Venezuela sliding into anarchy

[Onkel Neal]

Every day it gets worse for the South American country.

Paying for even the most trivial of purchases requires carrying around huge, Pablo Escobar-style stacks of bank notes. A Coke, if you can find it, will set you back 1,200 bolivars — 12 of the biggest bills. Lunch at a simple restaurant? At least 40 of those bills. Even a subsidized school lunch costs you at least 20 top-denomination bills. You can see how the numbers get out of hand fast.

It wasn't long ago that many were applauding the leadership of this country.

When a country goes socialist and it craters, it is laughed off as a harmless and forgettable cautionary tale about the perils of command economics. When, by contrast, a country goes socialist and its economy does what Venezuela’s did, it is not perceived to be a laughing matter – and it is not so easy to write off or to ignore. It suddenly looks like a threat to the corporate capitalism, especially when said country has valuable oil resources that global powerhouses like the United States rely on.

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo...nomic_miracle/

Not so much of a threat now.

[Skybird]

Karma. The inescapable causal link between cause and effect. You cannot bypass, declare void, ignore the market'S natural laws - you just cannot. The market always catches up with your fizzy intellectual acrobatics. It always has the final word on the bills's totals to be paid. It always makes you pay what you owe. Ideology never can break or distort it. You can delay - but you cannot hide.

People just do not want to believe that. They comfortably prefer to believe in angels and fairy tales relieving them of what is their karma. And that you can take more out of the pot without ever putting back similiar ammounts. But if you always take more than you put back, you end up in problems.

Its so simple but for many: so unwelcomed a truth.

Europe over the going of this century will go the same way like Venezuela - and maybe much earlier than many today think possible. The Euro, the EU - it all maybe could be over faster than most could imagine. Like 1989 - that also caught almost everybody by surprise - first, because it happened, and second: because of the breathtaking pace of events.

Regarding Venezuela, the market does what it is. The people will suffer what they must. The more things were off balance, the more painful any necessary (and in the end: unavoidable) correction will be.

"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.)

[propbeanie]

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”


― Margaret Thatcher

[HW3]

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by propbeanie

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”


― Margaret Thatcher

The Iron Maiden was seldom wrong

[mapuc]

Can't remember which year, month or day, when Swedish TV had a documentary about Venezuela and how great the politicians in Venezuela had done to the country, there where even some Swedish politicians who gave a big plus for this great experience. Today these Swedish people is silence

Markus

[Rockstar]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The Iron Maiden was seldom wrong

Iron Maiden?

I thought she was known as the Iron Lady.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Iron Maiden?

I thought she was known as the Iron Lady.

You are quite correct, my mistook

[propbeanie]

Originally Posted by Rockstar

Iron Maiden?

I thought she was known as the Iron Lady.

man... I thought you were posting some tunes... sigh...

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

The Iron Maiden was seldom wrong

The Iron Maiden was never wrong! Especially when you've had a glass too many at Castile di Amorosa winery-NAPA... in the torture chamber! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castello_di_Amorosa

[Sailor Steve]

Please try to stay on topic.

[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.

[Jimbuna]

Welcome to SubSim Bigblock-Fempower 427