversification to the economy,
But no seems a handful got rich and the majority got poor like every other failed communist holes but as long as a few get chance to bash the US why bother with facts

Cheerful Spring wrote: »

Yep if left alone and let them deal with it on their own. I guarantee if America did not sanction them in 2013, they be fine right now.

You are believing a self-serving myth created by the Venezuelan government.

The Chavez government has created the mess, and made worse by what followed. All that oil money wasted.

There's been some really bad takes given regarding the situation in Venezuela.

Right-Wing American take (over the past few years)
Democrats are trying to increase taxes, increase "entitlements" and socialise medicine. See how that worked out for Venezuela...

Left-Wing (today)
Here we go. Another US-led coup in Latin America. They're just after Venezuela's oil wealth. Maduro is the democratically elected president who's only crime was to try to help the poor. This is an outrage...


The reality is that both of these are wide of the mark. I've been following the situation in Venezuela since the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Discussion of the Chavez years are beyond the scope of a single post. Needless to say that he did a lot of good redistributing oil wealth in a fairer manner but also the seeds were sewn that weakened domestic businesses and led to an over-reliance on exports purchased with oil money. Also he got extremely lucky with high oil prices to pay for his social programs.

Upon his death in 2013 Nicolas Maduro was suddenly thrust into power. An ex-bus driver, his main qualification for leadership appeared to be his blind loyalty to Chavez. Firstly he was highly unlucky. When he came to power oil was > $100 a barrel. Within 3 years it had plunged to <$40. This led to a collapse in the income of the state. How Maduro dealt with this crisis was a sequence of events where he kept doubling down on bad decisions:

1. With a loss of income from selling oil he started printing new currency to try and continue government spending
2. This, of course, led to massive inflation and the collapse in the value of the local currency (the bolivar)
3. Since domestic production had been decimated in the Chavez years most products were imported.
4. Maduro created laws preventing businesses from increasing prices on staples such as rice, medicines and toilet paper
5. this would mean that businesses would lose money by selling these items so they either went out of business or stopped selling price-controlled items
6. This led to massive queues at any shops that were still selling staples. This also led to rationing of these items
7. ignoring the real value vs the US$ of the bolivar Maduro created an official exchange rate (seemingly out of thin air). Access to dollars at this rate was only available to political cronies. The blackmarket value that most people had to go by was orders of magnitude higher.
8. As well as inflation unemployment and crime skyrocketed. People took to the streets in many protests which were put down by the police
9. A mass exodus of people has occurred - >3 millions have left the country, swamping Columbia and other neighbours.
10. The average person in Venezuela is so undernourished that they have lost large amounts of weight – dubbed “The Maduro diet”
11. In parallel with the economic ruin that he was inflicting upon the country Maduro was also eroding democracy at the same time.
12. He stuffed the supreme court with loyalists and arrested opposition leaders
13. When the opposition won power in national assembly elections in 2015, Maduro's party stripped power from the body before they left (a trick since used by the Republican party in some states in the USA)
14. He also used the supreme court to remove power from the assembly in 2017
15. He created a new constituent assembly stuffed with loyalists in order to write a new constitution (the previous one had only been written in 2009)
16. All of this allowed him to win an election in 2018 that most of the opposition boycotted

Basically the only thing Maduro is competent at is clinging on to power. If he had gone out to try and ruin the country he couldn’t’ have done much worse than what he has actually accomplished over the past 6 years.

What has occurred in Venezuela cannot be used to bash democratic socialism since it’s basically nothing but a dictatorship at this stage. At the same time the fracking boom in the USA has meant that they are now self-sufficient in hydrocarbons and have little use for the particular crude oil that the Venezuelans produce (a particularly dense form that is difficult to refine). The fact that most of Venezuela’s neighbours have weighed in on the side of the opposition also goes against the theory that this is some sort of CIA coup. The only countries in the region who are backing Maduro or communist Cuba and Bolivia and Mexico who both have populist left-wing leaders.

The best outcome for the people of Venezuela is that the army choose to back the opposition and free and air elections can be held so that someone competent can come in and clean up the mess that has been made of the country (be they left or right leaning so long as they understand the basics of economics).

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

Or.. A socialist state that worked for the majority of its people? The superpowers of the world didn't like it but was it a good quality of life for Libyans? Anything I've read says it was.

Margaret Thatcher said that "the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples’ money". Applying that principle to Libya and Venezuela is that the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of oil money.

The only thing that made socialism last longer in those two countries was the oil money. Ironically, the Middle Eastern despots in places like Saudi and the UAE have made a better fist of long-term economic stability (though not all have done so).

Ultimate Seduction wrote: »

So they made money by exporting goods (oil) and gave a fair share of it back to its citizens through free healthcare, education an housing? This is a bad thing? Or is it just bad because they don't need to borrow all their money and pay interest on it?

Because it ends.

Look at Saudi, they're not socialist but built on oil money and now investing for the day it ends.

The problem is simply overspending. Maduro based a budget on 100 dollar oil, and the price has collapsed. Now he is stuck with "socialist" spending (i.e. handouts to his pals), and the income isn't there to support this.

