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Demiurge4 posted:It's kind of politics 101. If you know that poo poo is about to hit the fan, if you are absolutely certain that it loving will, you don't want to be the one in charge when it does. It's lovely but they probably believe they have a better shot picking up the pieces than they have taking over the house of cards the day before it tumbles and have the PSUV pin it all on them. This level of disaster, though? ...I guess it's plausible, but dang.
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Jun 10, 2016 07:02
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Old James posted:Please humor my fake numbers in the scenario below.... Venezuela used to be quite self sufficient but Chavez killed all production with his stupid projects and now importing goods has become a business for the PSUV so they no incentives to promote local production and that's why we are in our current predicament.
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Jun 10, 2016 12:01
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Old James posted:Please humor my fake numbers in the scenario below.... I'd never thought about it like that before, that makes a lot of sense. But if this is the primary driver of inflation, doesn't that mean that inflation should be stabilizing pretty much by now, given that oil prices are stable / mildly increasing and oil exports are more or less constant? I've seen projections for like 720% inflation projected for 2016, but that doesn't seem to match your described scenario unless it's so time-delayed that the effects take 2+ years to play out (certainly possible, I'm not an economist).
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Jun 10, 2016 12:11
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Saladman posted:I'd never thought about it like that before, that makes a lot of sense. But if this is the primary driver of inflation, doesn't that mean that inflation should be stabilizing pretty much by now, given that oil prices are stable / mildly increasing and oil exports are more or less constant? I've seen projections for like 720% inflation projected for 2016, but that doesn't seem to match your described scenario unless it's so time-delayed that the effects take 2+ years to play out (certainly possible, I'm not an economist). I'm not an economist, but something tells me with food being among these scarce imports, and it being among the most inelastic goods in existence, and constantly rising black market prices might be causing pressure outside the egobound world the PSUV inhabits.
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Jun 10, 2016 12:43
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There was a ton of unrest yesterday in Petare, which is a barrio in the eastern part of the Caracas. It started in the early afternoon with the looting of a meat truck in the area: https://twitter.com/Imag3n/status/740970386955898884 That seemed to trigger a bit of a looting spree, but I think businesses were quick enough going into lockdown that I don't think any were looted: https://twitter.com/Imag3n/status/740969561877536768 The unrest lasted all through the afternoon and into the evening. By around 7:00 PM, there were violent confrontations between Petare residents and authorities. In this video, you can see National Guard soldiers on the receiving end of a molotov cocktail: https://twitter.com/RCamachoVzla/status/741046621270646784 By about 9:00 PM, the situation appeared to be under the control of the authorities, who showed up in force:   There's a lot of anxiety whenever there is news that there's unrest in a barrio because there's widespread belief that any successful revolt against the government needs the involvement of the poorer sections of Caracas. There's always a bit of a media frenzy whenever there's a protest in Petare or 23 de Enero because people start to wonder, "Is this it? Is it happening now?!". There's a really interesting expression that you hear whenever there's talk of unrest in a barrio: "Los cerros estan bajando" [literally, "the hills are coming down"]. The expression comes from the fact that the poorer areas of Caracas tend to be located on one of the city's surrounding mountains. Saladman posted:I'd never thought about it like that before, that makes a lot of sense. But if this is the primary driver of inflation, doesn't that mean that inflation should be stabilizing pretty much by now, given that oil prices are stable / mildly increasing and oil exports are more or less constant? I've seen projections for like 720% inflation projected for 2016, but that doesn't seem to match your described scenario unless it's so time-delayed that the effects take 2+ years to play out (certainly possible, I'm not an economist). Inflation is also being caused by the fact that the PSUV is printing money at an increasing rate. There's a flood of money hitting the streets with no corresponding value. I think a good example of what this means is a story from back in April that said that Venezuela was printing so much money that it couldn't afford to pay for it. This link contains a chart that shows the number of bills in circulation. In 2012, there are about 1.25 million bills in circulation; in 2014, just over 1.5 million. That number has increased exponentially since then, and there were 4.75 million bills in circulation in 2015. There has been no value produced in that period of time to "attach" to these new bills, which is helping to drive up inflation.
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Jun 10, 2016 13:38
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Thank you for the replies earlier re: Mendoza. Another question that I've been wondering about. What does the average Venezuelans diet look like these days? Are there fresh fruits and vegetables? Did you run out of beer yet?
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Jun 10, 2016 13:44
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1kg of meat is about Bs. 5000, two dozen eggs is about Bs. 3000, 1 liter of milk is about Bs. 1500 and the average Venezuelan earns about Bs. 15000 a month, you can imagine what their diet looks like.
