Venezuela is collapsing - Printable Version

Venezuela is collapsing - Printable Version

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Venezuela is collapsing - Simeon_Strangelight - 12-19-2016

You can categorize the reasons for advancements of civilizations in a few broad categories:

A) Correct political and economic system - sometimes such a system is set with it's own limits - it can go forward up to a point, but is limited going further. For example if the elite do not want to share the knowledge, reading and basic math with the people, then they miss out on further developments.

B) Favorable or less favorable mindset and ethics - this is often shaped by religion, but not always - most people learn from osmosis. Religions can limit you or barely affect science and technology.

C) Food, nutrients and genes, k-selection, r-selection: There are some scientist who claim that higher civilization cannot exist below an IQ of 85 of the general population. Also if you breed your people for speed and strength while neglecting higher mental power, then you are set to remain less advanced for a long time. Also food and nutrients is neglected in some analysis - Europe before the advent of the potato was highly malnourished especially since most nobility limited the ability for the peasants to hunt and stupid dietary perceptions like barely eating fresh vegetables or even fish held back the people of Europe for a long time. Columbus was needed to bring Europe the potato and save civilization. Also - genes - if you have idiocracy going on under r-selected breeding patterns, then you need to implement measures for smarter people to have more children. This can be done for sure and is simply positive applied eugenics.

I personally think that all races and tribes of Earth can ultimately reach an advanced spacefaring development level. BUT they cannot do that adhering either to mindsets, religions or r-selective breeding patterns. You either have that or you have advanced civilization.

Even the civilizations we praise so much like ancient Rome was limited and barbaric and that held back further development. They reigned for centuries while Europe later made much more progress in a shorter time period, because it did not have limited knowledge, slavery, religious barbarism (they sacrificed even their own soldiers at times in Rome), supremacist thinking etc. So in a way Rome was limited. In my opinion you have to have those 3 points above intact to some degree to advance to the next level.

South American countries clearly have some issues, but there are positive things going on there too.
Their biggest weaknesses are now bad political and economic system (either cut-throat capitalism or communism - most are either in one of those camps), too much r-selection, instable mindsets in terms of ethics and work-ethic. But it's not that far away from being unable to be worked out in the next generations.

Venezuela is collapsing - Mekorig - 12-19-2016

Quote: (12-18-2016 06:21 PM)infowarrior1 Wrote:

Quote: (12-18-2016 10:51 AM)Mekorig Wrote:

In parts of South and Central America, while they do not suffer snowy winters, you could not grow plants all year long. Winter is winter, with or without snow. That is why in the pampas here in Argentina you have planting, growing and harvesting seasons. This part of the continent is not a mythical breadbasket.

While I agree with you on this comment. You did say only parts of South and Central America and the fact that deficits can be made up by trade in the same region. So while there would be more greater relative famine it is no where near as much as the regions where snowy winter occurs.

As well as the fact that cold does seem to have other effects that forces high-trust societies and higher intelligence as well as greater resourcefulness.

Also another good additional explanation is that recent dependency on welfare and their adaptation to an urban environment have caused them to lose skills and knowledge that would allow them to grow food fairly easily in this region

I said parts because not all of the continent is a breadbasket. Here in Argentina you have the Patagonia, that is a wasteland outside the slopes of los Andes (and in winter you can get some brutal snows), and parts of the north-west, that are high-altitude arid biomas (so, scorching heat in summer, cold and snow in winter).

Coming back to the main topic, the problem in Venezuela (as someone already said it) is not growing food, but avoiding loosing it to the local strongmen that arises from the actual anomia state in Venezuela.

And about your last paragraph, yeah, the general paternalist and caudillism that have existed in the region since times inmemorial (thanks to the spaniards and portuguese), and the more recent populist movements (both from the left and right) have created an urban underclass that see no incentive to get a better life, because is always easier to ask for some gift for the local strongman, dear leader or the Nanny State.

Venezuela is collapsing - Cattle Rustler - 12-19-2016

Quote: (12-19-2016 03:42 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:

One extreme and underappreciated benefit of a Trump presidency is that we won't have to worry about these idiots swamping the US as part of a "Venezuelan refugee crisis".

Dude have you seen how Venezuelan chicks look like? Way better than Mexicans.

Venezuela is collapsing - Mekorig - 12-19-2016

Quote: (12-19-2016 01:45 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:

Quote: (12-19-2016 03:42 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:

One extreme and underappreciated benefit of a Trump presidency is that we won't have to worry about these idiots swamping the US as part of a "Venezuelan refugee crisis".

Dude have you seen how Venezuelan chicks look like? Way better than Mexicans.

I still remember the venezuelan chicks studying at my university.... [Image: banana.gif]

Venezuela is collapsing - Cattle Rustler - 12-19-2016

I'd rather have some Venezolanas than some pancake-ass white girls...or Mexican for that matter.

