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I'm here for the boob jobs
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Mar 23, 2017 21:41
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I haven't caught up on the gas news today but Caracas has been experiencing pretty severe gasoline shortages since yesterday. Other cities (I heard Puerto Ordaz and Valencia) have been short on gas all week, and apparently "the interior" (i.e., small towns away from the coast) are really suffering. National Assembly deputy Jose Guerra said earlier today that there are 15 oil ship in the Caribbean waiting for payment from PDVSA before docking to unload the goods. He also said that Venezuela imports 45,000 barrels of oil per day in order to meet internal demand. Like fishmech said we don't actually have the ability to refine the stuff ourselves on a good day, and the last good day was a really long time ago.
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Mar 23, 2017 22:09
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According to some unironic Tankies who believe Stalin did nothing wrong, Venezuela is currently having a crisis because of the USA and <hand waving>. Socialism can only BE FAILED!!
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Mar 23, 2017 22:30
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You can't just say that and then not link us to the good poo poo.
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Mar 23, 2017 22:53
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This poster loves police brutality, but only when its against minorities!
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I fell down a tankie hole and couldn't get out, let me see if I can dig up that article. Reminder that this stuff is written by the TANKIEST of tankies who think North Korea is probably awesome but US propaganda won't let you see the truth!
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Mar 23, 2017 23:09
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Venezuela is becoming a place that people working in accounting in any capacity have nightmares about working in.
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Mar 24, 2017 04:18
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Pharohman777 posted:Venezuela is FTFY. Venezuela has been the right wing's go-to "apocalyptic natural progression of Obama/Trudeau/Merkel/whoever's policies" in every comment board for like 2 years now. But also more generally it's a nightmare zone. People killing zoo animals to survive? Normal, working people eating trash to survive? People getting murdered over like a pack of spaghetti? Even left-wing media sites (except the delusional ones like Jacobin) portray it like some zombie end of the world scenario. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:59 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 10:57
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TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:You might be referring to social democracy aka the nordic model? Which is really just a market capitalist economy with more safety nets and regulations. I don't believe there are any working examples of actual socialism beyond small communities like kibbutz -- it would seem it's very hard to scale. At least it wasn't a complete disaster in Cuba I suppose. You could argue that western powers cause them to fail through their policies but governments need to work in the realities of the real world, not theory papers. For me the core of democratic socialism is a strong social safety net and a full welfare state, nationalization of essential industries like healthcare, strong unions and government promotion and subsidization of co-ops, with absolute democratic participation and zero elements of a dictatorship. For example, what Allende's government probably would have been if it wasn't for Pinochet. Piss de Bundy posted:According to some unironic Tankies who believe Stalin did nothing wrong, Venezuela is currently having a crisis because of the USA and <hand waving>. Socialism can only BE FAILED!! Maybe I'm no true Scotsmanning here (and I hate tankies very much) but I feel that a government that seizes the people's property, offers nothing in return, fails to keep up with economic changes and simply allows everything to fall apart and people to just loving die in the street because it's run by a combination of credulous morons and actively malicious fools might be one of those degenerated worker's states I've heard so much about.
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Mar 24, 2017 11:18
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Left wing right wing. If there's one metric I believe a lot more and that's the transparency https://www.transparency.org/country/VEN Unfortunately Venezuela is ranked 166/ 176 I mean even authoritarian boring hell hole places like Singapore has their poo poo together in running a country
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Mar 24, 2017 14:09
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Lightning Lord posted:nationalization of essential industries like healthcare I guess it depends on what you mean by nationalization. Social democrats still very much operate in a market economy. Maybe you mean single-payer or universal. Even the UK's NHS doesn't really count as nationalization in the command economy sense since it's still perfectly legal to start a private factory and/or practice to produce/serve for customers (including contractors and products in the government system). quote:Maybe I'm no true Scotsmanning here (and I hate tankies very much) but I feel that a government that seizes the people's property, offers nothing in return, fails to keep up with economic changes and simply allows everything to fall apart and people to just loving die in the street because it's run by a combination of credulous morons and actively malicious fools might be one of those degenerated worker's states I've heard so much about. You're technically correct, the best kind of correct. The problem isn't that socialist countries tend to run away from the system that gave us company towns so hard that they end up being a country-sized company town except the company is called the Party, the problem is that it seems to happen to all of them given enough time once they scale up past a certain point. Any system can show failures. Not all of them fail to accomplish their goals all the time.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:12
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DeusExMachinima posted:You're technically correct, the best kind of correct. The problem isn't that socialist countries tend to run away from the system that gave us company towns so hard that they end up being a country-sized company town except the company is called the Party, the problem is that it seems to happen to all of them given enough time once they scale up past a certain point. Any system can show failures. Not all of them fail to accomplish their goals all the time. We've been over this. You cannot destroy ideology with practical examples.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:46
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I didn't make an ethical judgment. I said past a certain scale it falls short of its own stated goals.
