Venezuela sliding into anarchy

[eddie]

I can't imagine what its like for the people there just trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Whole thing is sad.

[Aktungbby]

IT's getting worse! as the 'Iron Maiden of Hunger' rears her ugly head:

"Lately, food is a better business than drugs," said retired Gen. Cliver Alcala, who helped oversee border security.

...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.

http://www.dailyjournal.net/2016/12/28/lt-venezuela-undone-profiting-from-hunger/

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by eddie

I can't imagine what its like for the people there just trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Whole thing is sad.

Travelling to the country of "21st Century Socialism*"? Be warned.

Venezuela has one of the world's highest crime rates, including one of the highest homicide rates. Violent crime - including murder, armed robbery, kidnapping, and carjacking - is endemic throughout the country. Armed robberies and street crime take place throughout Caracas and other cities, including in areas frequented by tourists. Heavily armed criminals are known to use grenades and assault rifles to commit crimes at banks, shopping malls, public transportation stations, and universities. Criminals may take advantage of power outages to target victims when lights and security alarms are nonfunctional. Drug traffickers and illegal armed groups are active in the Colombian border states of Zulia, Tachira, and Apure.

The political and security situation in Venezuela is unpredictable and can change quickly. Political rallies and demonstrations occur with little notice, and are expected to occur with greater frequency in the coming months in Caracas and throughout the country. Long lines to purchase basic goods are a common occurrence throughout the country and there have been reports of unrest and violence while customers wait, sometimes resulting in looted stores and blocked streets. These incidents elicit a strong police and security force response that can include the use of violence against participants; several deaths have been reported during such protests. Due to shortages of some food and medical supplies, U.S. citizens should be prepared to cover their own needs while in country. In the event that the security climate worsens, U.S. citizens should be responsible for arranging their own travel out of Venezuela.

* The term ‘21st century socialism’ was coined by Mexican sociologist Heinz Dieterich Steffan, who served as an adviser to Chavez for several years but fell out with him in 2011. It conveys the idea that Venezuela is pioneering a new and exciting ‘socialism’ for the new century, based on grassroots participation, in contrast to the stodgy bureaucratic ‘socialism’ (what we call state capitalism) of the 20th century.

[eddie]

I'm glad I don't have any interest in going down there. Just wish the people could get the basics they need to survive without getting killed over it.

[Platapus]

Governments cause problems but always seem to be the last affected by their actions.

It is the people that suffer.

[Rockstar]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by The Guardian

“The Chavistas had good intentions. At first, they helped the poor more than any government had ever done before” said the taxi driver Lopez. “The problem is, good intentions are not enough.”

That sums it up quite well and certainly is applicable in many other political projects.

Excerpt comes from The Guardian's article "Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis" (published on Tuesday 11 October 2016) which paints rather bleak picture of situation. Currently it looks like the rollercoaster down the rabbit hole keeps going with no happy ending in sight.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Governments cause problems but always seem to be the last affected by their actions.

It is the people that suffer.

Its the people electing politicians and bringing governments into power, and staying loyal, obedient, servile. So all too often the people suffer from the government what they deserve - except those who never supported the government and never legitimated it.

You are not only free to vote during an election, in the West at least. You are also to be held accountable for your vote. This is often opportunistically ignored.

You get what you vote for. You harvest as you have sown. You get shot with the crows you have choosen to fly with. No right to complain.

[Onkel Neal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/n...228-story.html


This is why is doesn't hurt to be a little bit of a prepper. I mean, if you had a few months supply of canned food, at least you wouldn't have to scrounge or wait all day in lines to avoid starvation.

[Skybird]

Earlier this year, the German government has formally revived official announcements that German households should stockpile food, water and vital stuff to hold out for 2-3 weeks in case of national emergencies. It has fallen out of vogue in past decades to do so - since the cold war ended. Cold war times werre the last times Germans were called to stockpile some reserves, and prepping was seen as exaggerated acting by hysteric drama queens in the past 25 years. For the same reaosn, the poublic wanrign siren systems has been dismantled in Germany, which would have been used to alarm the public in case of atomic or chemical disasters, or air attacks from Iwan's direction.

The need to stockpile reserves these days again, formally was founded on the worstening of Western relations to Russia. But I suspect it also serves another scenario: the economic turmoil and possible temporary breakdown of business and trade of supplies in case of currency problems, namely a collapse of the Euro system. More and more voices dare to leave their hiding and giving estimations that the Euro will not last for longer than another five years at max. I'm not sure, but it is possible, even realistic.

