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On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.).
You absolutely see that sort of shit for those places. It's just less socially acceptable, but there are even (inaccurate) aphorisms about Mussolini at least getting the trains to run on time and some pretty disturbing reverence for Nazi Germany from the alt-right, which is a sizable portion of the GOP base.
There also aren't any modern fascist countries so it's not going to come up as frequently. Venezaula, China, and Norway all have still extant governments with varying levels of socialist policies. I couldn't ask xdaunt "hey, how's Hitler's Germany doing in 2016?"
(The only possibly extant fascist government is Trump's, and I'm not sure that really makes the grade : he has fascists on his staff and has fascistic tendencies, but enough of the government has refused to go along with him to make it hard to judge. Regardless, his administration had the same major weakness of all fascists : when confronted with an external, actual enemy, they have issues fighting it because any opposition to them must be portrayed as both overwhelming powerful and impossibly weak. This makes it hard to accurately judge how big of a threat COVID actually was and is: in one breath they'll say that it's a little cold and in the next say that it ruined the economy, or cry about how mask restrictions are useless but then attack any opposition politician who doesn't wear one. The recently leaked memos about the Trump admin deciding on a herd immunity strategy, even as they denied they were doing it, just fit that pattern perfectly).
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On December 18 2020 10:26 Wegandi wrote:
Why is communism so difficult to manage while capitalism is not? Why have all the results of said attempts been destructive failures both to life and living standards (interesting no mention of the Khmer Rouge). The worst capitalist countries (probably Pinochets Chile) have been far preferrable to the best attempts at communism. Its the problem with the State and its monopolist apparatus, the personalities attracted to it and communism (power corrupts, absolute power yadda yadda), and its strong tendency (as seen in this thread as well) to always blame the other (capitalists whether internal or external) for their troubles. Even while Venezuela imploded from their policies Maduro still blamed capitalist agitators. Its weird how that is ever a one way street.
There's also the socialist calculation critique by Mises which has never been answered by communists. The USSR had to rely on black markets and US pricing to allocate resources and they did so badly. Communism because of its inherent traits will always fail. It will always cause misery, poverty, and death no matter how 'noble' its intentions are. The worst thing that ever happened in the world was for Marx to be born. Even after 100+ million deaths people still defend it.
Capitalism is incredibly difficult to manage. Our existing system is a house of cards where each economy props up each other economy by shovelling around national debt that the countries themselves couldn't ever possibly pay if it was ever called in.
Literally, Capitalism would collapse overnight if not for every Capitalist country cooperating to keep it afloat.
The economy is so complicated, so large and unwieldy, and so incomprehensible that most economists - who literally spend their lives studying, learning about and trying to predict the economy - admit they don't truly understand it.
It's so complicated that it's given rise to a semi-religious belief that the 'market' is some self-aware force that will 'take care of itself' if only nobody interferes with it... despite it only existing because people create it.
The system works (mostly, not including the various market crashes), but it sure isn't easy to manage.
On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.).
Yes, SA is a Capitalist country. That's self-evident. Their system of governance has no bearing on their economic system.
'Folks' on the left are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many random people express even measured support for a nation, the nation's leaders treat any and all Socialist countries as the enemy number one and slap sanctions on them immediately. Venezuala's fortunes rose and fell on oil in large part because nobody would trade with them for anything else.
Economic isolation is the immediate response and always has been. I don't know how this can even be a discussion point since it's happened every single time.
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On December 19 2020 12:50 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.). You absolutely see that sort of shit for those places. It's just less socially acceptable, but there are even (inaccurate) aphorisms about Mussolini at least getting the trains to run on time and some pretty disturbing reverence for Nazi Germany from the alt-right, which is a sizable portion of the GOP base. There also aren't any modern fascist countries so it's not going to come up as frequently. Venezaula, China, and Norway all have still extant governments with varying levels of socialist policies. I couldn't ask xdaunt "hey, how's Hitler's Germany doing in 2016?" (The only possibly extant fascist government is Trump's, and I'm not sure that really makes the grade : he has fascists on his staff and has fascistic tendencies, but enough of the government has refused to go along with him to make it hard to judge. Regardless, his administration had the same major weakness of all fascists : when confronted with an external, actual enemy, they have issues fighting it because any opposition to them must be portrayed as both overwhelming powerful and impossibly weak. This makes it hard to accurately judge how big of a threat COVID actually was and is: in one breath they'll say that it's a little cold and in the next say that it ruined the economy, or cry about how mask restrictions are useless but then attack any opposition politician who doesn't wear one. The recently leaked memos about the Trump admin deciding on a herd immunity strategy, even as they denied they were doing it, just fit that pattern perfectly).
