South American Politics thread - Page 23

On May 03 2019 14:08 xM(Z wrote:
you can't win your argument men; neither of you can. at best you have %chance that your believes are 'better than...'.

Do you agree and understand that of the countries that have taken a side 26% support Maduro and 74% support change? - does not exclude Maduro changing it.

Do you know understand that only 22 countries in the world support Maduro and 75% of them are Authoritarians? does not mean that the people living in authoritarian countries are always worse off than the ones living in democracies.

overall, one argues on the future based on the past and the other on the future based on a future. shit hasn't happened men, it's the future... you can't win a prediction until it happens but the most funny thing here is that both futures can happen, consecutively(Guaido wins, starts fixing shit then fucks it right up, Maduro fucked it up so far but then he'll start fixing it).

so ... what the fuck are you people doing here?. one being right now doesn't exclude the other being right later so cut the shit and talk about things that are happening or are predicted to happen because you know ... inertia or something.

what did Maduro do trying to stop the hyperinflation('cause he did some things), or Guaidos' plan for Venezuela(would it work or it's a faerie-tale), what is needed of venezuelans going forward(some hard facts here then can't be avoided) etcetcetc.

On May 03 2019 14:16 GreenHorizons wrote:


For me it's not about being right but that only one perspective of the story was being told here and that it frequently wasn't accurate or reliable but because people don't know much about the situation they might take it on faith and that has consequences I'd like to avoid, namely manufactured consent for more intervention.

On May 03 2019 14:24 JimmiC wrote:


It is near impossible for you to say anything straightforward. It is almost like you think you always need the wiggle room or something.

So that post is a yes to those three questions.

On May 03 2019 14:34 xM(Z wrote:
that may have been the case in the beginning but you've been given concessions since then and still push your own narrative as if it's the end all be all of things. yes, based on the past, a future can repeat itself, but it's still a future, among others, and people can choose not to believe it.
you can and should try and prevent others from repeating a past but on a conceptual level, you can't deny believes/hopes.

Edit: mainly, you can't deny JimmiCs' hope that - BUT THIS TIME WILL BE BETTER!; you can force him to show caution/restrain/a have back up, which you kinda did.

On May 03 2019 14:40 GreenHorizons wrote:


As others have tried to point out the available information is generally somewhat unreliable regardless of source. As well as various countries positions having less to do with the particular situation in Venezuela than they do geopolitical forces in general.

The "wiggle room" you are objecting to is recognition of this.



Yes, I was just hoping/trying to temper his and anyone else's hope with recognition of the compatibility of that hope/faith and the circumstances as they have evolved/stagnated.

I've tried practically everything including conceding arguments I presented merely to demonstrate that the one presented by JimmiC and western media wasn't the only one or all that accurate much of the time (the Chavez's daughter is a billionaire is remarkably pervasive for example).

On May 03 2019 15:28 xM(Z wrote:
well dude, in your unending quest of becoming TLs' model forum poster, you'll need to realize that there are two parts of an argument: you have one part coming from the logical, the factual, the rationale and the other part from ones' personality. you argue on the former and can refute it on a case by case scenario, but you need to understand the later 'cause you rarely can do something about it.

JimmiC has a hard time admitting to a wrong(especially in this case when the/most of the proof for that is ... in the future); conceptually/theoretically he did admit he could/might be wrong and that, should've been your silver lining. when you tried to push him to go all the way, he doubled down on his stubbornness 'cause he saw you as a bully.
accept that that's all you can get for now.

There is another aspect to the Economic Recovery Plan that was announced last year, which is the incentive to private investment. Is it working?

From my point of view, that part of the plan is also quite problematic. Those who designed the plan seem to think that giving incentives to the private sector will generate a favorable reaction from businesspeople. Having received these incentives, the private sector will (so their thinking goes) invest and increase production. Private investment, in turn, will lead to economic stability.

The theory behind giving incentives to the private sector in Venezuela doesn’t work here as it might work in other economies. Here we have the most favorable exchange rate in the world and the cheapest labor in the world. Now labor is actually free since, since August 20, the state is paying wages of private sector workers! In other words, if you come here and you set up a business, the state will pay the salaries of the workers. This is something that has never happened before. With this we pass into the annals of economic history! To top it all off, the economic recovery package eliminated import tariffs.

So the country offers all this which, in principle, should attract a great deal of private investment. But it’s not only that: here taxes are very low and they aren't progressive (leaving aside the fact that there is a huge tax evasion, which has been the case for a long time). Venezuela has also the cheapest energy, the cheapest gas, the cheapest electricity, and the cheapest running water in the world. Then, on top of that, you can add all the comparative advantages that Venezuela has, from climate to location (proximity to the US).