Venezuela is collapsing - AneroidOcean - 12-19-2016

Quote: (12-17-2016 08:55 PM)Latinopan Wrote:

Quote: (12-17-2016 08:11 PM)Caractacus Potts Wrote:

Quote:Quote:

Venezuela would pull its highest denominated, 100-bolivar bill (which is worth about two U.S. cents on the black market), from circulation over the next 72 hours, ahead of the introduction of new, higher-value notes, as large as 20,000.

"I have decided to take out of circulation bills of 100 bolivars in the next 72 hours," Maduro said. "We must keep beating the mafias."

I can confirm this to be true. I cross posted this from the other Venezuela thread/

The Venezuelan girl I met in Panama is back home for a month. Her first time home in a year.

She has Whatsapp'd me a few times this week. I snipped some stuff from our convo below.

Quote:
"Ahora Venezuela esta loca. Aqui esta mal. La situacion no hay efectivo bloqueron las salidas del pais por 30 dias y segun intervinieron el banco banesco. Los billetes de 100 pero no hay efectivo en la calle"

Can't export currency for 30 days. I am sure it will last longer. The second part I think she is saying that the no one is accepting the 100 boliviar notes. Is that correct?

Exact translation:

Now Venezuela is crazy, here is bad. The situation there is not cash exits from the country are blocked for 30 days and according to innervation from the Banesco bank. There are not 100 bolivares bill in the street.

Exact? That's not exact. "Innervation" is not an accurate term, were you using a translation service? Here's a more readable translation/interpretation, literal translations are not effective in communicating anyway:

"Venezuela is crazy right now. It's bad here. The situation; There's no cash [currency] use, they've blocked the ability to send money out of the country for 30 days and right after intervened at the bank banesco [presumably they took it over or further stopped withdrawals or in some further way hindered banking]. The 100 [bolivares] bills are no use in the street [as cash (I'm assuming she's referring to news about the 100 bolivares as grammatically this doesn't make sense what she wrote)]"

The situation is indeed dire there. This topic should be a regular occurrence on the world news, but it's all echo chamber here in the US.

Venezuela is collapsing - Paracelsus - 01-11-2017

So it seems that the way Maduro will hold power will be to literally control the food supply, through the Venezuelan military. Who are making serious bank off selling it to starving people.

Quote:Quote:

PUERTO CABELLO, Venezuela (AP) — When hunger drew tens of thousands of Venezuelans to the streets in protest last summer, President Nicolas Maduro turned to the military to manage the country's diminished food supply, putting generals in charge of everything from butter to rice.

But instead of fighting hunger, the military is making money from it, an Associated Press investigation shows. That's what grocer Jose Campos found when he ran out of pantry staples this year. In the middle of the night, he would travel to an illegal market run by the military to buy pallets of corn flour — at 100 times the government-set price.

"The military would be watching over whole bags of money," Campos said. "They always had what I needed."

With much of the country on the verge of starvation and billions of dollars at stake, food trafficking has become one of the biggest businesses in Venezuela, the AP found. And from generals to foot soldiers, the military is at the heart of the graft, according to documents and interviews with more than 60 officials, business owners and workers, including five former generals.

As a result, food is not reaching those who most need it.

The U.S. government has taken notice. Prosecutors have opened investigations against senior Venezuelan officials, including members of the military, for laundering riches from food contracts through the U.S. financial system, according to four people with direct knowledge of the probes. No charges have been brought.

"Lately, food is a better business than drugs," said retired Gen. Cliver Alcala, who helped oversee Venezuela's border security. "The military is in charge of food management now, and they're not going to just take that on without getting their cut."

"WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?"

After opposition attempts to overthrow him, the late President Hugo Chavez began handing the military control over the food industry, creating a Food Ministry in 2004. His socialist-run government nationalized farms and food processing plants, then neglected them, and domestic production dried up. Oil-exporting Venezuela became dependent on food imports, but when the price of oil collapsed in 2014, the government no longer could afford all the country needed.

This was a variation on the theme I hadn't noticed before: the fact that Chavez was smart enough to know this would happen eventually, and therefore, unlike FDR or similar, he got control of the one commodity more essential than money in hyperinflation: the food itself.

Quote:Quote:

Food rationing grew so severe that Venezuelans spent all day waiting in lines. Pediatric wards filled up with underweight children, and formerly middle class adults began picking through trash bins for scraps.

Also a feature of hyperinflation: the middle class is stripped dry in hyperinflation, mostly because the rich have means and ways out of hyperinflation, and the poor are already used to playing the game on survival mode.

Quote:Quote:

When people responded with violent street protests, Maduro handed the generals control over the rest of food distribution, and the country's ports.

The government now imports nearly all of Venezuela's food, according to Werner Gutierrez, the former dean of the agronomy school at the University of Zulia, and corruption is rampant, jacking up prices and leading to shortages.

"If Venezuela paid market prices, we'd be able to double our imports and easily satisfy the country's food needs," Gutierrez said. "Instead, people are starving."

One South American businessman said he paid millions in kickbacks to Venezuelan officials as the hunger crisis worsened, including $8 million to people who work for the current food minister, Gen. Rodolfo Marco Torres. The businessman insisted on speaking anonymously because he did not want to acknowledge participating in corruption.

