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Pablo Nergigante posted:Vanessa Neumann this tweet was still getting angry gusano replies months later https://twitter.com/Manuchobi/status/1113065013579702274 https://twitter.com/Manuchobi/status/1113069497294950400
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May 23, 2019 04:12
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Discendo Vox posted:Still not an illegal seizure per the laws multiple people have described to you at length, I reviewed the last several pages and I don't think anyone even argued that it was legal. Kind of an incredible act of gaslighting to not only aver that the seizure was legal but that its legality has already been explained at length, obviating any need to do so further. In fact I am confident that the seizure was not legal, and that the embassy protectors were charged as they were to avoid having to confront that fact. Of course, these sort of disputes would have been adjudicated by the dispute resolution mechanisms of the Vienna Protocol itself - if the United States had not unilaterally withdrawn from those mechanisms in 2018 as a direct result of a Palestinian challenge to the proposed move of the US embassy to Jerusalem. Now, the United States acts in a lawless manner as usual and justifying itself with "might makes right" after the fact. By that law, and that law only, can the embassy seizure be justified.
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May 23, 2019 04:23
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Blue Nation posted:I think the vídeo should be available now. welp, that looks miserable. How does the line even work? Away from the front nobody was even standing with their motos, did they take a number? It didn't even look like they had fuel at the gas station. . .
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May 23, 2019 04:36
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Blue Nation posted:I recorded the people waiting for gasoline today, I apologize for the shakiness. Those cars are in a queue? How does that work? I didn’t see any drivers in them, or many gaps in the line — do people just come once a day and move up a few spaces? I saw a ton of people on bikes though, does that queue move much faster and it’s separate from the car where? How long does that take to get through roughly? How do you deal with it — send someone from your farm to fill up a bunch of vehicles? E: whoops next page that I missed and basically the same question as Squalid
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May 23, 2019 08:59
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Seraphic Sphere posted:You guys live in a literally inverted reality. I mean, "corruption", are you out of your mind? The Colombian government is murdering leftwing and human rights activists, not to mention ordinary civilians, every single day. They're not just more corrupt than Venezuela's military, they're actual CIA trained fascists. drat I had such high hopes for Colombia. After both sides allegedly demobilized and President Santos tried to turn FARC into a political party I stopped keeping tabs on Colombia but from these Human Rights Watch reports that I'm reading, the majority of illegal combatants didn't demobilize, they merely formed splinter groups, and Colombian officers are given a perverse incentive to kill civilians because they get bonuses and promotions for a higher bodycount of "rebels". I remember an older statistic which said that right-wing death squads, allegedly there to defend themselves against FARC, were actually responsible for 75% of the total murders of innocent people. I was pretty hopeful that Uribe and Santos would work with the remaining FARC leaders to turn things around and it really bums me out that the horrible violence is still pervasive there. Also, I know many people in here have complained that the US has the Venezuelan embassy under siege, but from everything I've read, Venezuela had already closed their embassy and it's now being occupied by US leftist activists while actual Venezuelan diaspora protest outside it.
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May 23, 2019 11:41
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I remember one of the Venegoons in this thread explaining how the CLAP system worked a long time ago. He said that they'll first pocket much of the money, then buy rotten, damaged, and otherwise low quality produce mostly from Mexico, and buy it at a laughably high markup in exchange for kickbacks. It will then be given to military units who quite often sell it on the black market and the food that actually reaches Venezuelans primarily goes to Maduro supporters. They also claimed that Maduro himself was the primary financial beneficiary of this program. I don't know how true any of this is, but it seems to line up with what other sources had to say on the subject. BTW, for reference, I'm not a Guaidó supporter and I think he's insane for asking for US military intervention. This guy thinks Donald Trump and John Bolton are the answer? It's laughably naive and stupid, and it's clear these new rounds of sanctions against the PDVSA have destroyed Venezuela's economy while further entrenching the PSUV leadership that holds all the power. I'm not pro-Trump, I'm not pro-Maduro, I'm not pro-Guaido. I'm pro-Venezeulans. I want them to have basic foods, basic medical care, and basic civil rights.
