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Barudak posted:Risk? Theyd relish it. Russian-Chinese relations are quite warm nowadays, it isn’t 1961.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:24
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Private Witt posted:Following up on his column from last week, Nick Kristof with some first person reporting from the Colombia/Venezuela border, which is seeing the lion's share of the refugees that flee Maduro's regime: Possible other non-Maduro causes: sanctions making it difficult to bring these goods into the country, or private oligarchs choosing not to stock them in order to create discontent.
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Apr 18, 2019 15:45
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Zidrooner posted:Possible other non-Maduro causes: sanctions making it difficult to bring these goods into the country, or private oligarchs choosing not to stock them in order to create discontent. Possible other non-Maduro causes: little green men from Alpha Centauri stealing the condoms to power a giant slingshot, a plot by the Illuminati to enforce Catholic teachings on contraception, tankies secretly sabotaging the Maduro government to bring about a Stalinist renaissance in the 21st century. Who else wants to make up scenarios that ignore the actual situation? Next!
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Apr 18, 2019 15:59
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Rust Martialis posted:Possible other non-Maduro causes: little green men from Alpha Centauri stealing the condoms to power a giant slingshot, a plot by the Illuminati to enforce Catholic teachings on contraception, tankies secretly sabotaging the Maduro government to bring about a Stalinist renaissance in the 21st century. are you under the impression that there are no American sanctions designed to cause harm to the people of Venezuela, Rust Martialis i have terrible news for you about the United States Secretary of State and the US Special Envoy to Venezuela, if that is the case
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Apr 18, 2019 16:08
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Rust Martialis posted:Possible other non-Maduro causes: little green men from Alpha Centauri stealing the condoms to power a giant slingshot, a plot by the Illuminati to enforce Catholic teachings on contraception, tankies secretly sabotaging the Maduro government to bring about a Stalinist renaissance in the 21st century.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:22
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There have been shortages of basic goods for over a decade now, which are perfectly explainable if you take a look at the government's economic policies (i.e. expropriating businesses and then driving them to the ground, insane price controls, a ridiculously complicated system to get access to foreign currency for imports, extortion at all levels of business, etc.). At this point, though, with the latest PDVSA sanctions, you can't deny they are having an impact, but implying they're the root cause of shortages is plain ignorance.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:33
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It's less ignorance than motivated reasoning. They need the doubt, the denial.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:36
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sanctions are the root cause of additional shortages and extra suffering layered on top of existing one that didn't need to happen. maduro: look at these poor people, they barely have anything to eat liberals: hold my beer
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Apr 18, 2019 16:41
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A staggering statistic buried in this story... https://twitter.com/kejalvyas/status/1118879146657091586 quote:Since they took refuge, Messrs. Guevara and Enríquez have watched with frustration as the country’s political and economic crisis has grown steadily worse. Mr. Guevara’s sister and most of his close friends have left the country, part of an exodus of some 3.4 million people. Of his college graduating class, only four of 60 remain, he says. 93% of his graduating class has fled the country. "Brain drain" undersells what is almost a complete deletion of a generation of Venezuelans. Venezuela has been set back decades by this donkey Maduro.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:45
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Truga posted:sanctions are the root cause of additional shortages and extra suffering layered on top of existing one that didn't need to happen. added some details you skipped, friend!
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Apr 18, 2019 16:51
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Discendo Vox posted:It's less ignorance than motivated reasoning. They need the doubt, the denial. c'mon, quote the man directly. "It appears to be an incident that is at least being significantly misused, at the very best, by the chavistas." after all, it's so -convenient- for Mr. Abrams' opponents to claim things that have happened, happened.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:53
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Rust Martialis posted:added some details you skipped, friend! now explain how those details excuse the sanctions we're talking about.
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Apr 18, 2019 16:55
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Private Witt posted:A staggering statistic buried in this story... I'm pretty sure there are only four people left in the country from my high-school graduating class of about 60 as well. This past couple of years, one common question everyone asks each other is "When are you leaving?" or "Why haven't you left yet?". Out of my college group, I was the last person to leave the country and my old alma mater is pretty empty nowadays. They're getting about a third of the applicants they got a handful of years back and they can't provide decent transport, running water, or decent meals anymore, so a lot of people don't even bother going.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:04
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Truga posted:now explain how those details excuse the sanctions we're talking about. Sanctions are dumb and counterproductive, no one is disagreeing about that. However, blaming sanctions on current humanitarian catastrophe is dumb as well, poo poo was bad waaaaaay before that. There is no one to blame for that but PSUV.
