socialism

Venezuela continues to collapse

Oil platform in Venezuela. A view of what used to be and could have been now. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The bad news from Venezuela just doesn’t stop:

  • Protests have stopped because of lost hope
  • Professionals become prostitutes just to get enough food to keep the family life
  • Elections for state governors finally to be held on Sunday
  • Former executive of Brazilian construction company admits to paying $35 million to Venezuelan president’s election campaign
  • Guess on inflation rate for 2018 is over 2,300%

(Cross post from Outrun Change.)

8/31/17 – Wall Street Journal – “Hope Is Gone” as Venezuelan Protesters Vanish From Streets – The protests have faded away. The ongoing massive arrests, torture of detainees, widespread human-rights abuses, and frequent shootings seem to have broken the protest movement. A number of senior leaders of the opposition have fled the country in fear for their life. Reports indicate 125 people have been killed and somewhere around 2000 have been wounded, with many of those people with permanent injuries.

One outside observer, who is safe because he is an American living in the United States, observers the president has gained effective control of the entire government. I think if we look at the typical definitions that makes him a dictator.

In the meantime the oppressed people of the country continue to scramble for food, trying to find enough so they don’t starve to death.

9/22/17 – Miami Herald – In Venezuela, they were teachers and doctors. To buy food, they became prostitutes. – A large portion of the prostitutes in Columbia are women who escaped Venezuela. Before transitioning to the world’s oldest profession, many of them were teachers, doctors, professional women. One brothel even has a petroleum engineer.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Venezuela continues to spiral downward

Venezuelan flag. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

News out of Venezuela keeps getting worse.

8/18/17 – Wall Street Journal – Venezuela’s Former Attorney General Flees to Columbia – The constituent assembly removed the Attorney General earlier in the month and last week took over all legislative powers from the Congress. When the government leveled corruption accusations against the now-deposed Attorney General, she and her husband fled for their lives to Columbia.

As an indicator of why she had to get-outta’-Dodge is that the secret police raided her home last week and the government has now banned 60 other prosecutors from leaving the country.

8/26/17 – Hot air – Girls As Young As 12 Turned To Prostitution To Survive Venezuela’s Socialist Nightmare – (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Venezuela continues moving toward dictatorship

Shipwreck standing on the beach with the sea in the background. Margarita Island. Venezuela. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

What little that remained of democracy in Venezuela continues to crumble.

8/4/17 –France 24 – Venezuela’s currency crumbles at dizzying speed – The value of the bolivar is shrinking fast.

On Thursday the bolivar dropped to 17,000 to 1 U.S. dollar.

The official exchange rate is 2,870:1.

The reporter interviewed an executive in a reinsurance business. That would be a professional level position. His salary is 800,000 bolivars a month. A year ago that was worth $200 and now it is worth $47.

Two pounds of rice costs 17,000 bolivars.

8/5/17 – Wall Street Journal – Venezuela’s New Assembly Fires Attorney General – Well, the slow-motion coup continues to roll forward.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Elections in Venezuela

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

An unofficial plebiscite was held to oppose the end of democracy. The vote for a constitutional convention to re-write overthrow the current constitution has been held, with uncertainty as to the actual turnout.

7/15/17 – Reuters – Venezuela opposition hold unofficial plebiscite to defy Maduro – The opposition holds an unofficial vote on 7/16 as a protest against the upcoming official vote which many consider to be the last votes ever in Venezuela as a new constitution will essentially put the legislature under the thumb of the president.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Continuing devastation in Venezuela – #29

What economic system produces this result? Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The political and economic conditions in Venezuela continue to deteriorate.

7/3/17 – Bloomberg – Venezuela’s Poor Rebel, Roiling Maduro’s Socialist Strongholds – The power base for the leaders of the socialist country is poor people.

From previous reading I’ve done, massive subsidies to the poor successfully bought their allegiance. The collapse of services including water outages, random outages of electricity, and empty store shelves are rapidly undermining support from the poor. Protests has spread to many of the poor communities in Caracas. There have been nightly protests in a number of communities for several weeks.

