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Chuck Boone posted:Hi! The Secretary General of the OAS, Luis Almagro, called for a meeting of the organization's Permanent Council last week to discuss invoking the Inter-American Democratic Charter against Venezuela. This would have essentially resulted in the OAS saying, "Venezuela's broken the rules of democracy", and it could have resulted in some diplomatic pressure or possibly Venezuela's suspension from the OAS. Instead, due to some last-minute political shenanigans, the OAS ended releasing a statement that essentially said "We are aware of Venezuela and we think dialogue is a good idea". Almagro is apparently going to keep up the pressure to get the OAS to actually take some concrete action, so we'll have to see how that goes. Even a few years back there were a lot of expat Venezuelans when I was working in Panama and Mexico. There were a bunch of huge new housing developments being built in Panama City everyone claimed were being built due to a big wave of Venezuelan expats.
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Jun 5, 2016 16:19
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La Patilla published a really great article yesterday that shows how much the government's "economic war" theory is absolute nonsense. The article is here. The article describes how Polar Enterprises' three corn flour factories produced 615,000 tonnes of the stuff 2015. This represents approximately 50% of Venezuela's corn flour production capacity: that is, how much corn flour the country could produce in a given year if all of its corn flour factories were working at 100% capacity. The article then examines official government figures and points out that twelve out of the eighteen government-owned corn flour factories in the country produced 24,164 tonnes of corn flour last year. In other words, twelve government factories produced 4% of what three Polar factories produced in 2015 (the government did not publish info on the other six). This is why people freak out whenever rumours start that the government is going to take over Polar. The government's own figures show that it would, without a doubt, run Polar right into the ground. Warbadger posted:Even a few years back there were a lot of expat Venezuelans when I was working in Panama and Mexico. There were a bunch of huge new housing developments being built in Panama City everyone claimed were being built due to a big wave of Venezuelan expats. Yeah, I've heard that Panama City has lots of Venezuelans. I guess more and more people who were playing the "We'll leave when it gets reallybad" game are already at the "It's really bad" stage.
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Jun 5, 2016 16:30
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The government are running ads that "explain" their so called economic war and one of the examples they give is: a shampoo company who gets the materials to produce shampoo but instead of making shampoo in small and medium bottles the people can buy they only produce big bottles that only rich people can buy and therefore accomplish both of their objectives which are loving the Venezuelan people and earning big bucks. That theory would be fine and all except for the fact you can't even find the big bottles of shampoo they say these companies are making, I loving wish we could because I've been washing my hair with soap for months now.
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Jun 5, 2016 17:37
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El Hefe posted:The government are running ads that "explain" their so called economic war and one of the examples they give is: a shampoo company who gets the materials to produce shampoo but instead of making shampoo in small and medium bottles the people can buy they only produce big bottles that only rich people can buy and therefore accomplish both of their objectives which are loving the Venezuelan people and earning big bucks. * finishes typing up long, rambling explanation involving shampoo* "Excellent, at last the truth is laid bare. The opposition shall be held accountable. I'm not crazy, I'm uh.. not." *Leans back in chair, watches as a flock of birds go by* "It's Chavez! But so many! Which could be the real one? Is this another opposition trick?" *begins to type up another memo instructing the collectivos to start killing the false Chavez birds* "Lopez must be behind this..."
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Jun 5, 2016 17:59
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El Hefe posted:The government are running ads that "explain" their so called economic war and one of the examples they give is: a shampoo company who gets the materials to produce shampoo but instead of making shampoo in small and medium bottles the people can buy they only produce big bottles that only rich people can buy and therefore accomplish both of their objectives which are loving the Venezuelan people and earning big bucks. I happened to have all three bottles in my shower right now, two of them empty with the smallest one half empty. I hoarded them the second that poo poo started disappearing (Mostly buying from resellers though) and then rationed the gently caress out of them, that's why I still have some. Admittedly, the large one I got from a friend who works at P&G because they're sold in minute quantities, with the overwhelming amount of bottles available being the smallest ones.  First of all, they're ALL manufactured in Brazil, that's part of the reason why they can't be found anymore since importing them to sell them at a loss makes no sense. Second of all, the 200ml bottle costs 20bs and the 700ml one costs 65bs, if they were available at all, no one in their right mind would buy the small bottles since the large ones are still being sold for pennies. This is the price that the government sets though, if these products were sold for like, 1000bs for the small bottle and 2500bs for the large one they wouldn't be sold at a loss and thus P&G could keep up with the demand.