Last July, he struggled to get Marco Torres's attention as a ship full of yellow corn waited to dock.

"This boat has been waiting for 20 days," he wrote in text messages seen by AP.

"What's the problem?" responded Marco Torres.

Although money was not mentioned, the businessman understood that he needed to give more in kickbacks. In the end, he told the general, the boat had to pull out because costs caused by the delay were mounting.

Bank documents from the businessman's country show that he was a big supplier, receiving at least $131 million in contracts from Venezuelan food ministers between 2012 and 2015. He explained that vendors like him can afford to pay off military officials because they build huge profit margins into what they bill the state.

For example, his $52 million contract for the yellow corn was drawn up to be charged at more than double the market rate at the time, suggesting a potential overpayment of more than $20 million for that deal alone.

The Food Ministry's annual report shows significant overpayments across the board, compared to market prices. And the prices the government pays for imported foods have been increasing in recent years, while global food prices remain stable.

This spring, the opposition-controlled congress voted to censure Marco Torres for graft. Maduro vetoed it as an attempt to hurt the Food Ministry, and Marco Torres stayed on as minister.

Internal budgets from the ministry obtained by AP show the overpayment continues. For example, the government budgeted for $118 million of yellow corn in July at $357 a ton, which would amount to an overpayment of more than $50 million relative to prices that month.

"What's amazing about this is it's like a clean form of corruption," said Carabobo state lawmaker Neidy Rosal, who has denounced food-related government theft worth hundreds of millions of dollars. "It's like drug trafficking you can carry out in broad daylight."

Marco Torres did not respond to several requests for comment by phone, email and hand-delivered letter. In the past, he has said that he will not be trapped in fights with a bourgeoisie opposition.

"SCRAPING THE POT"

By putting the military in charge of food, Maduro is trying to prevent soldiers from going hungry and being tempted to participate in an uprising against an increasingly unpopular government, said retired Gen. Antonio Rivero. Venezuela's military has a long history of coups against governments, and Maduro has arrested several officials for allegedly conspiring against him from within.

"They gave absolute control to the military," Rivero said from exile in Miami. "That drained the feeling of rebellion from the armed forces, and allowed them to feed their families."

However, it also opened the door to widespread graft and further squeezed the food supply. In large part due to concerns of corruption following the government's takeover of the food industry, the three largest global food traders — U.S.-based Archer Daniels Midland Co., Bunge Ltd. and Cargill — have stopped selling to the Venezuelan government.

One major scam involves the strict currency controls that have been a hallmark of the administration. The government gives out a limited amount of coveted U.S. currency at a rate of 10 bolivars to the dollar. Almost everyone else has to buy dollars on the ever more expensive black market, currently at 3,000 bolivars to the dollar.

The holders of licenses to import food are among the select few who get to buy dollars at the vastly cheaper rate. Alcala, the retired general, said some officials distribute these much-desired licenses to friends. The friends then use only a fraction of the dollars to import food, and share the rest with the officials.

"We call it 'scraping the pot,' and it's the biggest scam going in Venezuela," Alcala said.

In 2014, one general presented Maduro with a list of 300 companies suspected of simply pocketing the cheap dollars they obtained with their licenses and not importing anything. No action was ever taken and the general was forced into exile, accused of corruption himself.

Some contracts go to companies that have no experience dealing in food or seem to exist only on paper. Financial documents obtained by AP show that Marco Torres gave Panama-registered company Atlas Systems International a $4.6 million contract to import pasta. Atlas has all the hallmarks of a shell company, including no known assets and the use of secretive shares to hide the identity of the company's true owners. Another government food supplier, J.A. Comercio de Generos Alimenticios, lists on its website a non-existent address on a narrow, partially paved street in an industrial city near Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The two companies transferred more than $5.5 million in U.S. dollars in 2012 and 2013 to a Geneva account controlled by two young Venezuelans, according to bank and internal company documents seen by AP. The Venezuelans were Jesus Marquina Parra and Nestor Marquina Parra, brothers-in-law of the then-food minister, Gen. Carlos Osorio. Efforts to reach the brothers were unsuccessful.

Osorio is no longer food minister, but has an even more important role in overseeing food. He was promoted in September to inspector general of the armed forces, with the mission of ensuring transparency in the military's management of the nation's food supply.

Arturo Sanchez, a former supply chain manager at a multinational dairy company, recounted unpleasant encounters with Osorio. In one case, officers forced the company to buy fructose it didn't need because they wanted to unload merchandise he suspected was ill-gotten. Another time, he said, national guardsmen took four trucks of goods without paying. Sanchez fled to Florida in 2014.

"I spent a year living in the U.S. not being able to sleep remembering all the risky situations I lived through," he said.

Osorio did not respond to requests for comment. But in the past he threatened to sue opposition lawmakers for staining his honor with false accusations of corruption. He blamed an economic war for the food shortages.

The Defense Ministry and presidential press office refused to answer repeated calls, emails and hand-delivered letters requesting comment. In the past, officials have accused the opposition of exaggerating the problem of corruption for political gain. They have said that the military's hierarchical structure makes it ideally suited to combat the real culprits: Right-wing businessmen trying to bring down the economy.