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Apr 18, 2019 17:19
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Private Witt posted:Caroline, 28 Jesus
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Apr 18, 2019 17:49
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Gervasius posted:Sanctions are dumb and counterproductive, no one is disagreeing about that. However, blaming sanctions on current humanitarian catastrophe is dumb as well, poo poo was bad waaaaaay before that. There is no one to blame for that but PSUV. The NYT article featuring VZ refugees Private Witt posted was from yesterday. At least SOME of the suffering those people are going through is literally the fault of the sanctions. It seems to be very hard to get a full-throated condemnation of sanctions from most anti-Maduro posters, most would prefer to pretend they are hurting only the PSUV elite, or to acknowledge that they do have some nebulous impact but the moment you suggest that impact could perhaps take the form of material effects on reality such as people not being able to get food and medicine then you're a kook talking about little green alien men. Also, domestic private capitalists have been found on various occasions to artificially create scarcity of various goods: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/venezuela-toilet-paper-bust-police-seize-2500-rolls_n_3363620 This article I just found deals with toilet paper, fruit juice and diapers. I distinctly remember hearing instances of this in past years about tampons and food too. Creating artificial scarcity of condoms is right in line with this tactic. Events like this make it hard to attribute SOLE responsibility to the PSUV. And considering the US has tried to intervene before, in the 2002 coup attempt, I find it hard to believe they sat on their thumbs and didn't try to undermine the government in any way until recently.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:06
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Zidrooner posted:The NYT article featuring VZ refugees Private Witt posted was from yesterday. At least SOME of the suffering those people are going through is literally the fault of the sanctions. It seems to be very hard to get a full-throated condemnation of sanctions from most anti-Maduro posters, most would prefer to pretend they are hurting only the PSUV elite, or to acknowledge that they do have some nebulous impact but the moment you suggest that impact could perhaps take the form of material effects on reality such as people not being able to get food and medicine then you're a kook talking about little green alien men. Again, most recent sanctions that could have impact on ordinary people came in effect in 2017, and county went to poo poo way before that. Also, regime claims that 2.500 rolls of toilet paper stashed somewhere is a proof of economic warfare? Are you loving joking?
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Apr 18, 2019 18:26
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Zidrooner posted:And considering the US has tried to intervene before, in the 2002 coup attempt, I find it hard to believe they sat on their thumbs and didn't try to undermine the government in any way until recently. And imagine how much better off the average Venezuelan would be today if that coup succeeded.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:28
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Gervasius posted:Again, most recent sanctions that could have impact on ordinary people came in effect in 2017, and county went to poo poo way before that. Also, regime claims that 2.500 rolls of toilet paper stashed somewhere is a proof of economic warfare? Are you loving joking? I admit I have a real hard time wrapping my mind around how people take these kinds of ideas seriously. I mean the obvious explanation for one someone had stockpiled 400 packages of diapers is that they were going to sell them, presumably on the black market. Does black market trading constitute the economic war? While it will contribute to shortages in official stores, its not going to change the actual quantity of consumer goods available inside Venezuela. Hypothetically, if you were a nefarious capitalist plotting to take down government, what is the endgame of hording a few thousand rolls of toilet paper? Instead of buying up these goods, why not just take your money out of the country? None of it makes any sense to me at all. It doesn't help that the theories are so vague the "economic war" could mean almost anything. Its just completely nonsensical. My best explanation is that this is someone desperate to excuse the mistakes of Maduro and Chavez by grasping at straws. On the other hand it's also obvious to me that the sanctions are contributory variable to the shortages and economic decline. Trying to make sense of this argument I'm not sure anyone would really disagree with this. Many variables contribute to the shortages. What people disagree over is something else, people are disputing blame. If sanctions explain 25% of the economic contraction since 2014, and bad economic policies 75%, who is to blame when an unvaccinated child dies of measles? I'm not sure there's an answer to that question.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:53
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M. Discordia posted:And imagine how much better off the average Venezuelan would be today if that coup succeeded. indeed, just look at paradisical Guatemala, where an Abrams-endorsed coup introduced the children to modern home improvement techniques to such stellar economic results as- oh. oh dear.