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Jun 5, 2016 18:36
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Btw people were asking how they could help and I found these people and they seem pretty legit since some Venezuelan artists like Erika de la Vega are with them: http://www.comparteporunavida.com/ https://www.instagram.com/comparteporunavida/ https://www.gofundme.com/compartevenezuela They need mostly baby formula to feed kids in hospitals, they have collection spots all over the world, Mexico City, Panama, Miami, New York, etc, or you could just give them some money through gofundme.
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Jun 5, 2016 19:11
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Earlier this morning, people started lining up outside the Unicasa supermarket on the Bolivar avenue in (Porlamar?), Margarita island. As usual, the line was unbearably long and included hundreds of individuals: https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/status/739480332785745920 At some point, the crowd got impatient and started to chant that they wanted food. That's when the National Guard started firing rubber bullets and tear gas into the crowd to disperse it. You can see that in the video below, along with my translation: https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/status/739479596068790273 quote:Woman Recording: Those are rubber bullets for sure. Run! Those are the people who voted for Chavez and Maduro, those motherfuckers! They need to get beaten! Run, run drat you! Everyone's going to get beaten now. Let's see how they do now.
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Jun 5, 2016 20:51
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I'm kind of confused. I mean, don't the larger sizes of goods have a lower cost per ounce of product? So wouldn't the large size be what poor people would want? I mean, I know it's the government line and all, but it just seems so wrong right on the face that I can't see how they actually believe that poo poo.
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Jun 5, 2016 20:56
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I'm kind of confused. I mean, don't the larger sizes of goods have a lower cost per ounce of product? So wouldn't the large size be what poor people would want? It's all bullshit, like I said I would be happy if I could find a large or any size bottle of shampoo really.
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Jun 5, 2016 21:25
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I bet the people who ran away felt real silly when the bravest survivors got their daily ration. 
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Jun 5, 2016 21:33
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I'm kind of confused. I mean, don't the larger sizes of goods have a lower cost per ounce of product? So wouldn't the large size be what poor people would want? Yes. I mean it's sort of established that the less money you have the more quantity you want off a product, at the expense of quality, it's the logic behind like supermarket sodas and poo poo. Chuck Boone posted:Woman Recording: Those are rubber bullets for sure. Run! Those are the people who voted for Chavez and Maduro, those motherfuckers! They need to get beaten! Run, run drat you! Everyone's going to get beaten now. Let's see how they do now. I kind of hate that attitude because it's precisely what you don't want right now, and it's the sort of attitude you see people from East Caracas have. You can't really guilt people into voting against Maduro, you got to show them there's a better way.
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Jun 5, 2016 21:42
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Yeah they should definitely be filming some rational campaign commercials against the dudes firing on them at that second for the crime of asking to buy food. Maybe the ones who imprison dissidents and torture them should be mailed a pamphlet, too.
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Jun 5, 2016 21:49
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Chuck Boone posted:La Patilla published a really great article yesterday that shows how much the government's "economic war" theory is absolute nonsense. The article is here. Venalcasa. The government company is literally called "venal casa", and "venal" appears to have more or less the same meaning in Spanish as it does in English. "Bribery house" / "Corruption house". At least they're upfront about how evil they are, otherwise they would have called it "Venelcasa".
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Jun 5, 2016 22:04
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El Hefe posted:It's all bullshit, like I said I would be happy if I could find a large or any size bottle of shampoo really.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:10
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Wikkheiser posted:How long would it take and how reliable would it be to mail shampoo from the United States? Depends which shipping method you use, USPS its gonna take like 2 months but DHL its gonna take 2 days.
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Jun 5, 2016 22:15
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Wikkheiser posted:How long would it take and how reliable would it be to mail shampoo from the United States? I haven't been able to get some corn flour, sugar and medicines to my grandparents in Margarita because the motherfucking National Guard at customs keep opening the box and taking my poo poo.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:20
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fnox posted:I haven't been able to get some corn flour, sugar and medicines to my grandparents in Margarita because the motherfucking National Guard at customs keep opening the box and taking my poo poo. Man, in a reasonable developing country you'd just package some alcohol and cigarettes too and they'd just take those as the traditional and expected tax.
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Jun 5, 2016 23:46
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Man, in a reasonable developing country you'd just package some alcohol and cigarettes too and they'd just take those as the traditional and expected tax. Yeah, but of loving food and medicines? No amount of heart medicine will fix the stone cold heart you need to have to steal from an old man. They can't even sell that poo poo.