From time to time, the government carries out raids of warehouses holding smuggled goods and arrests lower-ranking military officers accused of graft. For example, the night market in Carabobo state where Campos bought his corn flour was eventually shut down and 57 tons of smuggled food seized. Now Campos buys staples from intermediaries he suspects are working with the same military officials.

In January, the government quietly arrested 40 state employees for stealing large quantities of food from open-air markets. One of those still in jail is a colonel who had been named by Osorio to serve as president of a state agency that imported food.

"We have the moral fortitude and the discipline to take on this task of protecting what belongs to the people," the defense minister, Gen. Vladimir Padrino Lopez, said in September. "The state has an obligation to root out corruption in all levels of public administration."

"IT'S THE CUSTOMER WHO PAYS"

And yet the corruption persists from the port to the markets, according to dozens of people working in Puerto Cabello, the town that handles the majority of Venezuela's food imports.

Sometimes the officials who control access to the docks keep ships waiting until they are paid off, said a stevedore at the port, who spoke anonymously because he feared losing his job.

The stevedore said clients give him envelopes of dollars to pass on to officials. He described visiting the sergeant in charge and making small talk while placing an envelope in the wastebasket. Then he slides the basket under the table and leaves. That night, his client's ships are allowed in, he said.

After ships unload their cargo, customs officials take their share, according to four customs workers. They said that without a payment equivalent to a month's minimum wage, officials will not start the process of nationalizing goods.

Bribes are also required for any missing paperwork, and can exceed $10,000 for a single shipping container, customs worker Aldemar Diaz said.

"Sometimes you actually want to do it legally, but the officials will say, 'Don't bother,'" he said.

Luis Pena, operations director at the Caracas-based import business Premier Foods, said he pays off a long roster of military officials for each shipment of food he brings in from small-scale companies in the U.S.

"You have to pay for them to even look at your cargo now," he said. "It's an unbroken chain of bribery from when your ship comes in until the food is driven out in trucks."

Worst of all, he added, is that he is forced to pay to skip a health inspection. Officials make him buy a health certificate and don't even open the containers to test a sample, he said.

A version of this process also takes place on the border, said Alcala, the retired general who was once in charge of border control. He said officers allowed smugglers to pay bribes to bring in food without proper health and safety checks. This year, Venezuelans began posting photos and videos showing magnets pulling tiny iron shavings out of freshly opened bags of sugar smuggled in from Brazil.

Pena said his contacts at the port have offered to illegally sell him government-imported staples like sugar and rice, complete with falsified papers and a military escort.

"The military was supposed to step in and make sure the food got to the people, but it's been the exact opposite," said Pena, sitting in his warehouse. "They've made it into a business, and there's no one to appeal to. In the end, it's the customer who pays."

If he tries to get through the process without bribes, he said, the food sits and spoils.

Rotting food is a problem even as 90 percent of Venezuelans say they can't afford enough to eat. In some cases, partners buy food that is about to expire at a steep discount, then bill the government for the full price. The government has sometimes acknowledged that food it imported arrived already expired.

The problem of rotting food got so bad at Puerto Cabello that it drew rebuke in the most recent state comptroller's report, which expressed particular dismay that thousands of tons of state-imported beans had been allowed to spoil.

When the food is no longer usable, the military tries to get rid of it quietly. Puerto Cabello crane operator Daniel Arteaga watched one night last winter as workers at a state-run warehouse buried hundreds of containers of spoiled chicken and meat imported by the government.

"All these refrigerated containers, and meanwhile people are waiting in food lines each week just to buy a single chicken," he said.

Photos taken at the Puerto Cabello dump last year show men in green military fatigues helping bury beef and chicken. Residents at a slum down the hill said after the military visits the dump, they dig up animal feed, potatoes, even ham to give their children.

The docks are hidden behind high concrete walls, and guards watch every entrance. AP gained rare access in November. The low-ranking military members assigned to guard the port can be seen collaborating with thieves to steal what little food comes in, according to eight people who work behind the walls.

"You see people making off with whole sacks of flour or corn on their shoulders, and paying the guards on their way out," logistics coordinator Nicole Mendoza said. "You see the money changing hands, and you just lower your eyes and don't say anything."

Lt. Miletsy Rodriguez, who is in charge of a group of national guardsmen running security at the port, said people are just looking to scapegoat the military. If her unit wasn't around, looting would be even more widespread, she said.

"The majority of us are doing our best. And sooner or later we'll catch people who are not doing the job right," she said.

BRIBES ON THE ROAD

Just as bribes are needed to get food into the port, they are also required to move food out, truckers said.

The roads near the port are lined with trucks waiting to be let in. Drivers sling hammocks in their wheel wells and sometimes wait several days in the thick tropical heat. Trucking bosses recently banded together to stop paying bribes to port officials, and the officials are now punishing them by delaying the movement of cargo onto vehicles, said Jose Petit, president of the Puerto Cabello trucking association.