In other words, Venezuela is a paradise for private investments if we follow the incentives theory and the theory of comparative advantage. And yet the private sector hasn’t invested here!

Can you explain Venezuela’s role in the global economy, as an oil producer, and the kinds of problems that this sometimes leads to?

Venezuela is a rentier economy. We don’t develop our own science and technology. Obviously, this situation makes us economically dependent on hard currencies [to get access to foreign technology].

Why does the private sector not invest in Venezuela when the revenues from the oil rent shrink? Because investment here happens in hard currencies. In other words, a private investor expects to get his earnings in dollars, because he earlier purchased technology, machinery and other inputs with dollars (although generally subsidized by the state). Thus he expects to recover the investment in dollars…

For this reason, the investor says, well, if in this economy the access to dollars becomes very limited, then I’m just not going to invest in Venezuela. That is why, when the oil rent recovers, when we are in the expansive phase of the economy, when the oil boom happens, the investors come back since they know that dollars will be made available by the state...

Why is it that private investors don’t generate dollars, as is the case in other countries? Because when the design of globalization took shape, Venezuela was not planned as a base for exporting. Procter & Gamble, for instance, made export platforms in Mexico, in Brazil, and in Argentina, and smaller platforms in Colombia and Panama, but that didn't happen in Venezuela. Venezuela is not considered a base for exports with the exception, of course, being oil exports. So Procter & Gamble is not going to set up a plant to produce here, as it would be competing with itself. Some countries are bases for exploitation of workers employed in export industries, whereas others are simply sites for extracting rent. In this case, Venezuela is a country whose role is to generate rent.

On May 03 2019 15:49 xM(Z wrote:
fuck billionaires men, this, https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14203 go. i see it as: fairly chavismo/socialist, we can still save this, a Guaido is irrelevant/not needed stance; it seems valid, it could be valid.
thing is, it's very real, actual and factual. snippet:there are great tidbits of other info there too.
or:i don't really get the design of globalization even though it links to a wiki page for the New international division of labour. is that enforced or just happens?.

This is because companies search for the cheapest locations to manufacture and assemble components, so low-cost labor-intensive parts of the manufacturing process are shifted to the developing world where costs are substantially lower. Companies do so by taking advantage of transportation and communications technology, as well as fragmentation and locational flexibility of production. From 1953 to the late 1990s, the industrialized economies' share of world manufacturing output declined from 95% to 77%, and the developing economies' share more than quadrupled from 5% to 23%.[2]

The resultant division of labor across continents closely follows the North–South socio-economic and political divide, where in the North—with one quarter of the world population—controls four fifths of the world income,[3] while the South—with three quarters of the world population—has access to one fifth of the world income.

On May 05 2019 03:09 JimmiC wrote:
I thought this was an interesting Opinion article from the NYT. I agree with it that the US at many times has been less than helpful with the regime change and is often more interested in their own ego's and trying to please their base than helping democracy rise.

It also discusses how Guaido is more willing to negotiate with the corrupt Generals rather than just offering them amnesty. This may make democracy more likely, but with out the end or a plan to end the corruption that is at the top it won't mean great things for the country.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/03/opinion/venezuela-democracy-military-guaido.html

On May 05 2019 04:24 JimmiC wrote:

It is not Guaido that my hopes lie on, it is democracy and the people of Venezuela. It is too bad that fellow evil governments like Russia keep propping this one up. While it is not realistic to think it will happen fast. Countries like Portugal show it can happen over time.
...
It would also be nice if the US stopped their stupid "war on Drugs" which funds so much of the issues in South America and also a big source of funding for ISIS.

On May 05 2019 08:04 JimmiC wrote:
It was always unlikely. Maduro holding elections is the same as when kim jong-un does, meaningless.

Im not going to answe your questions because who knows what you are assuming I think, and what you insult me about.

No point engaging with you when you are so disingenuous and not looking for a conversation but to insult me and treat your assumptions as fact.

The unexpected success of the Taliban in Afghanistan in eradicating three-quarters of the world's crop of opium poppies in one season is leading experts to ask where production is likely to spring up next.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The effort to win over Afghans on former Taliban turf in Marja has put American and NATO commanders in the unusual position of arguing against opium eradication, pitting them against some Afghan officials who are pushing to destroy the harvest.

On May 05 2019 09:39 JimmiC wrote:
No you are wrong on my feelings on the war on drugs. As usual you are treating your assumptions like facts.

Also still dodging my simple questions.