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Mar 24, 2017 16:53
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Yet another  thing with Venezuela's failing oil production and US hatred is that they are missing out on one of the best times to sell their oil to the US in modern history!Not an expert, but from what I've understood the issue is this - Venezuela's oil is "heavy sour crude", which due to contaminants is harder to refine and thus historically cheaper than "light sweet crude" from, say, the Middle East. But over the years, refineries along the Gulf Coast of the US were built specifically for this type of crude (eg the Citgo refinery mentioned before), using complex expensive equipment and techniques to profitably refine the cheaper sour oil into the more valuable petroleum products. In other words, they run most efficiently and economically with a heavier blend of feedstock oil than other refineries. Now comes the ~Fracking Revolution~, and US domestic oil is being produced in massive quantities, most of which is the lighter sweeter variety. This new supply also cannot be exported overseas due to US laws, so the domestic price of that oil type drops sharply. Great news for East Coast and other refineries which are set up to use that style, but not for the Gulf! They use a heavier blend of feedstock to make the most profitable fractions, and while the drop in light oil helps costs a little, in relative terms a lot of the cost advantage they held over light sweet refiners is rapidly eroding. They can adjust the blend a little, but refiners are really set to run in a narrow band of feedstocks and going too far outside it may cause equipment problems, plus they simply wouldn't be able to compete on a 1 to 1 basis with the simpler, lower operating cost sweet crude refineries. Long story long, Gulf refineries now need heavy sour crude oil, and lots of it. US heavy sour crude imports have actually risen (while light sweet imports have zeroed out) with a corresponding rise in price. Venezuela would be able to sell everything they could pump, and at a high price, if they weren't loving themselves over by neglecting their oil industry. And if all this fuckery goes on too long, it may be too late to recover - Gulf refineries will either retool to use light sweet blends - which is super expensive - or simply start closing down as they lose to the ones that do. If it gets to that point, who will buy Venezuela's oil then? Neophyte fucked around with this message at 19:51 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 19:48
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Haven't read this in a while, what does the thread title refer to 
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Mar 24, 2017 19:57
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Tias posted:Haven't read this in a while, what does the thread title refer to Borneo Jimmy's hilarious attempt at pathos by claiming the opposition leaders have private zoos and use public money to pay for boob jobs, vaginoplasties and anal bleaches for their young lovers, like if there weren't thousands upon thousands of examples of Chavistas doing exactly that. It's not even a rumor, Nelson Merentes had a well documented affair with an 18 year old.
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Mar 24, 2017 20:27
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Thanks for the replies, guys, that covered it well. Does anyone know what percentage of land in Venezuela is farmable versus the total land area?
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Mar 24, 2017 20:31
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:Thanks for the replies, guys, that covered it well. Does anyone know what percentage of land in Venezuela is farmable versus the total land area? About a quarter is agricultural land, 3% is arable land. Agricultural land is severely sub-utilized.