Of course he went with the simple answer every economic idiot goes with, which was to print money. I remember our own left was wondering why the ECB didn't do this themselves ("we have had enough austerity policies"). Well take a look at Venezuala, where inflation suddenly massively rises as paper money increasingly becomes worthless.

I've always found it truly offensive that those who call out every American action, appear to turn a blind eye to the daily human rights atrocities carried out in China, Russia, and nearly all the African and Arab states.
Not a whimper about anti-gay laws, legalised rape of multiple spouses, flagrant torture and en-masse executions.
But God forbid a serial killer is executed in Texas.

If you think about it, you could conclude that the Lefts rabid hatred of the US supercedes any notions or pretense they have that they actually care for people.

It'd be funny if it weren't so tragic.

Brian? wrote: »

.

A new free and fair election, with UN monitors. The winner is the winner.

How? China and Russia would block anything like that put forward at the UN Security Council.

Maduro is not about to let UN monitors take away his power. He is all in at this stage.

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

There's been some really bad takes given regarding the situation in Venezuela.

Right-Wing American take (over the past few years)
Democrats are trying to increase taxes, increase "entitlements" and socialise medicine. See how that worked out for Venezuela...

Left-Wing (today)
Here we go. Another US-led coup in Latin America. They're just after Venezuela's oil wealth. Maduro is the democratically elected president who's only crime was to try to help the poor. This is an outrage...


The reality is that both of these are wide of the mark. I've been following the situation in Venezuela since the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Discussion of the Chavez years are beyond the scope of a single post. Needless to say that he did a lot of good redistributing oil wealth in a fairer manner but also the seeds were sewn that weakened domestic businesses and led to an over-reliance on exports purchased with oil money. Also he got extremely lucky with high oil prices to pay for his social programs.

Upon his death in 2013 Nicolas Maduro was suddenly thrust into power. An ex-bus driver, his main qualification for leadership appeared to be his blind loyalty to Chavez. Firstly he was highly unlucky. When he came to power oil was > $100 a barrel. Within 3 years it had plunged to <$40. This led to a collapse in the income of the state. How Maduro dealt with this crisis was a sequence of events where he kept doubling down on bad decisions:

1. With a loss of income from selling oil he started printing new currency to try and continue government spending
2. This, of course, led to massive inflation and the collapse in the value of the local currency (the bolivar)
3. Since domestic production had been decimated in the Chavez years most products were imported.
4. Maduro created laws preventing businesses from increasing prices on staples such as rice, medicines and toilet paper
5. this would mean that businesses would lose money by selling these items so they either went out of business or stopped selling price-controlled items
6. This led to massive queues at any shops that were still selling staples. This also led to rationing of these items
7. ignoring the real value vs the US$ of the bolivar Maduro created an official exchange rate (seemingly out of thin air). Access to dollars at this rate was only available to political cronies. The blackmarket value that most people had to go by was orders of magnitude higher.
8. As well as inflation unemployment and crime skyrocketed. People took to the streets in many protests which were put down by the police
9. A mass exodus of people has occurred - >3 millions have left the country, swamping Columbia and other neighbours.
10. The average person in Venezuela is so undernourished that they have lost large amounts of weight – dubbed “The Maduro diet”
11. In parallel with the economic ruin that he was inflicting upon the country Maduro was also eroding democracy at the same time.
12. He stuffed the supreme court with loyalists and arrested opposition leaders
13. When the opposition won power in national assembly elections in 2015, Maduro's party stripped power from the body before they left (a trick since used by the Republican party in some states in the USA)
14. He also used the supreme court to remove power from the assembly in 2017
15. He created a new constituent assembly stuffed with loyalists in order to write a new constitution (the previous one had only been written in 2009)
16. All of this allowed him to win an election in 2018 that most of the opposition boycotted

Basically the only thing Maduro is competent at is clinging on to power. If he had gone out to try and ruin the country he couldn’t’ have done much worse than what he has actually accomplished over the past 6 years.

What has occurred in Venezuela cannot be used to bash democratic socialism since it’s basically nothing but a dictatorship at this stage. At the same time the fracking boom in the USA has meant that they are now self-sufficient in hydrocarbons and have little use for the particular crude oil that the Venezuelans produce (a particularly dense form that is difficult to refine). The fact that most of Venezuela’s neighbours have weighed in on the side of the opposition also goes against the theory that this is some sort of CIA coup. The only countries in the region who are backing Maduro or communist Cuba and Bolivia and Mexico who both have populist left-wing leaders.

The best outcome for the people of Venezuela is that the army choose to back the opposition and free and air elections can be held so that someone competent can come in and clean up the mess that has been made of the country (be they left or right leaning so long as they understand the basics of economics).

Thanks for that post - good to get insight on the actual topic at hand as opposed to inane ideological point scoring

Brian? wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is. Socialist governments have been in power in most European countries without running them into the ground.
.

The only socialist governments were in the old Eastern bloc and yes they all ran their countries into the ground.