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Apr 18, 2019 18:56
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Gervasius posted:Again, most recent sanctions that could have impact on ordinary people came in effect in 2017, and county went to poo poo way before that. Also, regime claims that 2.500 rolls of toilet paper stashed somewhere is a proof of economic warfare? Are you loving joking? It's 2019 now, and it was yesterday that article came out. When can we expect the sanctions you agree are bad to actually do bad things? Also don't you think that having the world's only superpower be actively hostile, as demonstrated by both the 2002 coup and also every single sanction, is going to make it difficult to run your country properly? Also the toilet paper article was an attempt to preempt you calling me a liar, there are many examples of this happening, I even remember video years ago of protesters forcing their way into a supermarket with empty shelves and lo and behold food was hidden in the back. But you're not even going to be open to the possibility of economic sabotage so I don't see why I should comb the internet for multiple examples when I know that no matter how many I find you're going to just call it all bullshit because "obviously" only the PSUV is to blame for anything. M. Discordia posted:And imagine how much better off the average Venezuelan would be today if that coup succeeded. I'm imagining people sliding back into the crushing poverty that Chavez was pulling them out of, but people like you not caring because there would not be any very Serious and Important articles written by the NYT and co about how badly people in VZ are suffering since their capitalist masters could go back to being able to rob them of their oil while only a tiny elite gets compensated.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:12
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Zidrooner posted:It's 2019 now, and it was yesterday that article came out. When can we expect the sanctions you agree are bad to actually do bad things? Also don't you think that having the world's only superpower be actively hostile, as demonstrated by both the 2002 coup and also every single sanction, is going to make it difficult to run your country properly? Also the toilet paper article was an attempt to preempt you calling me a liar, there are many examples of this happening, I even remember video years ago of protesters forcing their way into a supermarket with empty shelves and lo and behold food was hidden in the back. But you're not even going to be open to the possibility of economic sabotage so I don't see why I should comb the internet for multiple examples when I know that no matter how many I find you're going to just call it all bullshit because "obviously" only the PSUV is to blame for anything. Look, just help me out here. Can you explain the macro economics of the economic war for me? Why were stores hiding food in the back, how did this effect the economy, and how do you prevent it. Do you think this was coordinated activity? When a worker at a bakery receiving subsidized flour trades bread for fruit at a market evading price controls, is this also part of the economic war? Chavez in many ways follows the same political playbook as his predecessors. Before him Venezuelan leaders spread the wealth around too. When oil prices were good things were great, but when prices fell all of Chavez’s gains turned out to be ephemeral. Squalid fucked around with this message at 19:34 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 19:31
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Squalid posted:I admit I have a real hard time wrapping my mind around how people take these kinds of ideas seriously. I mean the obvious explanation for one someone had stockpiled 400 packages of diapers is that they were going to sell them, presumably on the black market. Does black market trading constitute the economic war? While it will contribute to shortages in official stores, its not going to change the actual quantity of consumer goods available inside Venezuela. The endgame would be the same as that of the sanctions : make life difficult for ordinary people so the government takes the blame and loses its support. Perhaps some are motivated solely by the profit of selling subsidized goods on the black market (even outside Venezuela, I recall hearing of cheap VZ food ending up illegally in Colombian shops), but it can also easily be both. People being required to get their necessities from the black market and pay more are going feel like they've been failed by the system. Why not take their money entirely out of the country? Maybe some did, but why not "invest" in the deligitimzation of a government you see as hostile to your profits and keep the good times rolling? Especially if a certain super power is on your side and has pledged to put your kind back in power?
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Apr 18, 2019 19:36
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Gervasius posted:Sanctions are dumb and counterproductive, no one is disagreeing about that. However, blaming sanctions on current humanitarian catastrophe is dumb as well, poo poo was bad waaaaaay before that. There is no one to blame for that but PSUV. Instead we got a government covering their ears and screaming that nothing is wrong over and over until this month.
