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Furia posted:wasn't it a thing that cryptocurrency was big in NK? Maybe they're trying to pull something like that? No. The vast majority of North Koreans have no feasible way to use most cryptocurrencies, due to how much of a hassle it is for them to interact with the actual internet for extended periods. Millions of North Koreans have fairly decent tablets/smartphones/computers these days, but you're normally restricted to the country's internal networks. Chuck Boone posted:There is virtually no chance that the government will successfully develop and implement its own cryptocurrency. What we heard from Maduro yesterday is the same thing that we always hear from Maduro: a pie-in-the-sky magic solution to all of the country's problems. The Petro announcement is no different than the dozens of times in the past that Maduro has announced some measure or another and sold it as something that (for sure this time!) will work properly. I disagree, but only because it is incredibly easy for someone to take an existing cryptocurrency and change some of the variables. Within the hour you can have a currency developed that already has whatever X amount of units already premined and controlled by you, with provisions that essentially no one but the originator and people they trust can generate appreciable amounts more. You can even get apps to use on phones and code to run on web servers to trade and use said currency in that same hour. The trouble is simply to make anyone else care about this currency, even if you were to do something ridiculous like force public employees to start taking half their pay in it and force the subsidized shops to use it. Because it's essentially got the same problem of any other "introduce a second currency while still having a first one and not planning to change that situation" project.
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Dec 4, 2017 19:20
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The old 100s are still in circulation? Why? What can you even buy with it besides a handful of tragically subsidized goods? Also drat, makes India look super competent by comparison.
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Dec 4, 2017 20:06
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fnox posted:You trade until noon, then you take the bolivares you just made across the border and buy anything that is available for sale, bring it back, pay basically nothing on tax and then a little extra for bribes, sell it back on the Colombian side the next day. You're making a killing because you're setting the price of the bolivar, so you can trade on an ever climbing exchange rate before prices for goods have time to adjust. Venezuela is not completely barren of consumer goods, it's just that the prices are dollarized and are therefore completely beyond the purchasing power of any Venezuelan earning in bolivares. so basically it's just a slow burn of a bunch of money and products leaving the country
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Dec 5, 2017 18:56
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Cryptos are by definition (at least in the Bitcoin model) by definition deflationary. There is a set amount that can be mined, and it gets increasingly harder to mine as you approach the end limit. Also "pegging" a crypto to a fixed asset like gold or diamond is dumb bullshit that no actual crypto users buy into. This is to say nothing of the fact that no crypto matters until people actually get an incentive to mine it (which is actually how transactions are confirmed) meaning no transaction can be made until there is a network of miners confirming the transaction. I'm gonna go ahead and say this is a bad idea.
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Dec 5, 2017 19:21
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What happened with that whole rare pepe economy that was going on?
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Dec 6, 2017 14:45
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Chuck, are you still stuck in Venezuela?
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Dec 6, 2017 14:58
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Chuck has lived in Canada for most/all of his life IIRC, but he's a Canadian-Venezuelan and is doing a PhD or something on Venezuelan politics so that's why he's such a solid OP. I think Labradoodle is the only poster in this thread who still lives in Venezuela?
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Dec 6, 2017 16:09
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The big news over the past few days or so (aside from the Petro stuff) is that Rafael Ramirez announced yesterday that he had resigned (read: was forced to resign) from his position as UN ambassador. Reuters reported that the resignation was coming last week, but Ramirez refuted the story by saying that he wasn't going anywhere. Ramirez's resignation comes after he and Maduro had a falling out. Over the past few weeks, Ramirez published two articles on a popular chavista website called Aporrea in which he criticized Maduro for destroying the country's economy, and that he had tried to warn Maduro to correct the course years ago but that he had ignored all of his advice. The articles really angered Maduro, obviously. It's important to remember that Ramirez was one of Chavez's closest allies throughout much of his presidency. He was really close to Chavez, so close in fact that I believe that he was one of just four people who were by Chavez's bedside when he died. Ramirez was the president of PDVSA from 2004 to 2014, and he's a big reason why the company is in ruins today. When Chavez died, Ramirez was seen as a clear political threat to Maduro. This is probably why Maduro removed Ramirez from his position in 2014 and sent him to New York to head the Venezuelan mission at the United Nations there. Now that Maduro has played his hand and gone for Ramirez's throat, I'll be interested to see what Ramirez's next moves are. If I were Maduro, I'd be wary of pushing Ramirez too far away because the dirt that he must have on everyone inside the PSUV must be incredible. fishmech posted:I