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May 23, 2019 12:19
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Sergg posted:I remember one of the Venegoons in this thread explaining how the CLAP system worked a long time ago. He said that they'll first pocket much of the money, then buy rotten, damaged, and otherwise low quality produce mostly from Mexico, and buy it at a laughably high markup in exchange for kickbacks. It will then be given to military units who quite often sell it on the black market and the food that actually reaches Venezuelans primarily goes to Maduro supporters. They also claimed that Maduro himself was the primary financial beneficiary of this program. This poo poo makes absolutely no sense on any level. We're talking a government program, so Maduro has the money from the get-go. If he's the primary financial beneficiary, then why doesn't he just pocket all of the cash in the first place instead of going through some Rube Goldberg-esque corruption machine? Also if the food is sold at the black market, how exactly are they able to target the aid to Maduro supporters? Also, if what they get is solely lovely and semi-inedible stuff, how exactly is this a way to buy loyalty from anyone? How's any of this even gonna work in theory? I don't have high hopes for the "other sources" if about two minutes of critical thinking is all that you need to refute them.
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May 23, 2019 12:38
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Or venezeula is so starved and messed up that people will settle for a CLAP package and it’s only a token few folks who get the CLAP packages. The amount of mismanagement going on in this country is comical like video game levels of wacky. And we don’t need to blame America for that just as we don’t need to blame USA for North Korea or 1960s China
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May 23, 2019 13:00
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caberham posted:Or venezeula is so starved and messed up that people will settle for a CLAP package and it’s only a token few folks who get the CLAP packages. Sounds like we really don't have good data on CLAP and it is worthless to speculate on the program itself. Similar with claims of mismanagement, particularly without acknowledging the circumstances, both external and internal. This isn't some dril tweet where maduro is pulling levers for "economy", "agriculture", etc.
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May 23, 2019 13:16
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Cerebral Bore posted:This poo poo makes absolutely no sense on any level. We're talking a government program, so Maduro has the money from the get-go. If he's the primary financial beneficiary, then why doesn't he just pocket all of the cash in the first place instead of going through some Rube Goldberg-esque corruption machine? Also if the food is sold at the black market, how exactly are they able to target the aid to Maduro supporters? Also, if what they get is solely lovely and semi-inedible stuff, how exactly is this a way to buy loyalty from anyone? How's any of this even gonna work in theory? What's so unusual and rude golberg-esque about a simple kickback scheme that requires cover for all participants to not get punished? Everyone with oversight up the ladder ending at the very top (since it is a massive government program) gets a cut so the distributors can turn profit from it and not be afraid of prosecution. Once someone pockets more than allowed and doesnt make a cut, heads gonna roll to show the public how corruption is dealt with, before the replacement is found. And it is not that difficult to target who is gonna receive aid, especially since Maduro support is mostly rural and areas of high support can be determined.
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May 23, 2019 13:16
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fatherboxx posted:What's so unusual and rude golberg-esque about a simple kickback scheme that requires cover for all participants to not get punished? Everyone with oversight up the ladder ending at the very top (since it is a massive government program) gets a cut so the distributors can turn profit from it and not be afraid of prosecution. Once someone pockets more than allowed and doesnt make a cut, heads gonna roll to show the public how corruption is dealt with, before the replacement is found. If corruption is endemic and used as a way to buy loyalty, then why would you require cover? And why would private food importers and distributors get a cut in the first place if the point is to enrich Maduro and his officials? If you're running a kickback scheme you generally don't give money to people who by and large hate you and want you gone. Makes no sense. fatherboxx posted:And it is not that difficult to target who is gonna receive aid, especially since Maduro support is mostly rural and areas of high support can be determined. Cool. Now tell me how giving somebody food poisoning is going to buy their support. Like, seriously, this poo poo is just dumb as gently caress. Especially if corruption is comical you would expect all involved parties to act strictly out of self-interest, but this here conspiracy theory requires Maduro & co to act against their own self-interest, which is how you know it's propaganda.
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May 23, 2019 13:57
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Blue Nation posted:I recorded the people waiting for gasoline today, I apologize for the shakiness. Are those numbers right? Wouldn't that mean that they have the lowest average purchasing power of any nation in the world right now?
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May 23, 2019 14:28
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536 posted:Are those numbers right? Wouldn't that mean that they have the lowest average purchasing power of any nation in the world right now? Even if the numbers are right, gotta be careful not to assume one anecdote is sufficient to track macro trends.
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May 23, 2019 14:34
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Cerebral Bore posted:Like, seriously, this poo poo is just dumb as gently caress. Especially if corruption is comical you would expect all involved parties to act strictly out of self-interest, but this here conspiracy theory requires Maduro & co to act against their own self-interest, which is how you know it's propaganda. As someone who has actually witnessed and dealt with corruption in developing countries, the amount of skimming, the damage being dealt by the skimming, the frequency of skimming, is extremely opaque. So who knows? It’s a mixture of greed, malice, inept, and most important of all, lack of oversight
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May 23, 2019 15:29
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caberham posted:As someone who has actually witnessed and dealt with corruption in developing countries, If we literally cannot know, then why are we acting as if the theory has any merit to it? Also, as someone with basic reasoning skills, you generally do corruption to benefit yourself and not your enemies.
