Don’t Weep For Poor Ol’ Venezuela
Per this article from Forbes Magazine, the economy of Venezuela has tanked so badly that implosion is an insufficient way to describe it.
It appears that Mr. Maduro, an incompetent ass if there ever was one, thinks that if he separates the bolivar from the USDollar, it will restore prosperity. Lo siento, pendejo, but inflation is inflation and you devalued the bolivar because you’re an idiot. It isn’t enough that the military is laundering money, is it? That’s being investigated by the US.
And naturally, it’s all the fault of the US of A, not the Big Mahaffs of OPEC (Saudis) or the ‘lackluster’ oil market. Maduro does not know about, nor does he understand, that the bubble in the price of oil a few years ago was just that: a bubble, and like all other bubbles, it burst like a bad tire and will not reinflate.
Last year, there was a news item about the Venezuelan army assisting cattle ranchers in stopping cattle rustling. When you read that article, note that Maduro’s supporters are also going hungry now. Gee whiz, guys, if people are starving to death, where’s the beef?
Category: Foreign Policy, Politics
You could parade the cattle thru downtown at high noon and this fools wouldn’t know what to do with them. They would probably try and arrest them as foreign spies!
“The problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.” Lady Margaret Thatcher
WHEN has Socialism ever succeeded at anything other than making the vast majority of a population miserably impoverished and hungry?
I was just about to say that Other People’s Money appears to have run out. What do you think will come next? My money’s on show trials and executions.
If they start with Maduro and his buddies, I’m good with that.
I cannot believe that a once-prosperous country like that has been turned into a worse pisshole than North Korea.
It’s not quite there yet.
YET.
Nope they will say that socialism was not implemented the correct way and that is why it has not worked.
Standard reply for “political scientists” that are pro-socialism…
Just like the witch-doctors, magicians, sorcerers, fortune-tellers, and omen-interpreters of old. Or of today.
that was because people were involved – if you want do it right, you have replace all the people (let go to nirvana) with robots.
They elected Chavez and Maduro. A people have the government they deserve.
Still celebrating that we deserved Trump. I was so pessimist, with the Drats stealing elections and shit.
IMHO there WAS plenty of voting fraud out there this time around, just not enough to make Das Hildebeast steal the election.
I think you are right. To win against the democrats we need a margin wide enough that they cannot overcome it with fraud.
It probably helped that they were all believing their own propaganda and didn’t expect the Trumpminator to win.
They will really try the next presidential election.
I weep for the childhood friends I had in Maracaibo – who have probably starved to death by now.
The people of Venezuela whom I knew as a child were kind and gracious. Of course, there were the scumbags as well.
But the politics and the attitudes engendered by the Catholic/aristocratic mindset have born fruit.
(No insult intended to American Catholics – who are markably distinct in nature from South and Central Amercican Catholic Church leaders.)
Well, see, I think if we develop more and more fuel-efficient engines, eventually, someone will make the breakthrough to a real alternate drive mechanism.
Fuel cells were a good idea, but they weren’t taken far enough. Electric cars require charging and still depend on carbon-base power supplies for those charging stations.
Most of the materials we depend on for a lot of things like synthetic materials (nylon, plastic, etc.) are byproducts of oil production. The circuit boards in electronic equipment are plastic, which runs right back to oil.
If we can get away from oil dependency, the price becomes a moot point.
Somewhere a tree-hugger’s head just exploded.
Yes, and I’m just waiting for whats-his-name to drop by and ‘explain things’ to us.
If he doesn’t, I’ll be incredibly disappointed… not.
Not me, I’m enjoying his absence.
Maybe his grant money just ran out and he is busy trying to get a gubmint job, prolly with the state of Mexifornia. Someone should tell him ICE and Border patrol are hiring.
Switching to Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors (LFTR) for our power supply would mitigate the need for a carbon based supply for electric cars. But there seem to be a lot of people who are still too scared of nukes to do that, despite the inherent safety characteristics of LFTR.
Maybe we can just tell them in isn’t a nuclear reactor, but that we’ve literally harnessed the power of the Norse Thunder God!
Liquid Fluoride Thorium, aka Thunder God Sweat, is one of the most natural and environmentally compatible energy sources available! They’ll believe that, they believed Hillary was a good choice for President.
“Thunder God Sweat”. I like it-we need to get marketing on that ASAP!
Thunder God Sweat.
I can see the ads now: brought to you by Thor or Zeus or Neptune, depending on which pagan deities you choose to put on the jar label.
Today the current pope was singing the praises of liberation theology and all the positive effects it has had in south america.
Brazil, Venezuela, and Argentina are all in dire straights. Venezuela was further down the road to socialist dictatorship than any of the others.