disagree, but only because it is incredibly easy for someone to take an existing cryptocurrency and change some of the variables. Within the hour you can have a currency developed that already has whatever X amount of units already premined and controlled by you, with provisions that essentially no one but the originator and people they trust can generate appreciable amounts more. You can even get apps to use on phones and code to run on web servers to trade and use said currency in that same hour. I take your point that creating a cryptocurrency may be a relatively straightforward affair for someone who knows what they are doing, but that's still infinity away from successful implementation in a country of 30+ million with a collapsed economy and a government that is too corrupt to care about actually governing. The PSUV has lost complete control over the currency that it currently manages, so I have no faith that they'll succeed in creating/implementing/managing a new one. I think that Labradoodle is pretty much spot on about this. We might hear about the Petro a few more times, some PSUV insiders are going to get filthy rich by using it to launder money and circumvent sanctions, and not a single ordinary Venezuelan will benefit from it. Saladman posted:Chuck has lived in Canada for most/all of his life IIRC, but he's a Canadian-Venezuelan and is doing a PhD or something on Venezuelan politics so that's why he's such a solid OP. I think Labradoodle is the only poster in this thread who still lives in Venezuela? Yes, I was born and raised in Venezuela but I live in Canada now. I'm in the third year of a PhD program, and my main interest is the policing of protests by civilians using the example of colectivos armados in Venezuela. Aside from Labradoodle, there have been one or two other posters who've come into the thread just once or twice saying that they lived in Venezuela, but they don't seem to be around too much. I also want to say that I haven't been very active in the thread recently for a few reasons, one being that things here at school have been pretty heavy over the past two weeks or so. I'm always keep an eye on the thread though.
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Dec 6, 2017 17:28
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I woke up today wondering if there is any tankie left in this forum that still believes the country is better off with Maduro than it is with literally anyone else at the helm. I mean the nightmare scenario they described a couple of months back when the neoliberals take over is pretty much what Venezuela currently is, to the T. The Chavistas used that line about people eating dog food during the 4th Republic for years. Now, there's not even dog food to eat. fnox fucked around with this message at 13:43 on Dec 9, 2017 |
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Dec 9, 2017 13:41
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Yeah but every capitalistic regime in the world has even less than not dogfood so we can be confident that any party to the right of Chavez would just make things even worse.
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Dec 9, 2017 14:03
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Was Chavez all that bad? I always heard it mostly got super bad when Maduro took over but maybe it was just the falling oil price and zero investment
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Dec 9, 2017 14:12
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Collapses go slow and then fast (see: USSR). Chavez was the slow part.
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Dec 9, 2017 14:21
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Chávez was lucky enough to die before things really went to poo poo.
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Dec 9, 2017 15:02
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beer_war posted:Chávez was lucky enough to die before things really went to poo poo. The oil industry is what fueled everything else in the country. Even if you give Chavez the benefit of the doubt and squint to assume he wasn’t just looting everything for himself and his cronies oil infrastructure was neglected from day one. Everyone who could really run things got out fast and they just kept doubling down making things worse. The refineries haven’t been fully operational in years. I can’t remember when the last time they worked for a month straight was. Ships loading in Venezuela have to get cleaned before they can enter their destination ports from all the oil that spills out onto their hull from the busted rear end equipment they have. I can’t even imagine how badly polluted the ports themselves are. I would be shocked to find out there aren’t dozens of pipeline spills we never hear about. Last headline I remember seeing the biggest refinery was running at 13% capacity, which means it’s actually worse because the official numbers have always been lies in every OPEC country. The point is yes Chavez is lucky to have died when he did because everyone in the industry knew Venezuela was held together by gum and shoestring and it was only a matter of time before it started really coming apart.
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Dec 9, 2017 16:59
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SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Was Chavez all that bad? I always heard it mostly got super bad when Maduro took over but maybe it was just the falling oil price and zero investment Chavez gets a lot of goodwill because he spread the wealth around a bit during the oil bonanza years. However, he was also an autocrat that encouraged government corruption and had no qualms about stealing every penny he could. He also abused his power to persecute opponents and did his best to do away with the separation of powers. He wrecked our economy in his attempt to control everything, but he was lucky enough to die before the money ran out entirely. Maduro is a terrible president (and human) being in every possible way, but he actually inherited a giant mess courtesy of Chavez's policies. Then, instead of righting the ship, he just doubled down and that brings us to present day.