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Jun 6, 2016 00:30
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Now that the scarcity has inflated the black market rates to obscene levels I'm sure every person holding even the meanest bit of authority is trying to get in on that action. First and foremost customs officials, security services, the military, border patrol, etc. all the way on up to the highest officeholders.
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Jun 6, 2016 00:34
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Play posted:Now that the scarcity has inflated the black market rates to obscene levels I'm sure every person holding even the meanest bit of authority is trying to get in on that action. First and foremost customs officials, security services, the military, border patrol, etc. all the way on up to the highest officeholders. No one in the chain is spared from temptation: the poorest at the bottom want to eat and earn money, and the richest at the top want to get richer. Given the country's almost comical rate of impunity, it's no wonder the problem of corruption is so deep-rooted. Saladman posted:Venalcasa. The government company is literally called "venal casa", and "venal" appears to have more or less the same meaning in Spanish as it does in English. "Bribery house" / "Corruption house". At least they're upfront about how evil they are, otherwise they would have called it "Venelcasa". Haha! This is a great catch. I never would have thought of that. Yes, "venal" means the same thing in Spanish. What an unfortunate (and probably apt!) name. I'm not sure how common this is in the rest of the Spanish-speaking world, but in Venezuela there are tons of acronyms that are used heavily in every day conversation. FEDECAMARAS (Federación de Cámaras y Asociaciones de Comercio y Producción de Venezuela), CONSECOMERCIO (Consejo Nacional del Comercio y los Servicios), CORPOELEC (Corporacion Electrica something or other), and the list goes on and on. I see that VENALCASA means "Venezolana de Alimentos La Casa" (Venezuela Food [Company] La Casa", but I think they could definitely have picked a better short version of the name! fnox posted:I kind of hate that attitude because it's precisely what you don't want right now, and it's the sort of attitude you see people from East Caracas have. You can't really guilt people into voting against Maduro, you got to show them there's a better way. I do too. It's unfortunate. This lady's mindset is exactly the type that is going to make moving forward from this mess and reconciling a lot more difficult. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 01:04
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Venezuelans have a thing for phonetic acronyms, resulting in awful sounding poo poo like Venalca or Minfra or Fonacit. There's a syndicate called Sinatra in the UCV.
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Jun 6, 2016 01:16
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Is Spain a prominent destination for language reasons alone or is there more to it? If I had to guess it started that way so now it's more common because there's a sizable expat community there? How common is fluency in English (or close enough to fluent)?
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Jun 6, 2016 01:18
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fnox posted:Yeah, but of loving food and medicines? No amount of heart medicine will fix the stone cold heart you need to have to steal from an old man. I am trying to laugh because this is one of the more stomach-churning anecdotes in a stomach-churning thread. 
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Jun 6, 2016 01:38
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:Is Spain a prominent destination for language reasons alone or is there more to it? If I had to guess it started that way so now it's more common because there's a sizable expat community there? How common is fluency in English (or close enough to fluent)? People are absolutely awful with other languages here, including English, even in university you find people who have trouble with poo poo like "my name is...". Still I'd say Miami is a more popular destination than Spain.
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Jun 6, 2016 02:13
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There are a lot of Venezuelans here lately which means things have to be pretty bad there.
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Jun 6, 2016 03:07
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Chuck Boone posted:Yes! This is one of the many, many reasons why the CLAP system (where community groups/the military deliver bags food door-to-door) is doomed to fail. The government is handing over distribution of really scarce, really expensive (in the black market) goods to ordinary people (who like to eat food and have money) and trusting them to not siphon anything off. I'm not sure they could've thought up a worse initiative if they tried. It's kind of bizarre actually. The idea is absolute poo poo from any angle. Even taken at face value the idea of delivering necessary goods to every single household in the country is absurd. It would take an incredible mobilization of manpower and resources. Neither of which are in significant supply. The only approach that makes any sense whatsoever is as a kind of trickle-down kickback to the lower-tier supporters. But there is absolutely no way that benefit makes up for the loss of credibility, support, and tolerance nationally and internationally that it is causing / will cause. Not to mention the loss of material, further breakdown in social order, and a hardening of the black market channels and patronage systems. So many of the PSUV's choices and supposed 'solutions' are exactly this way. Completely divorced from reality, and even when approached from the most cynical of angles, clearly destined to make things worse. In fact I have trouble thinking of a single intelligent solution this regime has ever proposed and executed successfully. The only things that come close were some of the medical and social programs for the poor in the very early years, but even those were plagued with incompetence and mismanagement and bad ideas. They were only carried off because of the strength of the petrodollar support. And, to be honest back in those days Chavez did enjoy a lot of support and devotion. He inspired people, for better or for worse. And as ridiculous as Chavez was with his 'solutions', Maduro seems even worse in this way. The regime not only doesn't accomplish what it is pretending to try to accomplish, it doesn't accomplish anything that it could concievably be trying to accomplish. Sometimes I really don't get it. Are they actually that dumb? And the regime doesn't have a monopoly on this, the opposition confuses me so hard so often. Both of them have this tendency to do the exact opposite of what seems logical. Am I the only one who notices this constantly? Play fucked around with this message at 04:33 on Jun 6, 2016 |
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Jun 6, 2016 04:30
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You're viewing it for the wrong angle. The only people who will get food are those who are actually PSUV supporters. Anyone else will have their stuff "delayed", or "lost", or "stolen". The message will be quite simple: obey the government or you don't get to eat.