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Apr 18, 2019 19:47
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Squalid posted:Look, just help me out here. Can you explain the macro economics of the economic war for me? Squalid posted:Why were stores hiding food in the back, how did this effect the economy, and how do you prevent it. Squalid posted:Do you think this was coordinated activity? Squalid posted:When a worker at a bakery receiving subsidized flour trades bread for fruit at a market evading price controls, is this also part of the economic war? Squalid posted:Chavez in many ways follows the same political playbook as his predecessors. Before him Venezuelan leaders spread the wealth around too. When oil prices were good things were great, but when prices fell all of Chavez’s gains turned out to be ephemeral.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:06
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Zidrooner posted:The endgame would be the same as that of the sanctions : make life difficult for ordinary people so the government takes the blame and loses its support. Perhaps some are motivated solely by the profit of selling subsidized goods on the black market (even outside Venezuela, I recall hearing of cheap VZ food ending up illegally in Colombian shops), but it can also easily be both. People being required to get their necessities from the black market and pay more are going feel like they've been failed by the system. I guess my main problem with the idea of the economic war is that under capitalism, it is essentially impossible for private capital to be motivated by anything besides profit. For the same reason under conventional Marxist theory there can never be a humanitarian capitalist whose business decisions are driven by their desire for people's welfare, the collective decision making of business can not be driven systemically by ideology. The demands of profit trump everything. It's not that there can't be other motivations, but that taking all industry as a whole, profit is a necessity and all other considerations will be bend to accommodate it. We also have substantial evidence that profit is the primary motivator for stockpiling and black market trades, as we have extensive documentary evidence in the form of interviews with participants at all levels of the supply chain from low level buyers, mid level distributors, to small and medium sized producers, to large scale importers. Have you seen any documentary evidence that there is a concerted campaign within Venezuela to use market manipulation to undermine the government? We have tons of interviews with people outright saying they were trying to achieve a military coup, we even have interviews with the masterminds behind the attempted assassination of Maduro. Bolton and the rest of the Trump admin are totally upfront about the fact that sanctions are designed to undermine support for Maduro by destroying Venezuelan export revenue, why wouldn't they be upfront if they were participating in other schemes? My question about the bakery employee trading bread for themselves wasn't hypothetical btw. That was taken directly from the Guardian documentary on the colectivo bakery. That woman was a blatant black marketer exploiting her control over the means of production to steal price controlled goods right off the shelves and trade it for her own private use. Is that not the economic war? To be honest I can't begrudge her. One will do as one must to survive. You seem to view all this through a very personal moral lens. You see black marketing as a moral failing. I tend to take a higher level view. This kind of behavior is the inevitable result of a deeply flawed political system. It is the product of bad policy, not bad morals. That there's a lot of evidence that the biggest players in the black market supports this view. Obviously they aren't trying to undermine their own government. You aren't going to fix anyone's morals, you have to fix the flaws in the system.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:06
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Squalid posted:Hypothetically, if you were a nefarious capitalist plotting to take down government, what is the endgame of hording a few thousand rolls of toilet paper? Instead of buying up these goods, why not just take your money out of the country? None of it makes any sense to me at all. It doesn't help that the theories are so vague the "economic war" could mean almost anything. Its just completely nonsensical. My best explanation is that this is someone desperate to excuse the mistakes of Maduro and Chavez by grasping at straws. I think my favorite economic warfare was when PSUV rolled out that nefarious foreign powers were hoarding billions of BSF banknotes abroad: https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/30-Tons-of-Venezuelan-Bolivar-Bills-Found-Hoarded-in-Paraguay-20170214-0005.html Yes, truly, some genius was hoarding 30 tons of BsF in Paraguay, because uhh, they uhh... ??? God that article is so offensively stupid, absolutely no one in the entire universe who is not mentally ill to the point of being unable to function in society would have ever "hoarded" 100 BsF notes. And no government would ever do that to destabilize Venezuela's economy, as it's both ineffective and a massive waste of money. Also let's do the math! 30 tons sounds like a LOT right? But it really, really isn't. In February 2017, at 400 BsF = $1 US, and a bill weighing approximately 1 gram, then 30 tons is 27 million notes of mixed 50s and 100s -- let's say an average of 75 BsF/note. This puts us at 2 billion BsF, or approximately 5 million USD. Wow so destabilizing! That said I can't even imagine how 30 tons (!) of BsF notes got to the Paraguay-Brazil border. Also that 30 tons of BsF notes could also be converted into 5 kilograms of Swiss francs (5000 * 1000 franc notes). Even better: that 30 tons of banknotes worth US$5 million in 2017 would be worth approximately US$1000 today, or a single Swiss franc note. 30 tons of BsF = 1 gram of Swiss francs.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:10