Hungary, Phillipines, Ukraine-ish, Bolsonaro in Brazil (if you're going to say Trump is fascist...), a fair number of the Eastern European countries have quite strong fascist tendencies. I'd also argue China has a lot of characteristics in common with historical fascist Governments.
It's interesting you can say at once its less socially acceptable and then not realize you made my point for me. There is absolutely less tolerance for fascist drivel than socialist/communist. The left has far more adherents to that ideology than the right does with Mussolini and the proto-fascist philosophers of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Its time to stop saying there is anything desirable about socialist/communist countries. They should be as despised and shunned as Hitler's Germany. Its a huge double standard comparatively to what actually happened with the level of defense. Fascism is awful with no redeeming qualities, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the death and destruction of communism.
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United States43822 Posts
On December 19 2020 12:50 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.). You absolutely see that sort of shit for those places. It's just less socially acceptable, but there are even (inaccurate) aphorisms about Mussolini at least getting the trains to run on time and some pretty disturbing reverence for Nazi Germany from the alt-right, which is a sizable portion of the GOP base. There also aren't any modern fascist countries so it's not going to come up as frequently. Venezaula, China, and Norway all have still extant governments with varying levels of socialist policies. I couldn't ask xdaunt "hey, how's Hitler's Germany doing in 2016?" (The only possibly extant fascist government is Trump's, and I'm not sure that really makes the grade : he has fascists on his staff and has fascistic tendencies, but enough of the government has refused to go along with him to make it hard to judge. Regardless, his administration had the same major weakness of all fascists : when confronted with an external, actual enemy, they have issues fighting it because any opposition to them must be portrayed as both overwhelming powerful and impossibly weak. This makes it hard to accurately judge how big of a threat COVID actually was and is: in one breath they'll say that it's a little cold and in the next say that it ruined the economy, or cry about how mask restrictions are useless but then attack any opposition politician who doesn't wear one. The recently leaked memos about the Trump admin deciding on a herd immunity strategy, even as they denied they were doing it, just fit that pattern perfectly).
Putin’s Russia is more fascist than Trump’s America. It’s a dictatorship built around a cult of a strongman trying to restore national honour to a glorious past that was lost through militarism and territorial expansion. Personal loyalty to Putin is required to hold any kind of power and the post Soviet oligarchs who were insufficiently loyal have either been purged or assassinated. Regressive social policies and a rejection of “degenerate” foreign ideals coupled with a resurgence of neo Tsarist national figureheads.
Russia is the archetype of modern fascism. It ticks literally every box. Turkey is heading down the same part too, albeit with a religious bent as their national myth of lost glory involves a caliphate.
I loathe Trump but he’s not the main figure of modern fascism, he’s just the one bringing it to the fore in the west. It’s been coming back all over for a while.
Edit: Wegandi is correct to identify China too, though it’s less of a classic example than Russia due to cultural differences and less of a leader cult around a strongman. That’s why I’d class China more as an apartheid ethno nationalist empire than a fascist state. But it’s extremely ethno-nationalist, it’s expansionist, it’s built around a myth of restoring a glorious past and expunging the shame to national honour done to it by foreigners, the state capitalism harnessed to nationalist goals is frankly reminiscent of Nazism. It’s only missing the individualism and the religious devotion to the great leader embodying the people.
America really is far from the bottom here. It just gets more attention because fascism isn’t meant to be happening in America.