When the food is finally loaded onto the trucks, soldiers come by to take a cut. Photos and videos taken by truckers show officials taking sacks of sugar and coffee. As the trucks rattle off down the highway, hungry women in clothes that no longer fit chase after them to pick up anything that falls out.

Billboards lining the highway feature a drawing of an enormous ant beside a nonworking phone number to denounce corruption, and the warning, "No to bachaqueros." That's what Venezuelans call people who make a living illegally reselling food, after the leafcutter ants that haul many times their weight through the jungles.

On the roads, truck drivers face an obstacle course of military checkpoints, ostensibly set up to stop bachaqueros. Truckers say soldiers at about half the checkpoints demand bribes. Some invent infractions such as an insufficiently filled tire, and take cash along with sacks of pantry items, produce and even live chickens, the drivers said.

"It used to be you'd go your whole route and not have to pay any anything. Now at every checkpoint, they ask for 10,000 bolivars," said trucker Henderson Rodriguez, who was waiting for a third day to get into the port to pick up a load of sugar.

The surest way to move food through the network of checkpoints is to transport it under military guard. For a percentage of the product's value, military officers on the take will assign a moonlighting soldier to ride along in the truck, according to five store and restaurant owners.

Sugar and flour are among the items most in demand because they have become virtually impossible to find legally, and some businesses, like bakeries, cannot function without them. A half dozen bakery owners across the country said in interviews that military officials regularly approach them with offers to sell supplies in exchange for a bribe.

In the city of Valencia, bakery owner Jose Ferreira cuts two checks for each purchase of sugar: one for the official price of 2 cents a pound and one for the kickback of 60 cents of pound. He keeps copies of both checks in his books, seen by AP, in case the authorities ever come asking.

"You make the legal payment, and then you pay the kickback," he said. "We have no other option; there's no substitute for sugar."

The theft extends to the very end of the food supply chain, vendors said. At one market in Valencia, the military members who were appointed in August to stop contraband confiscated vendors' produce. They said the vendors did not have the right permits. The food was piled in an olive green cargo truck.

In Puerto Cabello, hungry residents said it feels like corrupt soldiers are taking food off their children's plates. Pedro Contreras, 74, watched more than 100 trucks carrying corn rattle onto the highway, and walked stiffly into traffic to sweep up the kernels that had sifted out. He planned to pound them into corn flour that night to feed his family.

"The military is getting fat while my grandchildren get skinny," he said. "All of Venezuela's food comes through here, but so little of it goes to us."

This is a dangerous game that Maduro is playing. Sooner or later one of those generals of his is going to have an attack of conscience ... or, more likely, realise that he's actually got more guns and men and favourable publicity than Maduro has, and then we'll have another peaceful transition of South American democracy into military junta.

I can't imagine the suffering these people must be going through. At least in "normal" hyperinflationary situations you didn't have to get your daily bread from a fucking soldier. Bastards need to burn in hell.

Venezuela is collapsing - Paracelsus - 01-11-2017

Double post, but it looks like Maduro's got the law, or at least, the courts on his side as well ... not that you expect judges to speak out against a guy who controls the food and the military.

Quote:Quote:

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has annulled parliament’s resolution aimed at ousting President Nicolas Maduro. The Court ordered them to stop the “political trial” against the president, since it is not within its constitutional authority.
In a statement issued Monday, the high court reaffirmed its position previously expressed in ruling number 948 of the Constitutional Chamber dated November 15, 2016, in which it ordered the country’s parliament to “refrain from continuing the procedure of declaring ‘political responsibility’ against the president of the Republic,” as cited by AFP.

It also ordered the legislature to refrain from making decisions that are outside its legislative authority.

The court’s statement came after a majority of the 106 deputies of the opposition-led National Assembly voted on Monday to adopt a resolution aimed at effectively ousting the Venezuelan president, declaring that he had “abandoned his post” due to his stewardship of the country’s stagnating economy – and calling for snap presidential elections.

In its statement, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the prohibition on deputies to “convene and carry out acts that alter public order, instigations against authorities and public powers, as well as other actions outside the constitutional rights and legal order.”

The judiciary body also suggested that dialogue is the best way to resolve political differences “in order to guarantee the construction of a just and peace-loving society and to promote the prosperity and welfare of the people.”

Fair enough it sounds like the Constitutional argument was always going to be a dodgy one, but still.

Venezuela is collapsing - SamuelBRoberts - 01-11-2017

Your daily reminder that the guys responsible for this horror-show were democratically elected into power by the same people that they're trying to give votes to here.

Venezuela is collapsing - MongolianAbroad - 01-11-2017

Quote: (12-19-2016 03:42 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:

One extreme and underappreciated benefit of a Trump presidency is that we won't have to worry about these idiots swamping the US as part of a "Venezuelan refugee crisis".

I've got to disagree there, if that happened, we wouldn't even have to pay for the plane ticket to Venezuela, the Venezuelan women would be coming to us.

What more could you want?

Surely we can all agree to raise the portcullis in the Trump wall momentarily to allow a few million Venezuelan's through.