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May 23, 2019 15:47
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https://twitter.com/KatieBoWill/status/1131580132349612032
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May 23, 2019 16:23
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Cerebral Bore posted:If we literally cannot know, then why are we acting as if the theory has any merit to it? I'm a little confused what parts of the theory you think lack merit? Even if you don't trust US prosecutors and the Treasury Department, there is a substantial body of evidence available from criminal investigations in Colombia and Mexico, as well as by private journalists. For one example, you can see the article posted by GoluboiOgon on the last page. Overbilling of the program is well documented, at best you can argue about scale. I'm not sure what enemies you think this kind of corruption would benefit. Alex Saab and business people from Mexico and Turkey are not Maduro's enemies. Distribution failures, in which CLAP boxes are not delivered as scheduled and often without promised components, are also well documented by on the ground reporting. The poor quality of food transported has also been documented by officials in places like Colombia. This was probably not part of a concerted strategy by Maduro officials, but rather done on the initiative of the private importers looking to increase their take and confident nobody taking kickbacks would make any noise. If you wonder why anyone would bother with these complex schemes when they already run the government, well if you want to spend that money in Miami you're going to need to launder it and at least maintain the pretense that you came by it legitimately. I'm not sure where the US Treasury got their numbers when it estimated 70% of funds allocated to CLAP were being diverted but if you are interested I could try and dig up the documents in which they made that allegation and see how they support it.
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May 23, 2019 16:38
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fatherboxx posted:What's so unusual and rude golberg-esque about a simple kickback scheme that requires cover for all participants to not get punished? Why would the de facto leader of the country and the armed forced of said country need to do a kickback scheme to steal gov't money for himself and not be punished when he could just... steal gov't money? Who is gonna punish him otherwise, himself? Squalid posted:This was probably not part of a concerted strategy by Maduro officials, but rather done on the initiative of the private importers looking to increase their take and confident nobody taking kickbacks would make any noise. Well that's kind of the crux of the matter isn't it? One side is asserting this is all orchestrated by Maduro for his own direct benefit. If actually this is just how business is done in South America because it is a fuckzone then that's not really Maduro's fault. I wonder how much skimming is happening in Brazil right now. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 18:31 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 18:26
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Squalid posted:This was probably not part of a concerted strategy by Maduro officials, but rather done on the initiative of the private importers looking to increase their take and confident nobody taking kickbacks would make any noise. By the way this is how half (at least) of industries in the USA operate. Private entities take it upon themselves to do shady poo poo for more money, gov't officials look the other way after being bribed. That's how markets function - and you're mad because Venezuela has to deal with these people when VZ buys stuff from markets? Wasn't it just mentioned on the other page that the private food importer dude was grifting for like $50m and meanwhile is complaining about a few mil in bribes? Still don't see how the USA has any moral high ground to go in and start throwing weight around. quote:If you wonder why anyone would bother with these complex schemes when they already run the government, well if you want to spend that money in Miami you're going to need to launder it and at least maintain the pretense that you came by it legitimately. So while HSBC and other such banks are literally laundering ISIS money, drug cartel money, etc., (by the billions) Venezuela just has to do some weird trick to launder theirs? Why? DB just admitted they haven't even been monitoring the last 10 years of laundering because of a "glitch." quote:I'm not sure where the US Treasury got their numbers when it estimated 70% of funds allocated to CLAP were being diverted but if you are interested I could try and dig up the documents in which they made that allegation and see how they support it. I am, yeah. I trust US Treasury sources about Venezuela about as much as I trust the average GBS poster. Less even, actually. Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 18:36 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 18:32
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Sergg posted:drat I had such high hopes for Colombia. After both sides allegedly demobilized and President Santos tried to turn FARC into a political party I stopped keeping tabs on Colombia but from these Human Rights Watch reports that I'm reading, the majority of illegal combatants didn't demobilize, they merely formed splinter groups, and Colombian officers are given a perverse incentive to kill civilians because they get bonuses and promotions for a higher bodycount of "rebels". It's a far more complicated situation than what you (and the person this was written in response to) are describing here, but a couple of points should be made. In a few words, it's not a simplistic "fascists versus non-fascists" scenario. Colombia has experienced a long, dynamic conflict with multiple sides, not just two or three, so none of the factions are uniform nor monolithic in terms of their intentions, behaviors and responsibilities for crimes. Say, Uribe and Santos ended up being entirely different animals. It's not a simple matter of unilateral violence in either direction. Sadly, it's also a country that has grown accustomed to seeing many local disputes (over everything from land ownership, drug production and cattle robbery to illegal mining operations, political partisanship and multinational projects) resolved