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On December 19 2020 13:22 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 12:50 Nevuk wrote:On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.). You absolutely see that sort of shit for those places. It's just less socially acceptable, but there are even (inaccurate) aphorisms about Mussolini at least getting the trains to run on time and some pretty disturbing reverence for Nazi Germany from the alt-right, which is a sizable portion of the GOP base. There also aren't any modern fascist countries so it's not going to come up as frequently. Venezaula, China, and Norway all have still extant governments with varying levels of socialist policies. I couldn't ask xdaunt "hey, how's Hitler's Germany doing in 2016?" (The only possibly extant fascist government is Trump's, and I'm not sure that really makes the grade : he has fascists on his staff and has fascistic tendencies, but enough of the government has refused to go along with him to make it hard to judge. Regardless, his administration had the same major weakness of all fascists : when confronted with an external, actual enemy, they have issues fighting it because any opposition to them must be portrayed as both overwhelming powerful and impossibly weak. This makes it hard to accurately judge how big of a threat COVID actually was and is: in one breath they'll say that it's a little cold and in the next say that it ruined the economy, or cry about how mask restrictions are useless but then attack any opposition politician who doesn't wear one. The recently leaked memos about the Trump admin deciding on a herd immunity strategy, even as they denied they were doing it, just fit that pattern perfectly). Hungary, Phillipines, Ukraine-ish, Bolsonaro in Brazil (if you're going to say Trump is fascist...), a fair number of the Eastern European countries have quite strong fascist tendencies. I'd also argue China has a lot of characteristics in common with historical fascist Governments. It's interesting you can say at once its less socially acceptable and then not realize you made my point for me. There is absolutely less tolerance for fascist drivel than socialist/communist. The left has far more adherents to that ideology than the right does with Mussolini and the proto-fascist philosophers of the late 19th century and early 20th century. Its time to stop saying there is anything desirable about socialist/communist countries. They should be as despised and shunned as Hitler's Germany. Its a huge double standard comparatively to what actually happened with the level of defense. Fascism is awful with no redeeming qualities, but it still doesn't hold a candle to the death and destruction of communism.
Socialist like Norway, France ? If not, why scream socialism when you talk about free healthcare ?
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Dave how is SA capitalist self evident. Almost 50% of their economic output is oil-based and guess what....its nationalized (Saudi Aramco). Do you even know anything about the country?
Beyond that SA incorporates a lot of little princely fiefdoms where patronage is a huge component. Honestly, it has some fuedal remnant aspects. It's also not a country you can model any other after since literally one industry account for half their output. Norway is probably the closest. If oil prices collapsed overnight Norway and SA would be in massive trouble.
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United States43822 Posts
On December 19 2020 13:32 Wegandi wrote:
Dave how is SA capitalist self evident. Almost 50% of their economic output is oil-based and guess what....its nationalized (Saudi Aramco). Do you even know anything about the country?
Beyond that SA incorporates a lot of little princely fiefdoms where patronage is a huge component. Honestly, it has some fuedal remnant aspects. It's also not a country you can model any other after since literally one industry account for half their output. Norway is probably the closest. If oil prices collapsed overnight Norway and SA would be in massive trouble.
Norway has so much money invested in diversified interests at this point that the country could conceivably retire.
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I doubt that. The wealth fund is like 200k per person. A lot of money but not that much. In addition they still rely on the well paying jobs the oil industry brings including its tax base. I'm sure Norway can manage the collapse of the oil industry (just as we managed our Dutch disease) due to their strong institutions but they'd have to liberalise like the other Scandinavian countries in the 80s and 90s.
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On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause".
You are just buying into a "just so" story of them becoming poor. The system encouraged divestment from the rich because they were going to be penniless/beheaded overnight. Its better to have a stable autocracy because people won't feel threatened by change. The only regime changes that benefit an economy are those that people can trust to not confiscate their wealth/behead them.