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Mar 24, 2017 21:57
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DeusExMachinima posted:I guess it depends on what you mean by nationalization. Social democrats still very much operate in a market economy. Maybe you mean single-payer or universal. Even the UK's NHS doesn't really count as nationalization in the command economy sense since it's still perfectly legal to start a private factory and/or practice to produce/serve for customers (including contractors and products in the government system). It isn't as if the increased "marketisation" of the NHS hasn't lead to huge waste, profiteering and mis-allocation of resources. Amongst other things PFI is one of the prime Western European examples of free marketers pushing ideology over results. DeusExMachinima posted:You're technically correct, the best kind of correct. The problem isn't that socialist countries tend to run away from the system that gave us company towns so hard that they end up being a country-sized company town except the company is called the Party, the problem is that it seems to happen to all of them given enough time once they scale up past a certain point. Any system can show failures. Not all of them fail to accomplish their goals all the time. Except that Venezuela is one of the long run failure mode of a capitalist state. In the same way that Trump is an expression of the failure of an unbalanced capitalist system. The failure of the old system to take care of a large slice of the population is what gives budding authoritarians the space to gain power. Capitalism, left unfettered, trends towards oligarchic setups and a steady accumulation of power into the hands of a small wealthy elite. Authoritarianism also limits power to a few hands but the primary way they maintain that power is through control of the army and security apparatus rather than the softer power of money. One of the key benefits of democracy is that it is a tool to put some fetters on capitalism and achieve some redistribution and security for the broader populace through a more organised institutional framework than a revolution. It gives the masses a seat of power at the table. The issue is though that if the representatives of the masses keep failing spectacularly at the job of looking after the interests of their voters and can't provide any coherent vision of how to improve their lot you end up with the broad disillusionment you see in today's western democracies and people voting for whoever promises to give them something even if it wrecks countries in the process. P.S. Tankies are still the worst though. They edge out even Freedom! espousing conservatives who love "leaders they can do business with". Munin fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Mar 30, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 23:07
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Anyway, all that bullshit aside, whilst I am seeing more mention of Venezuela on the news there seems to be basically no one willing to call for broader international action to deal with this garbage fire. Mercosur has just about taken some action but wider condemnation seems not to have been very forthcoming and only the wonkiest of wonks seem to have the potential regional disaster should thing turn to the worse (which they are likely to do at this rate) on the radar. Has there been any major international action I've missed or is it really as non-existent as I think?
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Mar 24, 2017 23:28
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So apparently rare digital Pepe trading cards might be a form of currency in Venezuela now ? quote:The basic idea behind the issuance of rare pepes on top of the Counterparty platform is that it enables scarcity in a digital world. Each rare pepe card is linked to a little bit of bitcoin through a practice known as coin coloring. Whoever owns the private keys associated with the address where the bitcoins that represent a specific rare pepe card is located is the one who owns that particular trading card. Now, a group of developers in Venezuela are building games similar to Hearthstone and Pokemon where the rare pepe trading cards will play an integral role.  https://cryptoinsider.com/venezuelan-developers-using-bitcoin-rare-pepes-fight-dismal-economy/
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Mar 25, 2017 01:30
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holy poo poo how do i buy some rare pepes
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Mar 25, 2017 02:03
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Munin posted:Has there been any major international action I've missed or is it really as non-existent as I think? The permanent council of the OAS just announced that it will hold a session on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Venezuela. This follows about two weeks of scathing rhetoric from Secretary General Luis Almagro, who has been an outspoken critic of the Maduro regime and in fact pushed to suspend Venezuela from the OAS last year. The meeting on Tuesday was called for by eighteen OAS member states. A few days ago Almagro issued a report in which he called for Venezuela to hold general elections within 30 days or face possible suspension from the OAS. The argument here comes from the Inter-American Democratic Charter, to which Venezuela is a signatory. Article 21 of that document allows for the suspension of OAS member states if there has been a "break in the democratic order" that has not been resolved diplomatically. From what I can see, there is not a lot of support for suspending Venezuela as per Article 21, but there is quite a bit of support for the OAS to crank up diplomatic pressure on the Maduro regime through other means. I'm not sure what those other means might look like, but I have a feeling we'll at least get a strongly-worded letter out of this. In other news, here's a video that's been making a splash on social media over the last two days or so. I don't know when it was recorded, but the scene happened on the highway connecting between Caracas and Valencia. It shows a huge swarm of people looting a truck that was carrying food: https://twitter.com/AlbertoRT51/status/845014755135905792 quote:Man: Good morning, everyone. Look what happened to my country. This is near… just before Campo Carabobo. People are putting sticks, rocks, tires, and everything [on the road], and they’re looting a truck carrying rice. This is incredible. Even the police are carrying bags on rice on their motorcycles. What a disaster. Look at this. Look at the police there. They’re not doing anything [top stop the looting]. They’re shut down the highway. MREBoy posted:So apparently rare digital Pepe trading cards might be a form of currency in Venezuela now ?