Also, if you get a few million Venezuelans coming here escaping socialism, it's possible they'd lean towards voting for conservative candidates, similar to the Cubans that escaped socialism.

What I'm REALLY looking forward to is the "Great North Korean Refugee Crisis," for altruistic reasons of course, to finally bring an end to the tyranny and such. [Image: angel.gif]

Sign me up to be a host asap!

Venezuela is collapsing - Foolsgo1d - 01-11-2017

Places like Venezuela are perfect modern day examples of why the 2nd Amendment exists and only exists in the Untied States.

The men with guns, the biggest gang of all; the government, has you by the balls and you can't do fuck all about it. Invaders planted into your community? Tough shit! Your women and children being attacked daily? Who cares?

We have the food, pay for it or fuck off. You have food and valuable commodities? hand it over or face prison or death.

As long as millions of guns are in the hands of citizens in the US government will behave itself. Meanwhile you as a normal person either face the criminal gangs, the cartel gangs or the government and military. Absolutely no chance.

Venezuela is collapsing - markygras - 01-11-2017

Re: Venezuelans that move to the US to escape the effects of socialism.

Never underestimate the "useful idiot" syndrome. Those first generation cubans that fled Cuba were fleeing a lifetime of poverty. Under Chavez, while oil prices were high, people were celebrating the good times.

I suspect it would be more akin to when Californians move to Texas, or north Africans move to Scandinavia. They come seeking greener pastures, while simultaneously wanting to turn the new promised land into the exact scenario they had just escaped.

Venezuela is collapsing - MongolianAbroad - 01-11-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 07:05 AM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:

Places like Venezuela are perfect modern day examples of why the 2nd Amendment exists and only exists in the Untied States.

The men with guns, the biggest gang of all; the government, has you by the balls and you can't do fuck all about it. Invaders planted into your community? Tough shit! Your women and children being attacked daily? Who cares?

We have the food, pay for it or fuck off. You have food and valuable commodities? hand it over or face prison or death.

As long as millions of guns are in the hands of citizens in the US government will behave itself. Meanwhile you as a normal person either face the criminal gangs, the cartel gangs or the government and military. Absolutely no chance.

Couldn't agree more, Mexico, for example, would be a much more secure place if gun ownership was easier for the general populace.

Venezuela is collapsing - Paracelsus - 01-11-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 06:25 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:

What I'm REALLY looking forward to is the "Great North Korean Refugee Crisis," for altruistic reasons of course, to finally bring an end to the tyranny and such.

You certainly won't have to worry about fat chicks from there.

That aside, when it comes to Venezuelan migration, I think you'll find that when the exits are finally hit it'll be the privileged classes -- the champagne socialists -- in the regime that arrive in the US first and hardest.

Why? Because they'll have more resources than about 99% of Venezuela's current population. Note that article about food shortages: people who are friends of Maduro -- and therefore people in their circle -- are still getting American currency issued to them at much lower rates than the great unwashed are. They'll have enough money to buy transport when one of the generals overthrows Maduro and engages in a pogrom against Maduro's friends and allies, which is traditional. And because they'll be persona non grata in Venezuela, they'll be able to legitimately claim refugee status and swan on over to the US or the West with bags of American currency to spend.

Everyone else will be on the Bataan Death March or taking risky boat trips northward, and run headlong into the Wall. We know this in Australia: more dodgy immigrants arrive by 747 than in shitty Indonesian fishing boats.

Venezuela is collapsing - Cattle Rustler - 01-11-2017

Not sure how the situation really is for the elite. I've seen a couple of economic refugees in Houston go back to Venezuela to visit family and extend their visit. So either their lives are cushy enough they can weather the situation or so shitty they can't come back. They seem happy tho and enjoy every day luxuries,

Venezuela is collapsing - Paracelsus - 01-11-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 08:11 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:

Not sure how the situation really is for the elite. I've seen a couple of economic refugees in Houston go back to Venezuela to visit family and extend their visit. So either their lives are cushy enough they can weather the situation or so shitty they can't come back. They seem happy tho and enjoy every day luxuries,

If their US-dollar-denominated funds and assets are not being confiscated from them every time they exit Venezuela, they are unquestionably part of the elite or close enough to Maduro or his generals that they're probably not suffering much at all. The very fact they have access to funds sufficient to afford to fly back and forth from Venezuela to the US and haven't had their passports confiscated suggests they are certainly part of the 0.01%.

This is a variation on the standard hyperinflation scenario: I've not seen an instance before where the military itself is in control of the food supply. That happened because Maduro first nationalised the food industry, then turned the country into a near-total importer of food, then gave the military control of the ports. Those three factors make it much more difficult for the standard hyperinflationary cycle to play out. I think it's a less likely scenario in the US since, well, 2nd Amendment, but also because the country's way too big for even the Federal government to completely nationalise and effectively cover every inch of coastline on an ongoing basis. Fuck, they can't even control the land border in the south.

Venezuela is collapsing - SamuelBRoberts - 01-12-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 06:25 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:

Quote: (12-19-2016 03:42 AM)SamuelBRoberts Wrote:

One extreme and underappreciated benefit of a Trump presidency is that we won't have to worry about these idiots swamping the US as part of a "Venezuelan refugee crisis".