7/5/17 – Wall Street Journal – Maduro Supporters Storm Venezuela’s Congress – (more…)

By Jim Ulvog, ago

Bleak outlook for Venezuela

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

With the supreme court compromised, the president outmaneuvering the congress, all members of the military under the watchful eye of Cuban zampolits (political officers), and the most loyal members of the military allowed to enjoy the spoils, there doesn’t appear to be much hope for either a peaceful solution or near-term end to the massive, intentionally caused humanitarian suffering in Venezuela.

Here are two short comments on the escalating violence and a long discussion of a feature article on the collapse of democracy and the economy.

6/16/17 – AFP at Yahoo News – Venezuela mobs kick, burn thieves in lynching epidemic – What happens when governments take actions that prevent the economy from working and as a result people are starving? Thieves start robbing people of food at gunpoint (money isn’t worth stealing).

What happens when robberies get out control because there is so much disruption and the government can’t do anything to maintain peace and there is widespread suffering? Mobs start lynching robbers.

There were 20 reported mob driven lynchings in 2015, 126 in 2016, and 60 in the first five months of this year.

In one attack on an armed robber, the police were able to pull the near-unconscious man into a police car as the mob cheered having beaten him. Another reporter filmed a robber being set on fire.

As another indicator of the breakdown in the social contract, Venezuela has one of the highest rates of murder in the world. That merely 6 out of 100 murders results in jail time dangerously wears away at the idea of government being able (or willing) to maintain social order. That contributes to the vigilante justice.

In addition to the massive suffering due to shortages of food, medicine, and electricity, Venezuela is slipping into a life of vigilante justice.

6/22 – Al Jazera – One killed as Venezuelan Troops fire on protesters – Another day of protests.

Another day of protesters getting shot at point-blank range.

One died, two wounded.

Number of dead in the last three months is somewhere around 80.

(Yes, Al Jazera is pointing out the collapse of Venezuela.)

6/23/17 – Wall Street Journal – ”The Last Battle for Democracy in Venezuela” – Article provides an in depth description of the economic collapse, current political direction, how the country got into this horrible disaster, and the bleak prospects for an end to the suffering.

Shrinking opposition

Opposition to the destruction of the country is coming from the Congress and Attorney General. The government is working to get rid of the Atty. Gen. and has a plan to replace the Constitution and Congress.

The government has already taken over control of the Supreme Court. The military was purged in 2002 after an attempted coup and now appears to be completely controlled by the government. The Cubans took over indoctrination and training of the military after the coup.

Path forward to end democracy in the country

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

On the lack of morality in Marxism

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

Marxism, or communism, is fundamentally opposed to every form of freedom. At its core and in its every expression in history it is immoral.

A new blog series at Declination is exploring Marxism and Morality, Part One.

The first post in the series addresses the common defense of communism/Marxism, which is the claim that every single attempt at Marxism wasn’t a “real” effort. If it had just been tried correctly it would have been a stupendous success.

Amongst the problems with that false argument is that if every single effort to attempt something is a failure there’s something wrong with the theory.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago

Venezuelan government supported with cash from investment bank while support from military is weakening

Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

A New York investment bank bought bonds from the Venezuelan central bank at a steep discount and got a lot of heat for doing so. The military is applying more violence to protesters as support from the rank and file appears to be shrinking.

5/30 – Wall Street Journal – Goldman Sachs Under Fire for Venezuela Bond Deal – Goldman bought $2.8B of bonds issued by the government-owned oil company for $865M. That is 31% of face. If, and this is a big if, the bonds were to be paid in full, on-time, at face value that would produce a 40% return.

Goldman is in a PR mess because the bonds were held by the Venezuelan central bank, meaning Goldman essentially put almost a billion dollars into the government’s hand.

Article says Goldman has been increasing their holdings of Venezuelan debt over the last few months. Their play is that if government gets its finances in order, the bonds will soar in value and Goldman will make a huge profit.

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By Jim Ulvog, ago