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Jun 6, 2016 05:07
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fnox posted:Venezuelans have a thing for phonetic acronyms, resulting in awful sounding poo poo like Venalca or Minfra or Fonacit. There's a syndicate called Sinatra in the UCV.
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Jun 6, 2016 05:13
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-Troika- posted:The message will be quite simple: obey the government or you don't get to eat. Finally, Socialism In One Country is achieved!
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Jun 6, 2016 05:17
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:Is Spain a prominent destination for language reasons alone or is there more to it? If I had to guess it started that way so now it's more common because there's a sizable expat community there? How common is fluency in English (or close enough to fluent)? Well, Spain has several advantages over other destinations: - The language is a huge part of it of course. Not everyone speaks a fluent English. - A LOT of Venezuelans have double nationality since Venezuela has been a country for immigrants for years. The most unexpected people turn out to be Italian or Polish or whatever. I have a friend that's Croatian (and he speaks 0 Croatian and doesn't really care about Croatia). Having an European nationality makes it easy to come to Spain and legal for you to find work. - There are so many Venezuelans here that you can find several communities around them. Venezuelan restaurants, Venezuelan goods, Venezuelan end-of-the-year parties. - Chances are you have a Venezuelan friend living in Spain. - Spain is a lot more lenient, immigration-wise, than the US (for instance) El Hefe posted:People are absolutely awful with other languages here, including English, even in university you find people who have trouble with poo poo like "my name is...". I don't know man, you haven't seen awful with languages until you've been in Spain. By contrast Venezuelans are natural polyglots. We have a real heavy american influence in our culture. While most Venezuelans won't be able to speak English fluently, lots have at least a passing understanding that can develop into a decent grasp of the language if forced to live there. Obviously Miami is a linguistic free-for-all so you can just move there and learn English little by little.
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Jun 6, 2016 07:43
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Unsurprisingly, there are a ton of Venezuelan expats in Houston now. When my family moved there in 2001 (from Miami), there were maybe a couple of thousand expats, but it's easily in five figures now and it's become a big transit point for immigrants, particularly for those with oil industry experience. Polar set up a factory outside of Dallas, so you can easily find harina Pan and Maltin in most supermarkets. Meanwhile, I'm probably the only Venezuelan living in the Democratic Republic of Congo 
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Jun 6, 2016 08:17
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What is it like for Venezuelans who have recently fled the country to see big box stores that are fully stocked like walmart or costco?
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Jun 6, 2016 08:45
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Got up at 4am today to go to my passport appointment (which took me over a month to get), got there at 6am and there were already 200 people ahead of me, 10 minutes before 7am someone comes out and tells us that at 7am there will be a blackout until 11am so they can't do any work. gently caress my life.
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Jun 6, 2016 13:30
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Reminder that government offices only work Monday and Tuesday...
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Jun 6, 2016 13:32
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Gotta camp out next time. Or try to buy a fake one, Venezuelan passports can't be that secure. I bet even legit ones look like fakes these days.
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Jun 6, 2016 13:38
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Man that sucks. And yeah, camping out overnight is a thing people do even in less hosed up countries, bureaucracy being what it is everywhere. BTW, unless there's dual citizenship involved, how does a Venezuelan just go to the US or EU? As I understood they won't be considered refugees right now, so is it just on a visitor visa or something? Pharohman777 posted:What is it like for Venezuelans who have recently fled the country to see big box stores that are fully stocked like walmart or costco? It's not that long since stuff was easily available in stores, is it? Anyway, for an approximation you can look up the Soviet immigrants' reactions. Yeltsin had a particularly famous case: http://blog.chron.com/thetexican/2014/04/when-boris-yeltsin-went-grocery-shopping-in-clear-lake/
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Jun 6, 2016 13:47
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El Hefe posted:Got up at 4am today to go to my passport appointment (which took me over a month to get), got there at 6am and there were already 200 people ahead of me, 10 minutes before 7am someone comes out and tells us that at 7am there will be a blackout until 11am so they can't do any work. So what happens now? Do you have to get a new appointment or does the queue just build up forever, in which case I'm surprised you're only 200th in line. At least you didn't camp out in front.