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Dec 9, 2017 17:11
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So today is the day of the mayoral elections. You may notice how this didn't receive much coverage, or much attention at all, and that has to do mostly with the results of the previous regional elections. The regional elections were mired with fraud, empirical proof of ballot stuffing existed, and yet the mainstream opposition ignored it, didn't contest the election, and then proceeded to have the 4 candidates that won pledge themselves to the ANC. Actually, there were 5 winners, but the elections in Zulia were contested because the winner, Juan Pablo Guanipa, didn't pledge obedience to the ANC, so Zulia is also voting for their governor today. From what I've been hearing, we're seeing record levels of abstention, which probably is a manifestation on how little faith the average Venezuelan has in the opposition, or in its politicians in general. Whatever numbers the CNE will announce are unlikely to match in any way with reality. In any case, the PSUV is expected to crush this election, not that this should surprise anyone as they had full control of all of these offices anyway, given how they very regularly arrest and depose opposition mayors arbitrarily. As for me personally, my family is split between those who just don't care anymore, and those who think abstaining from voting will only hurt the opposition's cause. I think it's abundantly clear that it won't be this opposition that will lead to a change in government, as they have hosed up pretty much every opportunity they had to do so. With the "negotiation" resuming in the Dominican Republic on the 15th, the opposition will proceed with even less ground to stand in, having lost the elections, the public trust, and the respect of the international community; not that they had anything to negotiate with anyway. Maduro is going to put himself forward for reelection in early 2018, and unless the opposition can field a candidate outside of perennial losers like Manuel Rosales, Henry Ramos Allup, Julio Borges, Henri Falcon or Henrique Capriles, they're unlikely to put up a fight.
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Dec 10, 2017 18:07
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https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/940005066832039936 well this seems really bad.
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Dec 11, 2017 01:10
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they’re really not trying to hide the fact that they’re a dictatorship now, are they
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Dec 11, 2017 01:12
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that's a way to win an election
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Dec 11, 2017 01:20
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As expected, the results were announced: according to the CNE, 9 million people voted, and the PSUV won 98% of the contested offices. Omar Prieto defeated Manuel Rosales and won the Zulia governorship. It's not even worth looking at the numbers, there is simply no chance in hell there were 9 million people out in the streets yesterday. The elections are still an illusion, and even worrying about them instead of focusing on getting the government out is not worth the time or the money.
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Dec 11, 2017 14:30
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It's impossible to know if election results in Venezuela are valid or not because the Consejo Nacional Electoral (CNE)--the regime body in charge of elections--has been caught red handed twice this year making up results. A few days after the CNE announced the results of the July 30 Constituent Assembly vote, the company that provides and operates the voting machines in the country came out with an unprecedented statement saying that the results did not correspond to the data from the machines. In other words, the CNE simply made up the numbers. Then, in the October 15 regional election, an audit of voting centres in Bolivar state revealed that the results published on the CNE website did not correspond to data from voting centres. The CNE gave the PSUV candidate in that state votes while taking away votes from the opposition candidate, pushing the PSUV to victory. Keeping that in mind, the CNE announced last night that voter turnout in yesterday's municipal election was 47%, a figure that is both lower than the 2013 municipal election voter turnout and likely fictitious. I've only quickly scanned the election results, but right now it looks like the PSUV won approximately 315 out of the 335 municipalities in the country. Dapper_Swindler posted:https://twitter.com/BBCBreaking/status/940005066832039936 We'll have to see what the Constituent Assembly (which was elected fraudulently and is controlled by the regime) makes of the announcement, but I suspect that we'll hear a formal endorsement of the ban some time over the holidays when people are less likely to protest. Venomous posted:they’re really not trying to hide the fact that they’re a dictatorship now, are they Nope. I think that the history books will give 2017 the grim distinction of being the year in which Venezuela became a naked authoritarian dictatorship. The March Supreme Court decision to usurp the power of the Constituent Assembly, the fraudulent Constituent Assembly vote, the total undermining of the National Assembly, and the regime's unashamed manipulation of elections were all on display this year, and when taken together they clearly point to dictatorship. EDIT: I forgot to post this. As an example of how absolutely fraudulent elections are in Venezuela, here is a video captured by cameras from a state-owned television network showing Minister of Electrical Energy Luis Motta Dominguez pretending to vote: https://twitter.com/NTN24ve/status/939965071765237760 Motta Dominguez thought he was being sly, but at around the 0:40 second mark you can clearly see that after pretending to drop his vote in the ballot box he quickly takes it and hides it. I have no idea why Motta Dominguez did this, but there it is. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 14:42 on Dec 11, 2017 |
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Dec 11, 2017 14:35
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The thing that I keep wondering about is what do Maduro's allies in the PSUV think of all this. I don't know anything about their internal disciplinary functions, but surely there has to be some opposition to Maduro in there? PSUV was formed as a merger of 11 different parties and I'm fairly confident in claiming that their parties didn't just stop existing, that the parties still exist within the PSUV. They have their own histories and identities and that creates a possibility of conflict between them and Maduro's gang. Maduro doesn't have like NKVD brigades gulaging oppositionists and trotskyists, does he? It's just hard for me to understand why there isn't a internal party rebellion against the man. Or maybe I'm just too naive in my conception of what a socialist must be, but I don't understand how anyone who calls himself a socialist could support a poo poo like Maduro.