through the use of force. Even a left-wing government couldn't use a magic wand to resolve all of this, particularly because the state itself is essentially absent from much of the countryside and thus regional powerbrokers have more influence than any central administration in remote areas. Demobilization attempts have had uneven results, but I would argue the general trend is positive, not negative, and there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between the former entities and the splinter groups. The peace process with the FARC remains controversial within Colombia (with the underlying political situation resembling the Brexit debacle, more or less, because the initial deal was formally rejected in a referendum), but overall it has been a significant factor in terms of reducing violence from all sources. Does that mean there is complete peace and love right now? No, but many people have felt an improvement and many others are doing their best to build peace, so to speak, even in the face of sectors who strongly opposed the peace deal. That shouldn't be underestimated and it is still a good thing, even if there are underlying structural issues no one can "fix" in the blink of an eye. Paramilitaries are definitely the most to blame for the majority of political killings of civilians. That doesn't mean the FARC lacked blood on their hands over the years, which adds up to a lot in any cumulative count, but they often used different methods of victimization beyond murder (so-called armed strikes or blockades, threats, kidnappings, extortion, forced displacement, attacks on pipelines causing oil spills, land mines, child exploitation, sexual violence, etc). The Colombian military isn't lacking corruption nor a record of human rights abuses either. Nonetheless, the bodycount policy you're describing reached its peak around 2008. After that point, both HRW and AI reported a significant downward trend in those types of horrific killings because measures were taken in order to discourage them. There's a risk that the current administration is once again pressuring soldiers to obtain results, as recently reported in the New York Times, but they're getting pushback even from within the military for attempting it. wielder fucked around with this message at 18:56 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 18:46
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Moridin920 posted:Why would the de facto leader of the country and the armed forced of said country need to do a kickback scheme to steal gov't money for himself and not be punished when he could just... steal gov't money? Who is gonna punish him otherwise, himself? Moridin920 posted:That's how markets function - and you're mad because Venezuela has to deal with these people when VZ buys stuff from markets? Wasn't it just mentioned on the other page that the private food importer dude was grifting for like $50m and meanwhile is complaining about a few mil in bribes? If you already don't trust Treasury why would you even want to hear what they have to say? I'm not going to bother digging it up if you've already dismissed it. It's probably boring and short on detail anyway. I'm not sure I understand you're going with this, you're kind of all of the place so it is difficult to respond. I don't think anyone "is asserting this is all orchestrated by Maduro for his own direct benefit," or at least I am not. As far as I understand it, neither Maduro or Chavez have ever been found to have personally taken kickbacks to enrich themselves. Chavez famously idolized Bolivar who was know for be incorruptible, and it makes sense that he would have imitated him in this respect, especially when he could enjoy the perks of office anyway. Maduro has been implicated in money laundering as part of Brazil's lavo jato investigation, but he was illegally funneling government money into a political campaign, iirc. What I would blame Maduro and Chavez for is constructing a political and economic system that is particularly vulnerable to exploitation. Chavez may not have stolen money to spend on himself, but he also apparently did nothing to reign it in, and possibly actively fostering it. Maduro has continued this policy. This is demonstrated in the fact that numerous people close to them quickly became millionaires, and have been caught smuggling drugs or in other illicit activity. When corruption is exposed, as with the kick back grift you referred to, nothing is done no matter the severity and obviousness of the crime. Nobody is punishing anybody, no matter how blatant the crime. You can fairly argue that corruption exists in all countries. The best evidence we have though would suggest that it is especially bad in Venezuela, on par with Iraq and Afghanistan under US occupation. Further, Venezuelans currency policy was clearly very bad, and created opportunities for illegal arbitrage that would not exist in a sane system. In a better system this kind of graft would not exist, and yet nothing is done to reform it. Similarly CLAP is a very badly designed policy. If those food imports were handled by private importers they wouldn't be over billing for bad food to get kickbacks, and if distribution wasn't handled by an underpaid military, soldiers wouldn't be siphoning goods out of the warehouses. If it is important to you that this be under government control, then the programs should have better supervision. These kinds of problems have obvious solutions, and so it is the fault of policymakers for not fixing them. As to why they would bother with complicated schemes when they could just take money directly? Well remember Venezuela has only gradually changed into its present form, two decades ago the judiciary and other institutions were much more independent. A lot of politics in the last ten years has also been over who controls the budget, the National Assembly or the President. There's a lot internal bureaucratic stuff that has to be accounted for, and over-billing and kickbacks are one way to move cash around. Even today Maduro still obviously values having popular support, and if money is being stolen it makes sense to at least keep up appearances. All these points will I think be of little interest to the people criticizing sanctions on Venezuelan officials profiting from CLAP anyway. Even if 70% of cash is being diverted, that's still some money spent on the people. Hard to predict what the actual effect will be in advance unfortunately.