A breakdown of the digital basis of cashless financial transcations due to terror or military cyber attacks, also is a possible scenario.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Skybird,

There is also scenario of cyber attack against logistics systems. In Finland one of our then big three (well, smallest) grocery store chain's shops ran out of many supplies because computer system used to manage and order supplies had failed. There was no plan B as that would have required maintaining workforce sitting idle when everything works fine. They also didn't know how much and what supplies their warehouses had. There was no foul play involved in that instance but it is not difficult to recreate that situation with cyber attack.

Same of course applies to electronic payment systems (primarily debit cards) which actually have been under attack and/or disabled every now and then. In those cases possession of cash is very good thing and I personally maintain small stockpile for such situations.

Ofcourse in situation like Venezuela there isn't that much difference wheter money is in cash or electronic format. Although latter is somewhat more convenient where it is accepted.

[Skybird]

You give another example for why I say that the next currency turmoils like in the late 20s last century will catch us much harder than back then. The infrastructure back then was such that the ripples and shockwaves worked slowly through the system, a system which limited the reach of these shockwaves somewhat anyway. Today, digitalization and globalization will multiply the speed of such events, any shockfront will hit us harder and more surprising and faster - and it will affect even more people, since specialisation and global trade chains a.) have dramatically reduced the keeping of reserves for emergencies, and b.) many more people are embedded and woven into the logistcs chain, the production chain, the trading chain. More people = more possible chances for failure, comparing to a chain with more links that could be weak, and break up. The likelihood of disastrous errors and breakdowns thus is much higher, and the consequences of even smaller mistakes are even bigger.

Add to this that many more "civilised" people today do not know how to plant food and when and how to harvest, do not know and have no skill and no permission to hunt, do not know and have never learned how to keep themselves alive by the land alone.

Any measures by any government to prevent mass starvation and total continetal disaster, will necessarily be of highly criminal nature themselves, violating basic human rights and former constitutional guarantees - else the lid could not be kept on the pressure cooker.

This scenario is the worst case scenario I fear most - and see as the most likely one. Compared to this main feature, terror bloodbaths like in Berlin or Paris, are relatively harmless supporting movies only, easy to not be affected by. Bright lights and loud sounds let them appear as bigger than they are. I fear central banks, finance ministers and politicians in general much, much more than any bomb-laying terrorist. And I say that as someone who has experienced a terror bomb attack live myself when I was young, 1986, I know how that feels.

[Bigblock-Fempower 427]

"Credit is preceded consumption that thus will not be available in the future to come." - Ludwig von Mises. What is so difficult in this to understand...? (Kredit ist vorgezogener Konsum, der in der Zukunft ausfällt.)[/QUOTE]

So true so true, the nature of closed systems. Skybird:

'Ewig Ist Manchmal Zu Lang',
( Thank you Helene Fischer! I love that relativity)

Der Lange verlorenen sohn aus Norwegen hier... Sie können erraten? Bar gesichten und beziehungsprobleme , merken? Entschuldigung für die Pause... gelinde gesagt... manchmal dinge passieren, ... leben werden eine Herausforderung, und In den letzten Jahren in mehreren Aspekten mehr als ein Schluck, und die geistige Konzentration wurde folglich geschädigt und begrenzt

Ok I give in on German now, the syntax are probably already messed up... OK, Snowman from the ruins of the extirpated F4 Community here.
Miss you man! Give me a go and I'll continue.

Sorry Onkel Neal for the off topic as introduction post

[Aktungbby]

Bigblock-Fempower 427!

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by eddie

I can't imagine what its like for the people there just trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Whole thing is sad.

Yeah, this is a nightmare for the people there.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ar-maduro.html

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela made a baffling announcement on Dec. 11, saying that his government intended to yank the 100 bolívar note from circulation in three days to thwart a supposed plot to hoard Venezuelan currency abroad. Any 100 bolívar bills that were not exchanged at the central bank within 10 days would become worthless. The result of this reckless decision was predictable.

Venezuelans, who have endured months of chronic food and medicine shortages, mobbed banks and A.T.M.s in a desperate attempt to offload their stacks of the highest denomination bill, which has become so devalued it is now worth roughly 3 cents in American dollars.

Shops and merchants stopped accepting the note, all but paralyzing an economy wrecked by years of abysmal mismanagement. Looting and riots erupted in several cities.

Although prices are rising, food can be cheap at the subsidized government price, if you can find it. Parents line up before dawn to wait for hours for the chance to buy flour, milk and baby formula for their family at official prices. But the lines have also become easy targets for robberies, forcing some to weigh hunger against the threat of violence.

Without getting too far off topic, it's this kind of seat-of-the-pant autocratic leadership style that worries me with our incoming president.