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Dec 11, 2017 14:59
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Chuck Boone posted:I have no idea why Motta Dominguez did this, but there it is. Simple. You have one ballot, right; that's the starting position. You don't need to have filled it in, all you need is to have it. You go outside and there's a group of people standing in a line. At this point, you fill the ballot with favorable candidates. You give one of the people who hasn't voted the ballot. That person goes in with the ballot hidden and takes an empty ballot from the electoral supervisors. In private (since that's how voting generally is), when they are supposed to fill the empty ballot they replace it with the ballot you gave them. Then, they submit their vote with the ballot you gave them, and outside they return the empty ballot to you. This guarantees to you that they voted for whomever you wanted to. They receive a payout. You fill the ballot again and go to the next person. Why exactly would they do this I wouldn't know, unless there's some power struggle someone is trying to resolved favorably for themselves. Full disclosure I have never had the chance to vote so how well this maps I can't say for sure, but if it does here is your reason. I understand there are voting machines and such but then you just need to adjust the process around this, which wouldn't be difficult.
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Dec 11, 2017 15:01
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lollontee posted:The thing that I keep wondering about is what do Maduro's allies in the PSUV think of all this. I don't know anything about their internal disciplinary functions, but surely there has to be some opposition to Maduro in there? PSUV was formed as a merger of 11 different parties and I'm fairly confident in claiming that their parties didn't just stop existing, that the parties still exist within the PSUV. They have their own histories and identities and that creates a possibility of conflict between them and Maduro's gang. Maduro doesn't have like NKVD brigades gulaging oppositionists and trotskyists, does he? It's just hard for me to understand why there isn't a internal party rebellion against the man. Or maybe I'm just too naive in my conception of what a socialist must be, but I don't understand how anyone who calls himself a socialist could support a poo poo like Maduro. Look at how fast many Republicans have given in to Trump despite him being an outsider with no real loyalty to the Party as it existed before him, and it makes more sense. Maduro's been in charge for longer, and followed another strongman who did a lot to break down political norms before him, and he seems to have the support of the military for some reason, so there's even more incentive for cowards to suppress any qualms they have about following a bad leader and go along with what he's doing, especially if they're involved in the massive corruption and enriching themselves while the country falls apart.
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Dec 11, 2017 17:09
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Efrain and Francisco Flores, two of Maduro's nephews, have just been sentenced to 18 years in prison by a New York City judge for attempting to smuggle cocaine into the United States. The two will serve their time in the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Sumter County, Florida. The two were arrested in Haiti in 2015 while arranging the shipping of 800 kilograms of cocaine into the US with an undercover DEA agent. They signed confessions on the plane ride to the US, and were found guilty in November of last year. The regime's stance on the case has been to remain silent about it. As far as I'm aware the only regime figure to openly speak about the case is Cilia Flores, who said that her nephews had been "kidnapped". Furia posted:Simple. You have one ballot, right; that's the starting position. You don't need to have filled it in, all you need is to have it. I did a bit of reading and I think that you are 100% correct on this. The PSUV puts up what are called "Puntos Rojos" [Red Spots] near voting centres on election day. The Spots are there to keep track of who has voted and who hasn't voted, and I've read allegations suggesting that they're staging grounds for all kinds of election shenanigans, like trading votes for food.
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Dec 14, 2017 22:53
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Furia posted:Full disclosure I have never had the chance to vote so how well this maps I can't say for sure, but if it does here is your reason. I understand there are voting machines and such but then you just need to adjust the process around this, which wouldn't be difficult. Interestingly enough in Canada when doing federal elections, the vote ballot is actually designed to stop this. The voter is given a ballot which has a serial number on a tear away tag. When they return after filling it out (and folding the ballot so the choice can't be seen), and before inserting it, they compare the serial number and remove the tag if it's the same as what was given. The voter then places the now untraceable ballot in the box with all the others.