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May 23, 2019 19:44
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Squalid posted:I'm a little confused what parts of the theory you think lack merit? This whole conversation started with somebody positing a theory that the main benefactor of all the CLAP corruption was Maduro, and hence that it was all orchestrated by him personally. It's not many posts up if you wanna see for yourself. This is loving dumb, because the very same people who believe this also claim that CLAP is just a way for Maduro to buy popularity, which is clearly impossible if the people who are supposed to be bought off don't get anything of value because all the money is going to Maduro's personal Empanada slush fund.
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May 23, 2019 20:09
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Well he is the main benefactor in the sense that it supports him politically. Less so by getting him public support, and more so through giving his generals access to patronage. It probably is supported by a lot of people who rely on it of course, even if it is an inefficient way to distribute resources. Edit: i think it plausible maduro does benefit personally from corruption, but I don’t know if there is evidence for it. The idea that he could be oblivious to what is going on strains credulity. Squalid fucked around with this message at 20:19 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 20:14
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Squalid posted:Well he is the main benefactor in the sense that it supports him politically. Less so by getting him public support, and more so through giving his generals access to patronage. It probably is supported by a lot of people who rely on it of course, even if it is an inefficient way to distribute resources. i dunno why the generals would go along with this and not flock to guaido if they're so corrupt since guaido had a guy advocating for selling international aid on the free market advising him Condiv fucked around with this message at 20:21 on May 23, 2019 |
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May 23, 2019 20:17
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Condiv posted:i dunno why the generals would go along with this and not flock to guaido if they're so corrupt since guaido had a guy advocating for selling international aid on the free market advising him if its sold on the free market how would the army benefit? you're gonna have to walk me through this one. . . anyway one theory people have for why corruption was tolerated under Chavez (more so than under his predecessors) was that after the 2002 coup he felt insecure and wanted to bolster support with the military and other sectors. Providing opportunities for corruption was a way to reward officials, but also something that could be held over their head as a threat. Turn against him, and they could be prosecuted. If there is a change in government, many of them could be vulnerable to prosecution again. This is one reason the issue of amnesty for defecting officials kept getting brought up.
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May 23, 2019 20:34
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The point is that if the army's loyalty is simply bought is seems odd that they wouldn't side with the guy who has the entire western world and it's financial muscle holding his back. Because that's how it usually goes.
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May 23, 2019 20:45
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Squalid posted:Well he is the main benefactor in the sense that it supports him politically. Less so by getting him public support, and more so through giving his generals access to patronage. It probably is supported by a lot of people who rely on it of course, even if it is an inefficient way to distribute resources. as far as I can tell (which includes US asset freezes and such, where you better believe they'd be publicizing Maduro's 80m mansion in Miami or whatever), Maduro doesn't actually seem to be personally pocketing much, his estimated net worth is in the low seven figures which is absolutely nothing compared to some of the other PSUV higher ups. Annual government expenditures on him and his family are very high, but either he's successfully concealing his non-budgeted earnings, or he's perfectly happy to live high on the hog right now with no more future planning for his own finances than for the country's. I find one of these scenarios more likely than the other.