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Mar 25, 2017 03:16
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:Thanks for the replies, guys, that covered it well. Does anyone know what percentage of land in Venezuela is farmable versus the total land area? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ve.html under "Geography" 3% arable / 21% pasture / 55% forest / 23% "other". So at least 77% of the land in Venezuela is suitable for agriculture. "Other" is usually a mix of uninhabitable mountain areas (which Venezuela has a fair amount of) and desert. Not sure what else it considers.
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Mar 26, 2017 09:21
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Saladman posted:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ve.html under "Geography" Uh, I think it's a bit ludicrous to assume that all the forest land is any good for agriculture. A lot of it might be fine for a year or two of crops, or quite a while of pasture land for livestock, but that's not going to fix Venezuelan food supply for long. Significant amounts of that forested area are also up in mountainous areas that won't give you very nice growing land even if you do mass-clear it. Here's the topography of the country:  And here's what agricultural areas looked like about 40 years back, when they were doing a decent bit better than now: 
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Mar 26, 2017 15:52
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I'd guess that if a ton of trees can grow in an area for millions of years, and it's not some super marginal desert-style forest like Joshua Tree National Park, there's probably some sort of crop that could be grown there that would be useful for people, but I don't really know anything about agriculture or farming. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Venezuela's forest wasn't at least decent agricultural land, besides forests directly on top of tepuis or whatever, but it's not something I've ever looked into or read about either. That plateau in the southeast doesn't look like it's any higher than most of Colombia, which is full of plantations everywhere, but maybe there's some reason it fundamentally sucks for agriculture (besides it just being incredibly remote and there being no infrastructure, which obviously is a practical limit in the short and medium term). E: Besides the fact that rainforest soils are lousy and would need lots of fertilizer, which Venezuela cannot either manufacture or import. I'm not trying to make the argument that Venezuela should be some sort of agricultural powerhouse. Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Mar 26, 2017 |
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Mar 26, 2017 17:23
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How is the electricity and internet at the moment, on or off? El hefe didn't show up for the first race of the season so this is unlikely to be a forum break he's taking
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Mar 26, 2017 19:15
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Lightning Lord posted:For me the core of democratic socialism is a strong social safety net and a full welfare state, nationalization of essential industries like healthcare, strong unions and government promotion and subsidization of co-ops, with absolute democratic participation and zero elements of a dictatorship. For example, what Allende's government probably would have been if it wasn't for Pinochet. The difference between "nationalization of essential industries" and "seizing the people's property" is largely dependent on whether it is politically expedient for you to support the regime in question.
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Mar 26, 2017 19:27
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Oh boy! There's a new exchange rate coming soon: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy-idUSKBN16Z043?il=0 Get ready for DICOM. I guess this might be able to make the government's foreign reserves last a little longer, but probably not. In other news, I guess we're late enough in the dry season to know if Guri Dam would be an issue or not, and it sounds like it's OK (or there are no reports if it's not). I wonder if something was actually managed better this year, or if it's 100% due to nature.
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Mar 28, 2017 15:47
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I don't see how the new exchange system is supposed to work. Maduro didn't really give any information about it, and what little he did give gives me enough reason to think that it's not going to work. This is probably the 5th or 6th time that the government has made cosmetic changes to the exchange rate system, and like all of those previous changes this one is probably going to amount to nothing. (Disclaimer: I'm not an economist, but this is my best understanding of how our convoluted currency exchange system works). Venezuela has two official exchange rates: DIPRO (Fixed at Bs. 10/USD) and DICOM (Relatively free-floating, currently at Bs. 708.81/USD). I say that DICOM is "relatively free-floating" because the rate is determined by how many U.S. dollars the government injects into the exchange system. These injections happen every week. DIRPO is only available to businesses that produce/import food, medicine and basic necessities, and DICOM is available to everyone else. It sounds like what the government is trying to do now is inject currency into the exchange twice a week. I don't think anyone know how this will work in practice. Will the government inject twice as much currency into the exchange every week, or will it just cut the previously weekly injection in half? I think the second option is more likely since liquid reserves are quickly draining out of the piggy bank due to anemic oil prices. If that is the case, then what exactly will the change be, aside from an exchange rate that now fluctuates twice a week instead of once a week? I can't find the information now, but I remember reading a while back that the volume of currency that goes through DICOM is peanuts, and that most people are stuck with the black market.