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Squalid posted:I guess my main problem with the idea of the economic war is that under capitalism, it is essentially impossible for private capital to be motivated by anything besides profit. For the same reason under conventional Marxist theory there can never be a humanitarian capitalist whose business decisions are driven by their desire for people's welfare, the collective decision making of business can not be driven systemically by ideology. The demands of profit trump everything. It's not that there can't be other motivations, but that taking all industry as a whole, profit is a necessity and all other considerations will be bend to accommodate it. That's not true at all though. The "principle agent" problem in economics is a well known phenomenon in which the people who run an organization don't always act in the best interests of the owners. A lot of decisions made by people within a corporation are focused on maintaining that individual's wealth andstatus, not increasing the profitability of the firm. Similarly, corporations tend to dislike government activism even in cases where that activism increases the rate of profit because they find it politically preferable to have a weak government that lacks the power to control their actions. From what I've read I'm inclined to agree that whatever else is happening in Venezuela, government policies have massively exacerbated shortages. But the idea that corporations aren't motivated by anything except a very narrow application of the profit margin is pretty silly. Large corporations are political entities with an obvious stake in the national leadership of their home country and the idea they are incapable of taking systematic political action in cases where they perceive their interests to be threatened isn't some kind of axiomatic truth we can all rely on. It's an argument that in every case relies on the specifics of the situation. In the abstract there's no reason to think corporations can't adsorb a short term drop in profitability in order to achieve some larger goal. It requires a degree of coordination that isn't always possible within the private sphere, but it's hardly impossible.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:28
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Zidrooner posted:Not very well, my intent was to challenge the "only and only Maduro can be blamed" narrative by pointing out that there were other actors involved who could have been motivated to exacerbate the situation for their own gain. Explaining in great detail how they would do so isn't something I consider myself well informed enough to speak on, and frankly I haven't seen great detail in the explanations of how and why Maduro has ruined the economy either. What do you think that IMF imposed austerity was? It was the IMF forcing Venezuela to cut generous redistributory policies because oil prices had crashed and Venezuela could no longer afford them. Today the exact same thing has happened again, because Chavez committed all the same mistakes as his predecessors, only this time dialed up to eleven. Venezuela today is under de facto austerity as all the social programs have collapsed for lack of funding. If you want a serious look at what went wrong with Venezuela's economy I can recommend this paper. Note it actually gives Chavez credit where credit is due: quote:The domestic side of the economy also shows striking contradictions. Venezuela shares with the region the remarkable recovery in socio-economic indicators of the standard of living. Poverty rates in Venezuela which were close to 50% in the late 1990s, registered a sharp drop to 23% in 2012 (Table 2). Contrary to what some observers may think, Venezuela’s singular good performance in terms of socio-economic indicators is not just a case of a growth dividend. GDP growth has been poor even with a very favorable movement in the terms of trade. This does not mean that poverty, inequality and well-being have not been affected by the commodity boom. The massive resources from oil-production and exports available to the government were used, as in the past, for important efforts to increase social spending. From 2004, centralized and extra budgetary public expenditure on education, health, social security, housing, and social development and participation rose. This new emphasis entailed the development of large-scale poverty reduction programs which were not very much under the conventional supervision or control of the Central Government. Over time, the abstract concept of ‘socialism’ became associated with the strategy of redistribution. Chavez reduced poverty. He did this by spending massively to increase the people's consumption of goods and services. However he didn't invest in his future, so when oil prices crashed Venezuela had nothing to fall back on. Not enough foreign reserves, not enough investment in domestic industry. It was good while the money lasted, but everyone should have know the money wouldn't last. The result is an economic crisis more severe than even that faced by the Soviet Union in 1989  Personally I don't like talking about abstract issues like "blame." As a materialist I barely believe in such a concept. Such are moral quandries and beyond our ability to analyze empirically. I'm interested in identifying specific the independent variables that explain a phenomena, maybe calculating what proportion they contribute, but i don't know what blame is and it doesn't interest me. Squalid fucked around with this message at 20:40 on Apr 18, 2019 |
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Apr 18, 2019 20:28
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Squalid posted:I guess my main problem with the idea of the economic war is that under capitalism, it is essentially impossible for private capital to be motivated by anything besides profit. For the same reason under conventional Marxist theory there can never be a humanitarian capitalist whose business decisions are driven by their desire for people's welfare, the collective decision making of business can not be driven systemically by ideology. The demands of profit trump everything. It's not that there can't be other motivations, but that taking all industry as a whole, profit is a necessity and all other considerations will be bend to accommodate it. The profit motive is why I described delegitimising the government as an "investment", but I admit I haven't seen any documentary evidence of this happening and you make a convincing argument for this simply being a result of policy. If some of the other posters who advocated the economic sabotage theory have some other angle to support it with I would be keen to hear it, but otherwise I am in fact no longer convinced of it.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:35
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Rust Martialis posted:Spent a week in Havana a few years ago. People should go while you have a chance. Don't go to Varadero, it's not really 'Cuba'. Talk to the waiter in your hotel who has never eaten in the restaurant next door because a steak costs 2 months salary. Talk to your tour guides, they are proud of Cuba. Wonderful people. Wow, it is truly amazing that they can't eat at a restaurant but can eat at home and have excellent healthcare. Truly the end of civilization. Is it this bad in Venezuela?