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On December 19 2020 13:25 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 12:50 Nevuk wrote:On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.). You absolutely see that sort of shit for those places. It's just less socially acceptable, but there are even (inaccurate) aphorisms about Mussolini at least getting the trains to run on time and some pretty disturbing reverence for Nazi Germany from the alt-right, which is a sizable portion of the GOP base. There also aren't any modern fascist countries so it's not going to come up as frequently. Venezaula, China, and Norway all have still extant governments with varying levels of socialist policies. I couldn't ask xdaunt "hey, how's Hitler's Germany doing in 2016?" (The only possibly extant fascist government is Trump's, and I'm not sure that really makes the grade : he has fascists on his staff and has fascistic tendencies, but enough of the government has refused to go along with him to make it hard to judge. Regardless, his administration had the same major weakness of all fascists : when confronted with an external, actual enemy, they have issues fighting it because any opposition to them must be portrayed as both overwhelming powerful and impossibly weak. This makes it hard to accurately judge how big of a threat COVID actually was and is: in one breath they'll say that it's a little cold and in the next say that it ruined the economy, or cry about how mask restrictions are useless but then attack any opposition politician who doesn't wear one. The recently leaked memos about the Trump admin deciding on a herd immunity strategy, even as they denied they were doing it, just fit that pattern perfectly). Putin’s Russia is more fascist than Trump’s America. It’s a dictatorship built around a cult of a strongman trying to restore national honour to a glorious past that was lost through militarism and territorial expansion. Personal loyalty to Putin is required to hold any kind of power and the post Soviet oligarchs who were insufficiently loyal have either been purged or assassinated. Regressive social policies and a rejection of “degenerate” foreign ideals coupled with a resurgence of neo Tsarist national figureheads. Russia is the archetype of modern fascism. It ticks literally every box. Turkey is heading down the same part too, albeit with a religious bent as their national myth of lost glory involves a caliphate. I loathe Trump but he’s not the main figure of modern fascism, he’s just the one bringing it to the fore in the west. It’s been coming back all over for a while. Edit: Wegandi is correct to identify China too, though it’s less of a classic example than Russia due to cultural differences and less of a leader cult around a strongman. That’s why I’d class China more as an apartheid ethno nationalist empire than a fascist state. But it’s extremely ethno-nationalist, it’s expansionist, it’s built around a myth of restoring a glorious past and expunging the shame to national honour done to it by foreigners, the state capitalism harnessed to nationalist goals is frankly reminiscent of Nazism. It’s only missing the individualism and the religious devotion to the great leader embodying the people. America really is far from the bottom here. It just gets more attention because fascism isn’t meant to be happening in America.
I dunno about China. Xi Jinping's kind of emerging as that sort of figure. I don't know how he's propagandised internally of course, which is the big difference maker on that front. But my brows certainly raised a bit at that speech he made and how party members were said to respond to it.
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So relief aid is held up now because out of the blue the Republicans want to limit the power of the Federal Reserve starting under the Biden administration.
Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an eleventh-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.
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The biggest immediate hurdle seemed to be a push led by Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania to block the next administration and the Federal Reserve from relaunching several expiring lending programs next year. Democrats said the move could hamper the economic recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration.
“We almost have a bipartisan COVID package, but at the last minute Republicans are making a demand that WAS NEVER MENTIONED AS KEY TO THE NEGOTIATIONS,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Friday. “They want to block the FED from helping the economy under Biden. It’s the reason we don’t have a deal.”
https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/18/toomey-fed-demand-rocks-coronavirus-relief-bill-talks/
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On December 19 2020 15:56 Starlightsun wrote:So relief aid is held up now because out of the blue the Republicans want to limit the power of the Federal Reserve starting under the Biden administration. Show nested quote +Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an eleventh-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.
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The biggest immediate hurdle seemed to be a push led by Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania to block the next administration and the Federal Reserve from relaunching several expiring lending programs next year. Democrats said the move could hamper the economic recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration.
“We almost have a bipartisan COVID package, but at the last minute Republicans are making a demand that WAS NEVER MENTIONED AS KEY TO THE NEGOTIATIONS,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Friday. “They want to block the FED from helping the economy under Biden. It’s the reason we don’t have a deal.” https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/18/toomey-fed-demand-rocks-coronavirus-relief-bill-talks/
It’s super sad they legitimately want the country to do worse. And they can be really blatant about it and their base won’t care
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On December 19 2020 13:36 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 13:32 Wegandi wrote:
Dave how is SA capitalist self evident. Almost 50% of their economic output is oil-based and guess what....its nationalized (Saudi Aramco). Do you even know anything about the country?