Here is hoping that the other countries can turn back. And here is hoping that the people of Venezuela can rid them selves of a horrible incompetent dictator
FB40
straights =》straits
Apologies from my inner GrammerNazi.
“liberation theology” is, and always will be, heretical to good theology.
I’m somewhat disappointed in the way the current pope has turned out, but not astounded.
Ever notice how every time any kind of socialism fails, be it “soft” Eurosocialism, communism, nazism, whatever, the apologists comebout of the woodwork to say that either A) it’s all our fault because…uh…reasons! or B) it failed because it wasn’t “real” communism/socialism, and thus wasn’t being done right. You can just about set your watch by it.
Strangely enough, though, socialism always fails, often with spectacular results. Sure, some examples take longer than others, and some can be gussied up for a while to give the appearance of success before they come crashing down, but they all fail eventually. They also always take people’s money while denying those same people personal freedom in whatever aspect of life the program governs. A small minority do benefit–and the leaders propagandize the hell out of those few–but the majority get screwed, and are worse off in the end. Socialism, which supposedly makes it better for everyone, actually does the opposite in reality, and it does it every time.
100% failure rate. Remember the definition of insanity?
Yes, and it seems that the communist government of Vietnam, which rolled its tanks into Saigon in April 1975, is now asking the US of A to return and help them out with keeping the Chinese on their own side of the border.
If that isn’t irony, what is it?
And look at China, which has survived by establishing an oligarchic capitalist economy (with senior party members as the major shareholders, of course) to make money while keeping their population securely under the jackboots of Maoist commie laws and social policies. Oh, sure, they’ve left Hong Kong more or less alone since taking over, but only so they could tax the living dogshit out of it! As I recall, the ethnic Chinese population of Hong Kong wanted to stay British. Evidently they were on to something.
Vietnam? Shit, they only keep it clean because their only source of income is tourism! When their old folks who’re old enough to remember say they were better off under the French, that’s saying something.
And let’s look at the “heroes” of the left, shall we? Karl Marx: misanthropic antisocial asshole advocating mass-murder. Lenin (real name V. I. Ulyanov): mass-murdering tyrant who’s fondly remembered only because his successors were worse. Stalin: mass-murdering serial rapist who treated his sons like shit and attempted genocide against the Ukrainians, enabled psychos like Yagoda and Beriya. Castro: ultimate douchebag, lived in opulent mansions with hot&cold running hookers on tap while Cubans still try to get away on anything even barely buoyant. Guevara: the sadist who ran Castro’s prisons, got off on torturing and executing 12-year-old boys, wanted to be a mass-murderer but even Castro wouldn’t let him be in charge of the nukes, also an outspoken white-supremacist. Ho Chi Minh: natural-born backstabber whose only real goal was personal power and didn’t care how many peasants his minions murdered for it. Mao: pedophile who collaborated with the Japanese during WWII, also killed more people (his own, no less) than Hitler and Stalin combined. Pol Pot: Asian Hitler. The Kim family: need no introduction.
Seriously, when your movement’s heroes make an asshole like Tito look good, you have a problem.
Tito was a mass murderer, as well.
He was indeed. But compared to the others TOW listed, he was a rank amateur at mass murder.
Eventually, the ‘free money’ runs out and forced labor depletes the population. It’s the reason the Chinese keep a tight rein on their border with the Norks.
Even Gorbachev, who was considerably smarter than his predecessors, knew that the Soviet Union was bankrupt, and said so publicly. If he had done what Putin did, start pumping oil in Siberia, the USSR might still be in operation today. But he didn’t. He was too much an ‘old style’ party politician, didn’t know how to dig out of the hole that had opened up.
Not sure it’s a valid point to try and claim Hitler as ANY kindof idol of leftists; the fact that the party name was National Socialist does not change that fascism and the Nazis were ulta-righists, not leftists.
Wrong, Hitler was a socialist, he was proud of being a socialist and told anyone who’d pay attention that he and the Nazis were socialists.
“[My task is to] “convert the German volk (people) to socialism without simply killing off the old individualists”.
“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions”.
Karl Marx? German. Friedrich Engels? German. And Lenin’s escape from certain death? Germany helped him. The Krauts have a rich and long history of f’n with the world.
I didn’t actually mention Hitler except as comparison.
Funny thing though, he had a lot of socialist policies, you just had to be part of the Master Race for them to apply…which is not all that different from many communist regimes which institutionalized racism/bigotry (Soviets against Ukrainians, Poles, and Baltic Germans; Red Chinese against Nepalese and Vietnamese; Vietnamese against Hmong, Khmer, and Montagnards; Tito’s regime against anyone who wasn’t Serbian). Religious oppression is another feature they share, as is the elimination of personal liberty in the name of “the good of the people.” Then there’s the gulag-type facilities they all have for “enemies of the people. And they both hate capitalists (never mind how much personal enrichment the leaders engage in), except for the George Soros-type “useful” ones.