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Jun 10, 2016 13:55
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BeigeJacket posted:Thank you for the replies earlier re: Mendoza. There's a meme going around about Mangoes. Mangoes all day every day, which is not too far from the truth since they grow naturally everywhere around Venezuela. My friends who just arrived recently told us a bit about it. It's as bad as you'd expect, families are eating one actual meal a day, then maybe leftovers. The quantities are also pitiful since if you eat 2 cups of rice today, you might not be able to find rice for the rest of the week. So you eat 1/4 then save the rest. When we were trying to send stuff for my mom I remember asking her "do you want money? I can send money". Her reply was "no, I have money, but there's nothing to buy. Send food please!"
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Jun 10, 2016 13:58
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I mean there's still food but its just that most people can't afford it, I went to an upscale supermarket yesterday and every shelf was full with all sorts of things but they were all prohibitively expensive.
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Jun 10, 2016 14:07
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BeigeJacket posted:Thank you for the replies earlier re: Mendoza. It's prohibitively expensive to eat 3 times a day, I'm relatively well off and I don't eat 3 times a day. Most folk legitimately eat mangos during the day to cope a bit with the hunger, often just having whatever for breakfast, then lunch, then nothing else until tomorrow. Lunch is usually whatever you can find, be it pasta, chicken, rice. For breakfast, I eat cereal without milk since it's rather cheap and still plentifully available because it's not regulated, but I eat arepas whenever there's corn flour, which is like once a month.
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Jun 10, 2016 14:50
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Welp, apparently my signature is invalid, as well as Capriles' own. Those motherfuckers.
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Jun 10, 2016 18:03
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I feel like on the Venezuelan social media accounts I follow I've seen a huge uptick in food looting over the past ~48 hours. Is that just me or does it reflect reality on the ground?
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Jun 10, 2016 18:26
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MothraAttack posted:I feel like on the Venezuelan social media accounts I follow I've seen a huge uptick in food looting over the past ~48 hours. Is that just me or does it reflect reality on the ground? There were 81 looting attempts/looting events in all of May, up from 41 in April. May saw the most looting since the start of the year, and this month seems to be on track for setting a new record. I suspect that part of the reason why we are seeing more reports of looting is not only because there may indeed be more looting events taking place, but also because they're taking place is more highly populated areas. Caracas had at least two looting events yesterday and one so far today. It's only been relatively recently that looting has become commonplace in Caracas. Labradoodle posted:Welp, apparently my signature is invalid, as well as Capriles' own. Those motherfuckers. Did you accidently sign your name as "Lebreduudla"? You know those calligraphy experts the CNE hired to verify the signatures take their job very seriously.
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Jun 10, 2016 18:33
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Labradoodle posted:Welp, apparently my signature is invalid, as well as Capriles' own. Those motherfuckers. Well, I'm just listening to Tibisay saying that the process was 'impeccable', so clearly you must have screwed up somehow. You know, along with 600 thousand other people.
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Jun 10, 2016 19:10
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Labradoodle posted:Welp, apparently my signature is invalid, as well as Capriles' own. Those motherfuckers. Shoulda checked to make sure the form you signed said "Distrito Capital" instead of "Distrito Federal". So really, if you think about it, it's your own fault!
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Jun 10, 2016 19:20
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A driver was killed in the La Vega areas of Caracas earlier today when a mob tried to stop his truck to loot it and he resisted. A National Bolivarian Police officer was shot in the neck or head area, but he's in stable condition and expected to recover. A National Guard soldier was also shot in the leg, but I don't know what his condition is. This video was taken in La Vega earlier today. It shows National Bolivarian Police officers engaged in La Vega. Judging from the sound of what appears to be gunfire and by how the officers are in cover/ducking to cover, it looks like they were taking fire: https://twitter.com/RCamachoVzla/status/741330966434742272 There's also a video showing the National Bolivarian Police officer during the moments after he was hit in the neck/face. It's recorded from really far away, but you can still see blood, so  :Here is the video.I'm also reading about a EDIT: The situation in El Valle is completely peaceful at this moment. There is a a group of about 60-80 people blocking traffic in front of a supermarket, but I don't believe there have been violent confrontations with the authorities there. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 20:08
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Apparently 20000 signatures were invalidated because Nicolás Maduro were spelled without the tilde. That's how loving stupid the CNE is being. Also, there are only 3000 signatures in Delta Amacuro and Amazonas, if they dip under 1000 the entire process is invalidated, so that's of course where they'll target their campaigns to get people to retract their signatures. fnox fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 20:10
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If even Capriles's own signature was invalidated that should tell you who you're dealing with, they are going to do everything in their power, legal or not, to make sure there's no referendum.