Beyond that SA incorporates a lot of little princely fiefdoms where patronage is a huge component. Honestly, it has some fuedal remnant aspects. It's also not a country you can model any other after since literally one industry account for half their output. Norway is probably the closest. If oil prices collapsed overnight Norway and SA would be in massive trouble. Norway has so much money invested in diversified interests at this point that the country could conceivably retire.
I live there. Believe me it kinds of has.
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On December 19 2020 16:30 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 15:56 Starlightsun wrote:So relief aid is held up now because out of the blue the Republicans want to limit the power of the Federal Reserve starting under the Biden administration. Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an eleventh-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.
...
The biggest immediate hurdle seemed to be a push led by Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania to block the next administration and the Federal Reserve from relaunching several expiring lending programs next year. Democrats said the move could hamper the economic recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration.
“We almost have a bipartisan COVID package, but at the last minute Republicans are making a demand that WAS NEVER MENTIONED AS KEY TO THE NEGOTIATIONS,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Friday. “They want to block the FED from helping the economy under Biden. It’s the reason we don’t have a deal.” https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/18/toomey-fed-demand-rocks-coronavirus-relief-bill-talks/ It’s super sad they legitimately want the country to do worse. And they can be really blatant about it and their base won’t care
It is pretty impressive. But then, my "what would Darth Vader do" method of figuring out what republicans will do has not failed so far. Sabotaging the Biden administration whenever they can is just par for the course for that party of comic book villains.
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On December 19 2020 19:54 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 16:30 Mohdoo wrote:On December 19 2020 15:56 Starlightsun wrote:So relief aid is held up now because out of the blue the Republicans want to limit the power of the Federal Reserve starting under the Biden administration. Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an eleventh-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.
...
The biggest immediate hurdle seemed to be a push led by Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania to block the next administration and the Federal Reserve from relaunching several expiring lending programs next year. Democrats said the move could hamper the economic recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration.
“We almost have a bipartisan COVID package, but at the last minute Republicans are making a demand that WAS NEVER MENTIONED AS KEY TO THE NEGOTIATIONS,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Friday. “They want to block the FED from helping the economy under Biden. It’s the reason we don’t have a deal.” https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/18/toomey-fed-demand-rocks-coronavirus-relief-bill-talks/ It’s super sad they legitimately want the country to do worse. And they can be really blatant about it and their base won’t care It is pretty impressive. But then, my "what would Darth Vader do" method of figuring out what republicans will do has not failed so far. Sabotaging the Biden administration whenever they can is just par for the course for that party of comic book villains.
Im so excited to see what forced compromises Biden does with them! What happens when an administration willfully makes itself compromise with a party actively interested in seeing it all fail, it will be EXCITING times. I doubly hope we see a Democrat controlled Senate to see just how malformed the compromises come out!
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Northern Ireland26508 Posts
On December 19 2020 11:46 Wegandi wrote:Show nested quote +On December 19 2020 09:08 WombaT wrote:On December 19 2020 07:42 JimmiC wrote:On December 19 2020 04:41 ShoCkeyy wrote:On December 19 2020 04:17 cLutZ wrote:On December 19 2020 01:37 JimmiC wrote:
Your look at Venezuela is mixing up correlation with causation, as I mentioned in another post Venezuela did well not because of Chavista policy but because of oil prices. You can see this because Chavezista was doing poorly before the massive oil prices and terrible after. The time period you picked happens to be when oil prices were exploding. If you look into it more you can also see that production was slipping even when the prices were very high because the theft was so high that none of the maintenance was happening. This is a country with not only the worlds largest oil reserves but having as much gold as the continent of Africa. Venezuela, if you look into it even slightly below the surface, is one of the worst examples of communism. Even their food packages for the poor are a grift. They get their "clap" from Mexico. Mexico sells it at one price and in the Venezuelan books it is a much higher price. The difference (millions a month) just disappears into the pockets of the political and military elite. Chavez/Maduro is what Trump tried to be, the tiny bit of good is completely