I've got to disagree there, if that happened, we wouldn't even have to pay for the plane ticket to Venezuela, the Venezuelan women would be coming to us.

What more could you want?

Surely we can all agree to raise the portcullis in the Trump wall momentarily to allow a few million Venezuelan's through.

Also, if you get a few million Venezuelans coming here escaping socialism, it's possible they'd lean towards voting for conservative candidates, similar to the Cubans that escaped socialism.

What I'm REALLY looking forward to is the "Great North Korean Refugee Crisis," for altruistic reasons of course, to finally bring an end to the tyranny and such.

Sign me up to be a host asap!

I've written a lot about the dangers of illegal immigration on this forum, but I think we can reach a compromise here. We trade one smoking hot Venezuelan chick for one BMI-35-and-above American heifer. We solve our hot women shortage, and they can solve their food problems by eating the landwhales.

And to think, they say mutually beneficial trade with a 3rd-world country is impossible!

Venezuela is collapsing - Leonard D Neubache - 01-13-2017

This has fantastic merit. A 24/7 livestream channel called "hog-hunting highlights" could raise funds for the associated costs.

Would it be better to put a bounty on the fatties and let the free market take care of the rest or should it be a government led operation from start to finish?

Venezuela is collapsing - Leonard D Neubache - 01-13-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 08:28 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:

...but also because the country's way too big for even the Federal government to completely nationalise and effectively cover every inch of coastline on an ongoing basis. Fuck, they can't even control the land border in the south.

They could, but until Trump they chose not to for (((rea$on$))).

Venezuela is collapsing - Latinopan - 01-13-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 08:04 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:

Quote: (01-11-2017 06:25 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:

What I'm REALLY looking forward to is the "Great North Korean Refugee Crisis," for altruistic reasons of course, to finally bring an end to the tyranny and such.

You certainly won't have to worry about fat chicks from there.

That aside, when it comes to Venezuelan migration, I think you'll find that when the exits are finally hit it'll be the privileged classes -- the champagne socialists -- in the regime that arrive in the US first and hardest.

Why? Because they'll have more resources than about 99% of Venezuela's current population. Note that article about food shortages: people who are friends of Maduro -- and therefore people in their circle -- are still getting American currency issued to them at much lower rates than the great unwashed are. They'll have enough money to buy transport when one of the generals overthrows Maduro and engages in a pogrom against Maduro's friends and allies, which is traditional. And because they'll be persona non grata in Venezuela, they'll be able to legitimately claim refugee status and swan on over to the US or the West with bags of American currency to spend.

Everyone else will be on the Bataan Death March or taking risky boat trips northward, and run headlong into the Wall. We know this in Australia: more dodgy immigrants arrive by 747 than in shitty Indonesian fishing boats.

People like these have safe heaven in other countries, some house in Europe or even the USA, these people know Venezuela is going to have a massive SHTF moment and it will be every man for himself, these people have a jet ready for a SHTF case.

They are like upper class preppers.

Venezuela is collapsing - Cattle Rustler - 01-13-2017

Quote: (01-11-2017 08:28 PM)Paracelsus Wrote:

Quote: (01-11-2017 08:11 PM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:

Not sure how the situation really is for the elite. I've seen a couple of economic refugees in Houston go back to Venezuela to visit family and extend their visit. So either their lives are cushy enough they can weather the situation or so shitty they can't come back. They seem happy tho and enjoy every day luxuries,

If their US-dollar-denominated funds and assets are not being confiscated from them every time they exit Venezuela, they are unquestionably part of the elite or close enough to Maduro or his generals that they're probably not suffering much at all. The very fact they have access to funds sufficient to afford to fly back and forth from Venezuela to the US and haven't had their passports confiscated suggests they are certainly part of the 0.01%.

This is a variation on the standard hyperinflation scenario: I've not seen an instance before where the military itself is in control of the food supply. That happened because Maduro first nationalised the food industry, then turned the country into a near-total importer of food, then gave the military control of the ports. Those three factors make it much more difficult for the standard hyperinflationary cycle to play out. I think it's a less likely scenario in the US since, well, 2nd Amendment, but also because the country's way too big for even the Federal government to completely nationalise and effectively cover every inch of coastline on an ongoing basis. Fuck, they can't even control the land border in the south.

The funny part is that they're a group that Maduro hates.....they're white looking folks who love labels. I want to ask them how they're doing it but don't want to rustle any jimmies.

Average Joe Prepper: Stocks up supplies for days
Upper Class Prepper: Has enough jet fuel ready to escape.

Venezuela is collapsing - MOVSM - 01-13-2017

Twofer:

Jan. 11, 2017
Venezuelan opposition demands Maduro comply with previous agreements

January 12, 2017
Venezuela Arrests Anti-Maduro Politicians in Sweep

[Image: e31.jpg]

Venezuela is collapsing - Paracelsus - 01-15-2017

Although it's sort of a moot point given Venezuela is now pretty much under the thumb of the military and Maduro, incredibly it would seem that the anti-establishment, anti-mainstream-parties sentiment is alive and well in Venezuela just as in other Western and SouthAm nations:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/venezu...?r=US&IR=T

Quote:Quote:

The Socialist Party of Venezuela, first under Hugo Chavez and now under Nicolas Maduro, has held the country’s presidency for 18 years, since Chavez swept into office at the end of 1998.