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Dec 14, 2017 23:04
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I think I'm the last regular poster still in Venezuela in this thread, but I finally have an exit date next month. I told Chuck a while back now the only worry I have in leaving is the national guard in the airport and it's amazing how corrupt they've gotten. So far, I've got people telling me to bring at least some USD in cash in case I have to bribe someone because I'm carrying the kinds of documents people use to solicit residential status abroad. Apparently, the national guard has made a job out of extorting people who travel abroad with papers. I know a couple of people that have been threatened by them with ripping their documents apart unless they give them cash. The entire thing is so ridiculous I'm bringing a set of papers with me and mailing another just in case. Plus, I'll be carrying $150 just for bribe money. That's cash I've gone through the trouble of getting in a country where the whole process is illegal just in case I have to bribe someone. I'm definitely not going to miss this piece of poo poo country in the slightest.
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Dec 15, 2017 03:23
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I'm just a lurker most of the time, but best of luck to you on getting out safely, Labradoodle.
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Dec 15, 2017 03:29
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Night10194 posted:I'm just a lurker most of the time, but best of luck to you on getting out safely, Labradoodle. Thanks! Worst case, scenario, I'll pay like $100 as a bribe to get out, which is why I'm bringing $150 in cash. I'll happily pay a one-time fee to get out of the country, which I'm sure is not a unique sentiment.
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Dec 15, 2017 04:00
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Awesome, man, I'm glad you're getting out too! Going to the US? I remember that fear when leaving and trying to look as inconspicuous as possible as to not be bothered by the loving Civil Guards. I even buzzed my head, since I had long hair and that made me stand out a lot, just to avoid them. Good luck outside.
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Dec 15, 2017 09:15
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Labradoodle posted:[leaving] Best of luck. It's not easy leaving, but at least you have a guarantee that things are gonna get better Chuck Boone posted:I did a bit of reading and I think that you are 100% correct on this. The PSUV puts up what are called "Puntos Rojos" [Red Spots] near voting centres on election day. The Spots are there to keep track of who has voted and who hasn't voted, and I've read allegations suggesting that they're staging grounds for all kinds of election shenanigans, like trading votes for food. But why would they do this is what I don't follow. If it's an internal power struggle or something it makes sense because then they would be competing for votes., If not are they just not confident on winning the elections even with the CNE on their side? It's not like the CNE has a pristine reputation they need to protect by keeping out of shady business
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Dec 15, 2017 11:26
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So glad you are finally leaving. Te deseo la mejor de las suertes.
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Dec 15, 2017 11:27
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Congrats Labradoodle. Moving abroad kind of sucks, but it's probably better than living in an imploding country, and I guess nearly all of your friends have already left Venezuela in any case.
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Dec 15, 2017 12:23
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Godspeed sir. Safe travels and I hope we soon see you post 'I have arrived safely!'
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Dec 15, 2017 12:48
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Labradoodle posted:Thanks! Worst case, scenario, I'll pay like $100 as a bribe to get out, which is why I'm bringing $150 in cash. I'll happily pay a one-time fee to get out of the country, which I'm sure is not a unique sentiment. Speaking from experience with Venezuelan customs, you should stash the money in a few different pockets. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.
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Dec 15, 2017 12:56
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Labradoodle posted:I think I'm the last regular poster still in Venezuela in this thread, but I finally have an exit date next month. I told Chuck a while back now the only worry I have in leaving is the national guard in the airport and it's amazing how corrupt they've gotten. So far, I've got people telling me to bring at least some USD in cash in case I have to bribe someone because I'm carrying the kinds of documents people use to solicit residential status abroad. Apparently, the national guard has made a job out of extorting people who travel abroad with papers. I know a couple of people that have been threatened by them with ripping their documents apart unless they give them cash. Good luck, dude. If you're settling in Chile shoot me a PM.
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Dec 15, 2017 13:03
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Vlex posted:Speaking from experience with Venezuelan customs, you should stash the money in a few different pockets. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I put my cash in my sock, on my soles, so that if they patted me down they wouldn't find my money. Still, you need to have some on you or they'll stop you anyhow. Best of luck Labradoodle, and don't ever look back. It gets way better out there, believe me.
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Dec 15, 2017 15:25
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fnox posted:I put my cash in my sock, on my soles, so that if they patted me down they wouldn't find my money. Still, you need to have some on you or they'll stop you anyhow. The old "chimbito" trick or carrying an old cheap phone so when they mug you you don't have to give the one you actually use works with money and customs civil guards!
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Dec 15, 2017 16:03
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wateroverfire posted:Good luck, dude. If you're settling in Chile shoot me a PM. Same thing if you're making it to Argentina.
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Dec 15, 2017 18:46
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Te deseo un buen viaje Labradoodle. Inside your underwear is another place to hide cash.
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Dec 16, 2017 23:08
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