out weighed by the horrible. Human rights abuses, theft, environment, extrajudicial killings, it is a sess pool of awful. That was hidden to some degree by 100 dollar oil prices but just look before the spike and after and it becomes pretty obvious. Venezuela should be BY FAR the richest country in SA not contending for poorest and being one of the worst places to live on many levels. And before you bring up the sanctions from the US, yes they have recently been impactful, but this was all clear before they started. Venezuela was the richest country in South America. A similar thing happened to Argentina in the early 20th century. It was, by most accounts a top 10 country in the world, and in some years more Europeans were choosing to immigrate to Argentina in lieu of immigrating to the United States. Venezuela corrupt took all their money, and bought/built a city in Miami called Doral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doral,_Florida#DemographicsThe last paragraph shows the influx of them before Venezuela went to the shitter. All that money went into the elites pockets and they left their country and their people broken and destitute. It bugs me more than when "capitalists" do it because at least capitalists are honest about the greed. People who think that Venezuela is in the situation they are in because of the USA are delusional or reading way to much Maduro propaganda. No one needs to believe me on this they can talk to any of the millions (not exaggerating) refugee's, such a disaster and Maduro is just solidifying his power after the attempt to unseat him failed, he even lost a election and just created a new house and ignored the elected officials. It is so incredibly sad what Madruo and his cronies have done pretending it is socialism. Anyone who actually believes in socialism should not defend Venezuela they should demonize it, if you don't it is like political equivalent of the priests that defended the priests and hid their crimes for "the good of the church". This is on that level of evil and could be just as damaging to the "cause". Well if we contrast the attitude and policy of the rest of the world to Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States etc and Venezuela, there clearly is a difference. This doesn’t at all absolve Maduro et al of blame for their failings, but there’s a marked difference in tolerance between abhorrent regimes that are capitalist and those that are ostensibly socialist. Those countries you mentioned are Theocracies and their economies are mostly modeled after Muslim doctrine. You really consider SA capitalist when women cannot own property? Even if that was so, SA is also again far preferrable to live in than Venezeula. At least the people in SA aren't eating their own pets, living in absolute squalor, and Venezeulans have a far far higher likelihood of death even when you factor in SA abysmal track record. Its weird you think socialist/communist countries are looked at without tolerance. Many folks on the left fawn over these places and make the most contorted rationalizations and excuses for them. Thats a considerable amount of people. You don't get this with equivalent atrocious regime doctrines (eg fascism - you don't see much defense and rationalization with the same magnitude for Nazi Germany, Italy, Franco Spain, etc.).
Which of these folks have any power whatsoever to sway global policy?
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On December 19 2020 13:32 Wegandi wrote:
Dave how is SA capitalist self evident. Almost 50% of their economic output is oil-based and guess what....its nationalized (Saudi Aramco). Do you even know anything about the country?
Beyond that SA incorporates a lot of little princely fiefdoms where patronage is a huge component. Honestly, it has some fuedal remnant aspects. It's also not a country you can model any other after since literally one industry account for half their output. Norway is probably the closest. If oil prices collapsed overnight Norway and SA would be in massive trouble.
I think you have a misconception of what capitalism is. It isn't just private ownership. The central idea is of concentrating resources and reinvesting for profits. A state can engage in capitalism. Saudi Arabia invests in oil fields and engages in the world market. France economy is 50% private-public, yet we can agree that it operates as a capitalistic country. USA has huge networks of patronage that determines where huge amounts of money is diverted, yet no-one will say USA isn't capitalistic. Anyways if I remember correctly they proposed to list their state oil company on the stock market some time ago. Not sure what came of that.
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We're entering extremely dangerous times with regards to Trump wanting to cling to power.
The NYT's Haberman has a story on it, with Haberman also putting out a series of tweets outlining an insane meeting last night.
Highlights :
1. Trump wants to appoint Sidney Powell as special counsel for election results.
2. Michael Flynn was present for the meeting pushing his idea of a military coup.
3. Giuliani and others are pushing the idea of outright seizing voting machines.
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I think we will get to the point where Trump directly instructs the military to act. As I have said before, he has no other option. His life is ruined the moment he isn't president.
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EPT