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Apr 18, 2019 20:36
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Helsing posted:That's not true at all though. The "principle agent" problem in economics is a well known phenomenon in which the people who run an organization don't always act in the best interests of the owners. A lot of decisions made by people within a corporation are focused on maintaining that individual's wealth andstatus, not increasing the profitability of the firm. Similarly, corporations tend to dislike government activism even in cases where that activism increases the rate of profit because they find it politically preferable to have a weak government that lacks the power to control their actions. I admit its not axiomatically true. However it becomes more true the larger the scale you look at, and the more players you involve. Corporations might be able to horde goods for a couple years, but these accusations go back a decade. A grocery store can't horde toilet paper for a decade, if it doesn't sell stuff eventually it just goes out of business. Probably one reason the black market is so healthy is that PSUV leaders know if they actually stopped it and forced everyone to sell at the regulated price, all the producers would just shut down. The black market may subsidize the regulated markets. One rich oligarch may take up a political project as their own private hobbyhorse, but long term that creates an opportunity for their rivals to exploit. Today many of the rich in Venezuela got that way through their ties with the Maduro or Chavez governments, and there's no reason to believe they are particularly motivated to overthrow it.
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Apr 18, 2019 20:37
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Judakel posted:Wow, it is truly amazing that they can't eat at a restaurant but can eat at home and have excellent healthcare. Truly the end of civilization. Is it this bad in Venezuela? It's a great society, and solidarity is high. I was offended by the idea a hard working Cuban could not afford to eat at a tourist restaurant. That there is a parallel, inaccessible economy available only to a relative few seems perverse to me. We gave what we brought with us, to musicians in the streets. One sax player kissed me on both cheeks for giving her a box of reeds. I was so happy to help even a little. Clearly I am not criticizing Cuba's people, or even their government's attempts to care for them. They've done wonders on a shoestring for over half a century. By all reports, it's far, far worse in Venezuela. While Cuba was in a sugar trap, compared to the oil trap of Venezuela, unlike Chavez and Maduro they didn't actively destroy the agricultural sector, did they? Plus sugar and tobacco and rum still sell a little, for Cuba, and tourism brings in dollars. In Venezuela, the government has basically destroyed the economy, and the crime rate has pretty much destroyed tourism. They had Cubans to run clinics for people, but the Cuban doctors seem to have left because they weren't getting paid either. Hardly an apt comparison. Cubans have food, Cubans have medicine, Cubans have stability. Venezuelans don't have any of that, and basically all of it thanks to the horrible mismanagement of the regime. I'm really at a loss to understand your point, if you had one. Cuba has better living conditions than Venezuela. This isn't news.
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Apr 18, 2019 23:04
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Apropos of nothing, Peruvian ex-president Alan Garcia apparently killed himself when police came to arrest him. https://www.washingtonpost.com/loca...m=.7d1838d9cf4b
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Apr 18, 2019 23:45
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Rust Martialis posted:It's a great society, and solidarity is high. I was offended by the idea a hard working Cuban could not afford to eat at a tourist restaurant. That there is a parallel, inaccessible economy available only to a relative few seems perverse to me. We gave what we brought with us, to musicians in the streets. One sax player kissed me on both cheeks for giving her a box of reeds. I was so happy to help even a little. Clearly I am not criticizing Cuba's people, or even their government's attempts to care for them. They've done wonders on a shoestring for over half a century. There are people here who can't afford to eat an expensive restaurants. HERE!
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Apr 19, 2019 00:17
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCSx7bolyKY I know hes not Venezuelan but its youtube cooking celebrity Alex! Before he was big. e:wow his older videos didn't age well Shaocaholica fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Apr 19, 2019 |
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Apr 19, 2019 00:21
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Y’all making me hongry. In LA FYI.
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Apr 19, 2019 01:24
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Shaocaholica posted:Y’all making me hongry. In LA FYI. Left sign making me lose 2 years in my eyes from when I worked at an arapera
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Apr 19, 2019 01:42
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Apr 19, 2019 04:34
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Speaking of starving: sanctions are starving people in Venezuela.
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Apr 19, 2019 05:33
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