I keep hearing that the two are opposites, yet they are so similar. Of course nazis and commies hate eachother, but commies don’t exactly get along great with other commies, so that proves nothing, really. Are they just so far to the extreme that they meet on the other side?
Ironically, nazism, as horrifying as it is, is probably the most sustainable form of socialism, since it pre-designates its slave labor pool rather than dressing it up as “glorious fraternal cooperation,” though you still have to meet certain expectations if you want to stay in the Master Race.
The only remotely-sustainable type of socialism depends on slavery. That right there tells you all you need to know about socialism.
Try again. Hitler was socialist. The main difference was national socialism (fascists like Nazi and Italians) versus international socialism (Soviets, Chinese, et al.)
They may not have been best buddies, but they definitely ran in the same circles.
Jonah Goldberg explains it pretty well in his book, “Liberal Fascism.”
Bullshit, leftard. Hitler was a died in the wool socialist statist. The primary reason he couldn’t have a long term alliance with the Soviets/Stalin was because a large % of the jews in Germany were Communists and he needed “liebensraum” in the territory of the USSR. Also, he understood that he (Hitler) could co-opt the German business community to do his bidding without having to expropriate their property. He also needed Communism as an enemy of the state as part of his rise to power.
SOCIALISM is full of ideas so great they have to be forced on people at gunpoint once it’s established.
Feel the Bern!!!
Bernie Sellout? Now there’s a man of principle!
/sarc
Yup… able to buy a new house when he lost to Cankles! I wonder if Cankles helped with the down payment or was it the money that his wife made while president of a college that had to close its doors this year because of a bad land deal?
Speakin’ of the washed-up has-been, wasn’t he lavishing praise on the same policies that have sent Venezuela down the shitpipes just a few years ago?
I thought it was more recent than that, like, during the election campaign. And his most ardent acolyte, Commissar, was, as well.
“where’s the beef?”
Muhahahahahaha!
Commissar aka zika-commie is rubbing the sleepers out of his eyes right now. After he nibbles his Reduced-Fat Turkey Bacon & Cage Free Egg White Breakfast Sandwich and slurps down his latte, he will grace us with his presence.
If he knew where those eggs really come from, he’d put his sandwich down and back away from it.
Poultry menstruation? I’m good with that. Goes great with real bacon!
And I always laugh my ass off when I hear somebody talking about “free range” chickens. I’ve raised chickens since I was a kid. “Free range” for a chicken is about five square feet.
Does he even think about eating animals? He seems more like a tofu-muncher to me, one who would actually want a veggie MRE.
I think you’re right. Every time I try to picture the Piuperdink with a brat or a francheesie, the image starts hysterical laughter in me.
Veggie-nazis run around screaming “Meat is murder” and I like my “murder” cooked Medium on a charcoal grill. IMHO there is a special place for some of God’s creatures, it’s right next to the potatoes and gravy!
I’m a medium-rare man myself. Not only is it juicy, the juices still have flavor!
Medium rare!
Medium rare here, too lol.
There is nothing wrong with veggie MREs. We jews have lived on that for years.
God dammit…that was my back up residence if I need a no extradition nation….now it’s a pile of dog shit….I knew it would happen, just hoped they’d be sharp enough to keep it up and running for 30-50 years by which time I’m most likely a dead guy and it wouldn’t matter if it shit the bed…
Fucking socialists, always promising such cool stuff but without a hardworking relatively homogenous population that pays 40% of its income to the government it’s hard to keep it afloat. Also the few places where large social programs are still sort of solvent don’t have a single income source like oil that’s so volatile in the market.
Now I have to research some other no-extradition options….not that I need one today, but you never know.
well, if California succeeds in seceding, you could always try there. I am sure they would only extradite those who didn’t stay in liberal lock-step.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/01/27/officials-announce-proposal-that-would-establish-california-as-separate-nation.html
There’s an awful lot of Californians, mostly outside the major cities (in those “backwards redneck” areas an independent California would desperately need if it doesn’t want to starve), who much prefer to stay American. And we tend to be armed.
If San Francisco, LA, and Berkeley want to secede, our reply will be “Good riddance.”
I’ve always heard that California is Red State turf with the exception of LA, San Foo-foo and Sacramento.
It also just occurred to me that LA and SF are both totally dependent on anti-secession counties not only for food, but water as well! Let ’em go! Imagine how fast Owens Valley will become green again when the water returns!
And just wait and see how fast the rest of us throw up a new border wall around those retards.
I’d pay a couple of bucks to see that.
Not going to happen.
We settled the “secession” question 160 years ago. There is no mechanism for removing large swaths of citizens from the Constitution.