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May 23, 2019 20:49
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Sergg posted:I remember one of the Venegoons in this thread explaining how the CLAP system worked a long time ago. He said that they'll first pocket much of the money, then buy rotten, damaged, and otherwise low quality produce mostly from Mexico, and buy it at a laughably high markup in exchange for kickbacks. It will then be given to military units who quite often sell it on the black market and the food that actually reaches Venezuelans primarily goes to Maduro supporters. They also claimed that Maduro himself was the primary financial beneficiary of this program. There seem to be internal contradictions. First they outright pocket a big chunk of the money, and then they spend the rest of it on buying a small amount of rotting food for well over its market price, and then they give that food to the military to sell to Maduro supporters in the black markets to buy further loyalty? Any one of those steps substantially reduces the usefulness of the other two steps. For example, if you're buying crappy inedible food, that makes it far less effective to bribe people with that food. And both pocketing money and running a kickback scheme with the rest just increases the risk of being caught compared to only using one method of embezzlement. I'm not saying it's not all true, since there have been plenty of hilariously stupid and incompetent grifters throughout history, but it does reduce the plausibility of the story and raise the possibility that maybe a bunch of unrelated allegations (some true, some untrue) are being bundled together and exaggerated in order to push a narrative, piggybacking off a preexisting narrative that's been around for a while.
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May 23, 2019 21:18
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Squalid posted:if its sold on the free market how would the army benefit? you're gonna have to walk me through this one. . . guaido's guys would sell it to the generals, who would sell it at a markup. boom. the generals win, guaido's corrupt aid selling administration wins
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May 23, 2019 21:34
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Who cares, even if 90% of the money were being stolen/wasted, the idea that taking away what food does make it to the people is somehow an improvement is insane. Well I guess it's only insane if the value of lives in the Global South is worth more than zero in your personal calculus, if poor foreigners don't rate as human than yeah sure starve as many as it takes to mildly inconvenience someone you don't like.
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May 23, 2019 21:36
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Condiv posted:guaido's guys would sell it to the generals, who would sell it at a markup. boom. the generals win, guaido's corrupt aid selling administration wins if the aid was sold to the generals, acting in their capacity as military figures, it would mean distribution was not privatized, as it would be handled by the state. I don't fully understand the scenario you envision, since why would the Venezuelan state even possess the aid in the first place, and have the right to sell it at all? That article you provided is not clear on this point. Presumably if the goal is privatization that aid would not pass through the hands of the state at all. Main Paineframe posted:There seem to be internal contradictions. First they outright pocket a big chunk of the money, and then they spend the rest of it on buying a small amount of rotting food for well over its market price, and then they give that food to the military to sell to Maduro supporters in the black markets to buy further loyalty? Any one of those steps substantially reduces the usefulness of the other two steps. For example, if you're buying crappy inedible food, that makes it far less effective to bribe people with that food. And both pocketing money and running a kickback scheme with the rest just increases the risk of being caught compared to only using one method of embezzlement. Of course there are contradictions. None of this is handled by one person, there's no master plan. There's a lot of parallel issues with related causes but they aren't all the product of Maduro's evil schemes. He does seem to have a lot of his own schemes though, I recommend reading that Bloomberg article i linked earlier about Alex Saab. If there was an actual long term plan the country might not be falling apart. Ultimately untangling these questions incredibly difficult, even for journalists and experts in forensic accounting. Rather than a single coherent narrative all we have are disjointed statements released in Mexican courts, or the transcripts of testimony in Brazilian cases, or a confusing mess of allegations and dropped charges in Colombia. Outside the US government there are essentially no organizations capable of cataloging and tracking these kinds issues, and if you cannot trust them you must accept that you will never have all the pieces necessary to put the full puzzle together. Fortunately we are not a jury and Maduro is not on trial. We do not need to meet the threshold of reasonable doubt, we can set our own standards of confidence. If we are right or not hardly matters, since none of us here set policy anyway.