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Jun 10, 2016 20:25
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El Hefe posted:If even Capriles's own signature was invalidated that should tell you who you're dealing with, they are going to do everything in their power, legal or not, to make sure there's no referendum. Leopoldo Lopez's signature and that of some MUD deputies was also invalidated. Capriles said that what probably happened is that their signatures got thrown out with entire forms. Each form contains ten signatures. Like fnox said, if a form names "Nicolas Maduro" instead of "Nicolás Maduro" as the target of the recall, then that whole form and its ten signatures are thrown in the garbage. There's also a June 13-17 window for you to log on to the CNE website and download a form saying that you changed your mind and you actually don't want to recall Maduro anymore, which will probably get the numbers down as well. Tibisay Lucena is one of the top people on my "People I want to see imprisoned for crimes against humanity" list. EDIT: I think someone mentioned this earlier, but it's worth repeating. When the MUD started the signature drive in favour of the recall, it set up 1,523 booths around the country for people to drop in and sign the petition. Chances are that if you lived even in a small town, there was a signing booth either in your town or at least nearby. For this next step, the CNE is setting up the verification booths only in state capitals. That means that the 1.3 million people whose signatures were validated must go to one of 24 stations to verify their signatures. As I imagine is the case in many countries, state capitals are not necessarily the biggest, most central cities in a state. For example, the capital of Bolivar state is Ciudad Bolivar. If you happen to live in the town of Las Claritas, that means you have to travel 470 kilometers to the capital to verify your signature. All of this has to happen within four days, between 8:00 AM and 12:00 PM, and 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 23:11 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 10, 2016 20:35
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The revocatorio was a trap and the MUD willingly walked into it. They should have never agreed to this dumb poo poo.
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Jun 11, 2016 02:32
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fnox posted:The revocatorio was a trap and the MUD willingly walked into it. They should have never agreed to this dumb poo poo. What other option was there to dislodge the PSUV before 2019 that wouldn't have been overridden by the PSUV and the TSJ anyway? It's nice to talk about how this is a trap for MUD, but I am increasingly convinced that there's no way short of a violent revolution or coup that will get rid of the PSUV before the 2019 elections. And that's just going to make the PSUV look good too ("we were robbed of power through undemocratic means  ")
ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 02:46 on Jun 11, 2016 |
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Jun 11, 2016 02:43
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ComradeCosmobot posted:What other option was there that wouldn't be overridden by the PSUV and the TSJ anyway? Order the CIA to infect every PSUV member with cancer, for one.
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Jun 11, 2016 02:44
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ComradeCosmobot posted:What other option was there that wouldn't be overridden by the PSUV and the TSJ anyway? Demand the actual recall referendum procedure to start as it is in the constitution without this 1% poo poo Tibisay Lucena pulled out of her rotten rear end. Or, go through with the constitutional amendment while pressuring the TSJ into letting it go through, not with some dumb poo poo march in East Caracas, but an actually, honest, attempt to protest at their doors, stopping for nobody.
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Jun 11, 2016 02:49
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fnox posted:Demand the actual recall referendum procedure to start as it is in the constitution without this 1% poo poo Tibisay Lucena pulled out of her rotten rear end. Or, go through with the constitutional amendment while pressuring the TSJ into letting it go through, not with some dumb poo poo march in East Caracas, but an actually, honest, attempt to protest at their doors, stopping for nobody. I agree that it doesn't help that MUD is showing its incompetent colors again, but I'm skeptical that being more competent would help when they have zero leverage to begin with. They'd still have to hope that marching was good enough.
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Jun 11, 2016 02:58
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I agree that it doesn't help that MUD is showing its incompetent colors again, but I'm skeptical that being more competent would help when they have zero leverage to begin with. If they applied pressure the moment the National Assembly was elected, this situation would have never loving happened. The very second the Amazonas deputies were removed they should have began pressuring the TSJ, because I can guarantee to you they had all the momentum necessary to oust Maduro then. I mean, gently caress, does the opposition of today seem in any way similar to the opposition that won the National Assembly by a landslide in December?
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Jun 11, 2016 03:43
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ComradeCosmobot posted:What other option was there to dislodge the PSUV before 2019 that wouldn't have been overridden by the PSUV and the TSJ anyway? Kill All Communists (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 11, 2016 05:52
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The good news is that as Venezualans, you're part of the glorious anti-imperialist coalition: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3779610
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Jun 11, 2016 05:54
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The stalling has begun, there is a nationwide transportation strike this Monday, coinciding of course with the first day of the signature validation schedule.