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Mar 28, 2017 16:58
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Saladman posted:I'd guess that if a ton of trees can grow in an area for millions of years, and it's not some super marginal desert-style forest like Joshua Tree National Park, there's probably some sort of crop that could be grown there that would be useful for people, but I don't really know anything about agriculture or farming. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of Venezuela's forest wasn't at least decent agricultural land, besides forests directly on top of tepuis or whatever, but it's not something I've ever looked into or read about either. That plateau in the southeast doesn't look like it's any higher than most of Colombia, which is full of plantations everywhere, but maybe there's some reason it fundamentally sucks for agriculture (besides it just being incredibly remote and there being no infrastructure, which obviously is a practical limit in the short and medium term).  Now I'm not a farmer, but that looks like a lovely place to build up a bustling agricultural center. Ofaloaf fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Mar 28, 2017 |
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Mar 28, 2017 17:16
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The Guiana shield and the Orinoco are predominantly lovely acidic tropical oxisols which are productive for 2-3 years maximum, before never producing anything of agricultural value for the next 20-100 years. I actually conduct research on this, and there are a few wrinkles in the story, but for the present argument, tropical forest agriculture is never going to feed a modern nation state on its own.
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Mar 28, 2017 17:23
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Chuck Boone posted:In other news, here's a video that's been making a splash on social media over the last two days or so. I don't know when it was recorded, but the scene happened on the highway connecting between Caracas and Valencia. It shows a huge swarm of people looting a truck that was carrying food: A year ago I would have expected guillotines by now. Yet people accept it.
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Mar 28, 2017 18:05
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Ofaloaf posted:That southeast plateau in fischmech's post? That's the Guiana Shield. There is indeed a solid layer of vegetation there, especially at lower elevations, but otherwise it looks like this: I always kind of figured the tepuis were "some here and there" like the mesas in the southwest USA are, where the vast majority of the land is easily accessible and it's just some small tabletop mountains every once in a while, but I know my Venezuelan geography about as well as I know my rainforest agriculture (not very well). It does look like a great place for an evil villain's lair. (Edit: for anyone unfamiliar with monument valley,  )
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Mar 28, 2017 18:21
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Ofaloaf posted:That southeast plateau in fischmech's post? That's the Guiana Shield. There is indeed a solid layer of vegetation there, especially at lower elevations, but otherwise it looks like this: the suspended gardens of venezuela
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Mar 28, 2017 18:21
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How the hell is Maduro able to buy time for his regime when civil war has looked so imminent for so long?
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Mar 28, 2017 18:41
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Grouchio posted:How the hell is Maduro able to buy time for his regime when civil war has looked so imminent for so long? He brought the military into the government to ensure their loyalty, and the opposition sat on their hands when they should have been forcing the issue one way or the other.
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Mar 28, 2017 18:56
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Sinteres posted:He brought the military into the government to ensure their loyalty, and the opposition sat on their hands when they should have been forcing the issue one way or the other.
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Mar 29, 2017 02:15
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who exactly is going to challenge the military for control? Who is capable?
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Mar 29, 2017 09:31
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Grouchio posted:So what would kill the deadlock and start up the civil war, would you say? Maybe when the food scarcity becomes so dire that even soliders can't blackmail and steal enough to sustain themselves? They will eventually turn against their officers and politicians, but the goverment has done a great job at giving them bribes and impunity to secure their loyalty for a while still.
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Mar 29, 2017 10:34
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Vlex posted:The Guiana shield and the Orinoco are predominantly lovely acidic tropical oxisols which are productive for 2-3 years maximum, before never producing anything of agricultural value for the next 20-100 years. What can't we replace in the soil? Nitrogen and phosphates are easy, is it trace minerals getting depleted?
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Mar 29, 2017 12:34
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