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May 23, 2019 22:07
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion: If we are right or not hardly matters
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May 23, 2019 22:12
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from those articles Squalid linked, it seems like CLAP buys from shady sources not out of choice, but because if they tried to use less shady importers, the importers would get sanctioned by the us. that elaborate gold exchange scheme seems to exist for a similar reason. in such a situation, the importers are holding all the cards, and make bank by charging 110% marked up prices and sending their rotten inventory. the venezuelan government can't easily switch suppliers because of the sanctions. what are they going to do, not buy food? seems like the best way to fix this would be for the us to end sanctions, so that the CLAP program could buy better quality food for cheaper. also, this thread needs this image Echo Chamber posted:what have i done
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May 23, 2019 22:16
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wielder posted:It's a far more complicated situation than what you (and the person this was written in response to) are describing here, but a couple of points should be made. In a few words, it's not a simplistic "fascists versus non-fascists" scenario. I appreciate your attempt to educate the readers of this thread but most of these are things I've been aware of for many years. I only stopped following the news coming out of Colombia when Santos' referendum to give FARC a political party failed and he was searching for some kind of solution to integrate them by working around the referendum. I'm also well aware that the other major leftist guerrilla fighters, the ELN, have continued their war. Nevertheless I still was unaware of many things in your post and I'm glad you were able to impart your knowledge. Main Paineframe posted:There seem to be internal contradictions. First they outright pocket a big chunk of the money, and then they spend the rest of it on buying a small amount of rotting food for well over its market price, and then they give that food to the military to sell to Maduro supporters in the black markets to buy further loyalty? Any one of those steps substantially reduces the usefulness of the other two steps. For example, if you're buying crappy inedible food, that makes it far less effective to bribe people with that food. And both pocketing money and running a kickback scheme with the rest just increases the risk of being caught compared to only using one method of embezzlement. I'm relating the anecdotes told to me by the Venezuelans themselves who used to post in this forum. I believe they were trying to convey that corruption exists at every level of this chain of transactions. Maduro doesn't outright steal every penny because he has a political and military patronage network to support up and down the line. They buy inferior products at above-market value for kickbacks so both the Mexican food suppliers and the purchasers profit from the deal, then the food is handed over to the military for distribution and lack of discipline and oversight allows the military to simply take much of this food and sell it on the black market. Because of the constant hyperinflation and price controls people have been desperate for years and many goods from many distributors, both private and public, have been selling their wares on the black market. The military is by no means the only culprit. The Venegoons named many examples of similar schemes happening, such as a new bridge being built or a river being dredged. It was always someone important's brother or cousin who got the deal, usually someone well-connected within the government through nepotism. The project would begin, get finished a quarter of the way, and the rest of the funds would simply disappear and they'd be left with 25% of a bridge just languishing there. I think one of the most poignant examples of this kind of corruption was when Venezuela's former treasurer, Alejandro Andrade, a man who started his career as one of Hugo Chavez's bodyguards, was arrested for accumulating $1.2 billion dollars from embezzlement and bribes. So yes, there are many officials at the top who are simply skipping the middle-man and straight-up stealing the money. Venezuela's former oil minister was also arrested last year and accused of stealing $500 million. Foreign banks in the US and Europe are helping them launder the money and have also been caught up in these scandals.
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May 23, 2019 22:19
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Squalid posted:if the aid was sold to the generals, acting in their capacity as military figures, it would mean distribution was not privatized, as it would be handled by the state. I don't fully understand the scenario you envision, since why would the Venezuelan state even possess the aid in the first place, and have the right to sell it at all? That article you provided is not clear on this point. Presumably if the goal is privatization that aid would not pass through the hands of the state at all. ok squalid, since you're confused, let me explain things for you. this is not the scenario I envisioned. this is the scenario that guaido's economic advisor envisioned. he wants to use market forces to distribute international aid only to those who really need it. yes it's stupid, but that's just the kind of person guaido is hanging out with so, on to your issues with privatization. the generals would not be acting in their capacity as military figures, they would be acting as entrepreneurs in this case who would sell the "aid". you might say "that sounds corrupt" but it'd be ok because it'd be capitalism and that'd make trump and the rest of the first world happy. any other issues?
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May 23, 2019 22:19
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At this point, with people starving to death and eating out of trash cans and children knifing each other over trash rummaging territory, I don't know if you could rely on anyone living in those conditions to fairly and equitably deliver food aid. You would essentially need the Red Cross or United Nations to step in and that would come with its own set of issues because what happens if the UN food aid gets stolen or UN peacekeepers are killed like in Somalia?
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May 23, 2019 22:38
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Condiv posted:ok squalid, since you're confused, let me explain things for you. this is not the scenario I envisioned. this is the scenario that guaido's economic advisor envisioned. he wants to use market forces to distribute international aid only to those who really need it. yes it's stupid, but that's just the kind of person guaido is hanging out with I'm not sure your vision of how this would play out makes sense, mainly because I think it would be more difficult for military figures to live a double life as a grocer than you are imagining. I have heard rumors about the Venezuelan military using frontmen to obtain stakes in private businesses and foreign investments, but the reason they are able to do that is the power they get as insiders working within the state. Anyway, even if some generals could profit from this arrangement, it still isn't that surprising it hasn't been enough to flip generals away from Maduro. Obviously they are accounting for a lot of other variables in their decision making as well. Incidentally one of the most one known fronts for Maduro officials is Samark López Bello, who is reported to handle much of Tareck El Aissami's business under the table. GoluboiOgon posted:from those articles Squalid linked, it seems like CLAP buys from shady sources not out of choice, but because if they tried to use less shady importers, the importers would get sanctioned by the us. that elaborate gold exchange scheme seems to exist for a similar reason. in such a situation, the importers are holding all the cards, and make bank by charging 110% marked up prices and sending their rotten inventory. the venezuelan government can't easily switch suppliers because of the sanctions. what are they going to do, not buy food? wait is that in the Bloomberg article? Did this start with the last round of sanctions implemented this year? What I remember from reading it yesterday was that a lot of the importers are actually fronts for Venezuelan businesses run by people like Alex Saab, and therefore the Venezuelan government is likely closely involved in everything they do. Anyway the Venezuela has a lot of other potential policy options than the janky CLAP system, although none of them could make up for the fundamental issue of the foreign currency shortage.