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Jun 11, 2016 23:27
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striking for what reasons?
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Jun 11, 2016 23:34
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(post retracted)
Horns of Hattin fucked around with this message at 00:03 on Jun 12, 2016 |
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Jun 12, 2016 00:00
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Kurtofan posted:striking for what reasons? What reason do they have not to strike, really? There's no food, no spare parts, no police.
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Jun 12, 2016 00:24
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El Nacional says its only in Tachira, where did you hear it was nationwide?
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Jun 12, 2016 00:28
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El Hefe posted:El Nacional says its only in Tachira, where did you hear it was nationwide? They mentioned 18 other "entities" joining in, which I assumed to be unions in other states. I guess we'll see on Monday.
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Jun 12, 2016 00:32
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Doesn't the signature verification process run June 20-24? That would make it next Monday, no? In other news, there was a big event in a Caracas stadium today in honour of Maduro's rule. He announced that his government was launching a lawsuit against the opposition with the goal of cancelling the whole referendum process because apparently those ~610,000 signatures the CNE threw out were all falsified. Maduro said: quote:It's really serious that these right wing politicians presented this rotten package with 600,000 garbage signatures again. This results in legal, penal, and administrative responsibilities. quote:On Monday, we're going to the [Supreme Court] to sue the whole [signature collection process]. If 31% of signatures are defective, how can we authorize this [recall] for a political party? All those punks had to do was collect 1% of signatures.
It'll be interesting to see what the Supreme Court says. I doubt they'll throw the whole process out. I suppose the court might rule something absurd like, "You have to start again from the beginning and collect the signatures again without committing fraud". I don't want to believe this is possible, but this is Venezuela. During the same event, Maduro went into an insane tirade against the head of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, over his continued efforts to denounce Venezuela at the OAS. Maduro said: quote:If they want, they can bring Almagro dressed like Rambo and Superman, wearing his underwear on top [of his pants, like Superman]. I'm waiting for you here, Almagro! You're ridiculous! Imagine Almagro all fat, dressed like Rambo, wearing his underwear on top. Nude Bog Lurker posted:The good news is that as Venezualans, you're part of the glorious anti-imperialist coalition: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3779610 What a nice consolation price! Plus, whenever Venezuela finally collapses, we can look over the twisted mass of smoldering flesh and rubble and say, "Well, Venezuela was never truly an anti-imperialist country...".
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Jun 12, 2016 01:03
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eigenstate posted:(post retracted) 
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Jun 12, 2016 06:45
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Sorry folks, you're stuck with PSUV rule until 2019.
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Jun 12, 2016 08:03
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fnox posted:What reason do they have not to strike, really? There's no food, no spare parts, no police. I misunderstood your post then, I though you said it was to disrupt the signature validation.
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Jun 12, 2016 08:06
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How hosed up is it that they are blocking your signatures to recall a guy who can't even loving spell his own drat name? This is literally Maduro's signature from his Wikipedia page.
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Jun 12, 2016 08:48
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New law: all decrees from El dictador have to be written by him without spelling or grammar errors.
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Jun 12, 2016 08:49
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There was a protest over food in a city called Cariaco, Sucre yesterday, and there's a video showing National Guard and National Bolivarian Police officers firing point-blank into a crowd of unarmed demonstrators. The video is here. In the video, you can clearly see that many of the officers are carrying pistols and assault rifles. It's not clear if the officers fired their weapons or less-than-lethal weapons like rubber bullets, but El Nacional reports that at least one person died as a result of the shooting. The person who died was 21 year old, and his name was Luis Josmel Fuentes. El Nacional posted this image along with their story on Fuentes' death, which seems to suggest that the authorities did in fact discharge their pistols and/or assault rifles at the crowd of demonstrators:  Yeah, pretty much the whole top echelon of the PSUV has been going on non-stop about how there's a 0% chance that the referendum will happen this year. Maduro, VP Aristobulo Isturiz, the mayor of the Libertador municipality Jorge Rodriguez and his sister Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez, Diosdado Cabello... everyone. If it's any consolation, these are the same people who said that there was a 0% chance that the National Assembly would go to the opposition in the December elections. What will never cease to amaze me is how there's no pretense at all that there's a separation of powers in Venezuela anymore. The Consejo Nacional Electoral is supposed to be an independent body, yet we're getting daily statements from the PSUV leadership on when the referendum will take place/how. If Maduro were at all concerned about maintaining the facade that his government is a democratic one, he'd say something like, "I don't know, it's looking tight, the referendum may take place this year or next - but that's up to the CNE to decide".
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Jun 12, 2016 23:10
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