Remember, all those folks that live there, are US Citizens, with a guarantee of various rights under the Constitution. The fact that 60% of a hypothetical ballot vote to end that does not in fact end it.
Note that the Dems said blacks were not citizens a while back, thus could be enslaved.
You can’t vote to end the rights of folks. We settled that in the 1860s, and again in the 1960s. I seriously doubt the northern half of California wants to go. Will the Sacramento folks -force- everyone in California to secede? I doubt they can.
This is -stupid-. The last time folks tried this, we killed more Americans than all our other wars combined, and wrecked half the country.
Some folks are so accustomed to claiming that the speak for all, that they forget that they do not even speak for half of the folks who vote. Just because a mob votes to declare a new mob rule, does not in any way void the rights of the rest of us. Rights guaranteed by the US Constitution.
Be careful of what you wish. You could easily go from “electorally defeated” to “militarily vanquished” and “tried, convicted, and paroled as non-participants”.
Hmm. They “secede”, the balance shifts quickly towards the other side. The other side invades and conquers. The ringleaders are permanently self-removed from the system.
Maybe we should be cheering them on? (Evil chuckle…..)
Interestingly enough, the polls they quote show only about 30% in favor secession. Some other problems that indicate how poorly they’ve thought this through: 1) California–which doesn’t have the soundest budget to begin with, would have to pay the US government for all federal property in the seceding territory, including the infrastructure on said property. Camp Pendleton alone will be multiple billions. Then there’s Edwards, Vandenberg, North Island/Coronado, Ballast Point/Point Loma, March, Hunter-Ligget, NTC, Miramar… Plus, DOD owns lots of land besides the bases. Then there’s Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Alcatraz, and other places owned by NPS, plus National Forest lands, BLM, DOE, FAA, metc. If you think the Trump administration will just let that go without payment up front, you’re out of your mind. 2) Seceding territories will see a mass exodus of anti-secessionists, including a majority of the entrepreneurs, managers, skilled labor, and public safety personnel, gutting California’s vaunted economy and leaving very little with which to get a handle on the resulting instability. Keep in mind that the spirit of volunteerism is far weaker here than it is back east. Look no further than the ongoing decline of volunteer fire departments in California as an example. Good luck with that! 3) How about defense? California’s army will consist of…what? People’s Commissar Commissar and a couple of hippies who don’t know which end launches the lead? Okay, yeah, I know, not all America-hating leftists are gun-grabbers, but the overwhelming majority of military personnel wouldn’t want to stay even if they could, they’ll be taking all of their hardware with them, and your available recruitment pool won’t be all that deep, plus most of your willing militiamen will be anti-secessionist anyway. And how will you train them, anyway? Hiring those nasty, nasty PMCs would likely be the only practical answer, and they don’t come cheap. See #1 above. How about equipment? That ain’t cheap either. See #1 again. China and Mexico both would love to grab some or all of California if they thought they could get away with it, and the Chinese have been building the capability to project… Read more »
Lars will correct you and explain that California is a giver not taker and provide multiple sources and logic to support his “facts” that the USA would crumble without California.
And he’s full of shit, because California’s givers tend quite strongly to be Americans.
I hope they get it on the ballot just so I can see how many stupid Cali voters there are that would vote for it.
No ID for that vote, of course.
Illegals will be given ballots too, of course.
Sacremento will see no evidence of fraud, as long as the vote totals at least 60% in favor of leaving, and then only in the nay-saying areas.
Gonna be a mess unless sanity prevails.
No question! Cali illegals will be getting their mail-in absentee ballots, and in Spanish. Mecha will be pushing the con that as soon as the Calexit happens Cali will be rejoining Mexico.
Strange as it seems, the Vatican has no extradition treaty with the U.S. Nor does Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia or Kuwait.
This article lists those countries that don’t have an extradition treaty with the U.S., pick wisely.
http://www.wsfa.com/story/22665099/countries-with-no-extradition-treaty-with-us
I ain’t weeping for to government of Venezuela, but the people I am genuinely concerned about. Chavez, may he rot in hell, sold the country out to win a popularity contest. Now the bills are coming due, it hasn’t been pretty for anybody for a while, and is about to get worse. That very heavy, hard to distill crude they have isn’t as valuable when we’re fracking lighter distillates at home. We were one of the few countries that had refineries capable of handling that sludge, but we don’t need it so much anymore. Hopefully they’ll throw off the yoke of socialism / Chavesism, and return to a more democratic rule, but I would wager a military junta is in their near future.
When you create a huge Free Shit Army (FSA) in your nation, eventually those chickens come home to roost when you run out of the money to pay for the “free” shit. If you are eating a “free” lunch, someone else had to pay for it at some point. But that basic economic reality is lost on leftards/progtards.
You’re probably closer to the mark than you think. I’d give it less than a year.