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May 23, 2019 23:01
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Squalid posted:
Considering that the US is now directly targeting Venezuela's food aid programs with sanctions, I'm pretty sure it does matter whether any of this stuff is true or not. And if you're saying that you don't need any actual evidence to believe claims that line up with your preexisting belief, then you're just posting fantasy, not reality. Yes, untangling these questions is incredibly difficult, and in many cases there is simply no clear evidence for them one way or another. That's not an excuse to just go ahead and believe whatever you want to believe. Condiv posted:ok squalid, since you're confused, let me explain things for you. this is not the scenario I envisioned. this is the scenario that guaido's economic advisor envisioned. he wants to use market forces to distribute international aid only to those who really need it. yes it's stupid, but that's just the kind of person guaido is hanging out with You misread Hausmann's proposal. He wasn't saying that the Guaido government would sell the food aid to Venezuelans. He was saying that international organizations would sell the food aid directly to the Venezuelan private sector, sending the food directly to merchants and grocery stores without any government involvement at all. How is that any different from regular food imports? As far as I can tell, the only difference is that under his plan the food is donated to the international aid organizations for free, so selling that free aid to Venezuela for market prices has a 100% profit margin, which the article says would fund other charity efforts (but also probably enables all sorts of fascinating grift, embezzlement, and kickback schemes). Sure, I have no evidence showing that it would be embezzled, but Squalid tells us we don't need evidence - we can just go with our guts.
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May 23, 2019 23:13
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Condiv posted:i dunno why the generals would go along with this and not flock to guaido if they're so corrupt since guaido had a guy advocating for selling international aid on the free market advising him I think you're working with a caricatured idea of what corruption looks like in practice. It's not hard to believe that plenty of government figures have some actual ideological belief in the government but also engage in corrupt double dealings in an environment where such behavior is normalized. The line between corruption and belief in the system isn't as cleanly delineated as we're trained to think it is - a quick glance at the development of any wealthy nation today would show that typically the great founders and statesmen were engaged in nakedly corrupt dealings and profited handsomely from their political actions. Humans can be both ideological and venal at the same time. I also think you're underestimating the extent to which humans are often risk averse and inclined to value a beneficial status quo more highly than a hypothetically superior alternative. If Guaido became President then he would have to distribute rewards to secure his new administration, which would come at the expense of some current insiders. If you're placed high up enough in the current government then it makes sense that you don't want to risk shaking up the status quo, even if it's possible you could get an equally good or better deal from the new guy. I'm not sure if this is actually what is happening here but it's not as implausible as you're suggesting.
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May 23, 2019 23:23
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Main Paineframe posted:Considering that the US is now directly targeting Venezuela's food aid programs with sanctions, I'm pretty sure it does matter whether any of this stuff is true or not. And if you're saying that you don't need any actual evidence to believe claims that line up with your preexisting belief, then you're just posting fantasy, not reality. that wasn't what i said. I said we don't have to meet a standard like beyond a reasonable doubt to come to make a reasoned conclusion. We aren't testing ideas against a 95% confidence interval. Instead we are presented with a confusing array of anecdotes, and must do our best to interpret them. That means we can't really estimate on our own what proportion of the CLAP budget is embezzled or otherwise quantify effects. We can be reasonably certain about the big picture however. Which is that Venezuela is extraordinarily corrupt, much more so than its neighbors. That CLAP fails to meet its own objectives. That Venezuelans of all political affiliations perceive it as corrupt. That when corruption is identified, the perpetrators are not punished and the behavior does not change. If we want to delve any deeper, the only source available is the US government. A lot of what they have is still not public, but various agencies have published extensive materials regarding to who and where that money is going. If you do not trust that source however, then distinguishing incompetence from malice isn't going to be possible as the financials become a near black box.
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May 23, 2019 23:30
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