But recent years have been tumultuous for the PSUV, the Socialist Party’s initials in Spanish.

Since Maduro took over by winning a special election after Chavez’s death in early 2013, Venezuela has been buffeted by economic crises spurred on by poor policy and the decline of the price of oil, from which Venezuelan draws the vast majority of its export earnings, as well as by political tensions stoked in part by Maduro’s efforts to maintain power.

While Chavez maintained some level of popularity — a 2009 survey put his approval at 54% to 45% disapproval, and a survey soon after his death in 2013 found 55% of respondents wanting his policies to continue — Maduro has seen his popularity steadily decline.

A spring 2015 survey found the current Venezuelan president with a 68%-29% approval-disapproval rating, and more recently he has seen his popularity fall below 20%. Now support for Maduro’s Socialist Party appears to be feeling the same decline.

A recent survey of political leanings by Venezuelan pollster Datanálisis found that the PSUV is no longer the dominant political force in the country.

“The independents are at 45% while the opposition [is] around 27% and the PSUV only amounts to 18%,” said Datanálisis director Jose Antonio Gil, according to Globovision. “The big news is that the PSUV lost from 2004 to now the primacy as the principal party in the country.”

When Chavez died from cancer in 2013, 40% of Venezuelans identified with the PSUV, but Maduro’s administration “has lowered it to less than half” that number, Gil said.

Gil, who didn’t specify the period over which the survey was taken, added that in terms of political self-definition, 47% of respondents identified with the opposition, and only 20% aligned with the governing socialists. Those saying they were “neither nor” were 33%.

Those who are “neither nor” reject both the government and the opposition, Gil said. “They want dialogue and peace, they are fed up with the conflict between the government and the opposition. For these people sitting at the dialogue table was a positive opportunity.”

I find this interesting since, to me at least, it seems to suggest that the Venezuelans have had enough of both the Che types and the local cucks (which it seems the opposition is - the DUR is apparently a cobbled-together coalition of left, centre-left, and centre-right pissant parties. There's not one right or far right party among them).

Of course, we've seen this shit before. Hitler managed to get elected to power with only about 30% of the vote or so simply because the opposition against him was comprised of lots of little small parties, none of which could really work together. And as said popular opinion doesn't matter when the military has both the guns and the food. But it does suggest the same deep fucked-offedness with globalism at large as anywhere else - in particular you wonder if people are looking at the "opposition" and concluding it'd basically be more of the same if they managed to chuck Maduro out.

Venezuela is collapsing - infowarrior1 - 01-16-2017

Quote: (12-19-2016 12:44 AM)Spaniard88 Wrote:

Quote: (12-18-2016 06:21 PM)infowarrior1 Wrote:

As well as the fact that cold does seem to have other effects that forces high-trust societies and higher intelligence as well as greater resourcefulness.

Also another good additional explanation is that recent dependency on welfare and their adaptation to an urban environment have caused them to lose skills and knowledge that would allow them to grow food fairly easily in this region

Russia is very cold, and it is not a high trust society, and neither is Ukraine, another very cold country. I've never looked into the societies of the natives that inhabited Canada and the colder, far reaches of South America, but I'd be surprised if every one of their societies was a high trust society.

As far as higher intelligence and resourcefulness, the Germanic tribes up north, as well as the Natives of the Arctic, had built no civilizations of size while the warmer areas of Italy, Greece, Egypt, Persia, and India had already done so.

The very means by which we're communicating right now, writing, was invented by people from your so-called lower-IQ warmer climes, not once, but twice, at least, independently:

Various peoples have been "ahead" at various points in the game, sometimes in warmer climes, sometimes in colder climes, for reasons probably far too complex for any one person to understand, and that's even if we had all the data available on which to come upon a conclusion, which we don't, much of it is lost to the sands of time.

It's just much more complex than your "cold makes high trust, higher IQ, more resourceful societies" assertion.

It can be said that while higher IQ and higher-trust without the right conditions do not lead to civilization. Civilizations that arise in those populations make use of the cognitive resources that are available. Hence while K-selected populations seem to have higher quality civilizations even though they inherited civilization from elsewhere.

I hope I did not make the mistake of saying that civilization arose in those climates just because.

Hence IQ and high-trust can be said to be latent potential that gives rise to great things when it gets utilized i.e in Civilization.

Venezuela is collapsing - Simeon_Strangelight - 01-16-2017

Quote: (01-13-2017 11:28 AM)Cattle Rustler Wrote:

Average Joe Prepper: Stocks up supplies for days
Upper Class Prepper: Has enough jet fuel ready to escape.

That is such a good statement.

However there is something that is even more valuable - the awareness of when to be ready to plan the escape.