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Jun 6, 2016 14:03
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I'm just going to go there again at 11 to see if they want to workPharohman777 posted:What is it like for Venezuelans who have recently fled the country to see big box stores that are fully stocked like walmart or costco? Dude the first time I went to the US was in 2001 and I was shocked when I entered a supermarket, literally the biggest culture shock was seeing the variety of products available and back then we didn't have the shortages and scarcity we have now, I can only imagine what it'd be like for someone going for the first time this year.
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Jun 6, 2016 14:16
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Pharohman777 posted:What is it like for Venezuelans who have recently fled the country to see big box stores that are fully stocked like walmart or costco? It's always a shock, seeing plenty of everything, even products you thought only existed in Venezuela like Harina PAN and Maltin. It was particularly shocking in the days of Cadivi, finding out that all the super expensive poo poo was available there at the preferential exchange rate. I bought a $1000 laptop then that I'm still using, and it was 90% cheaper than the price in Venezuela. Of course, Cadivi is partially responsible for the situation we're in today, so in part by doing that I contributed to the collapse of the economy.
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Jun 6, 2016 14:25
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Play posted:And as ridiculous as Chavez was with his 'solutions', Maduro seems even worse in this way. The regime not only doesn't accomplish what it is pretending to try to accomplish, it doesn't accomplish anything that it could concievably be trying to accomplish. Sometimes I really don't get it. Are they actually that dumb? I think you're spot on with this. I get the feeling that Maduro et al. purposely pick policies based on how likely they are to make things worse. I doubt this is the case, but that's how asinine some of these policies are. I'm reminded of how early this year, Maduro appointed a Minister of the Economy who had a degree in sociology and didn't believe in inflation (he didn't last too long at the post, but still). Maduro also created a new ministry (I think it's called the Ministry of Urban Agriculture), and its whole purpose is to figure out how to grow food in cities so that they can become self-sufficient. The minister went around Caracas looking at little plots of green space, tallying them up to figure out how many potatoes or whatever people could grow here and there, and she suggested that people start raising chickens. I think that what's probably happening is that in the absence of any kind of idea about what would actually work and what would actually help, the PSUV is just picking policy based on what sounds like something a socialist government might do. Getting people to connect back to their agrarian roots by growing food and raising chickens (on their balconies?), giving the people sovereignty over their own food distribution, etc. All of this stuff sounds nice, but there's a billion reasons why it can't work the way they intend it to work. As for the opposition, I get the same feeling too. Whenever Capriles takes a jab at some other opposition politician, I think to myself, 'You idiot! Can't you put your ego aside for 1 second and focus on the real opponent here?". Also, I'm really disappointed with how they're conducting the protest campaign. I'm starting to think that they're purposely acting detached and 110% peaceful and non-threatening with their demonstrations knowing full well that people are angry and desperate and that something's going to give soon. That way, when the heat start to turn up in the streets they can wash their hands of it and say they never called for that kind of thing. Pharohman777 posted:What is it like for Venezuelans who have recently fled the country to see big box stores that are fully stocked like walmart or costco? Whenever my family visits us, it's always a trip taking them to the supermarket. The one who's affected by the shock the most is my grandmother, since she hasn't left Venezuela many times. The last time she was here was about 3 years ago, and I still remember the look of amazement on her face walking down the produce aisle at our local supermarket. She was shocked not just by the quantity of things ("They have everything here!" she'd say), but also by the variety of products (different kinds of milk and eggs) and the size of the produce. When I think about how difficult it is to live in Venezuela, the thing that upsets me the most is thinking about my grandmother. She's about 80, and she's the frailest, kindest little old lady you'll ever meet. She told my mom the other day that last week, her friend was lined up to go into some supermarket, and she had saved her a spot. My grandmother showed up late, and as she was walking down the line to meet her friend, people started yelling at her and insulting her. She was really shaken up. I think about her any time I take a relaxing stroll down to the corner store and buy as much milk, eggs, etc. as I can carry without a single hassle.
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Jun 6, 2016 15:08
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