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On August 17 2019 01:09 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On August 16 2019 22:59 JimmiC wrote:On August 16 2019 22:30 GoTuNk! wrote:On August 16 2019 10:28 JimmiC wrote:On August 16 2019 09:57 GoTuNk! wrote:On August 15 2019 05:02 JimmiC wrote:On August 15 2019 03:42 GoTuNk! wrote:On August 15 2019 00:20 Yurie wrote:On August 14 2019 23:41 JimmiC wrote: Very true, do you think there is anything that can speed up the process? If the less corrupt nations passed laws that companies would be held accountable if they participated in corruption else where would that help? Or would those companies just not get any work in those nations?
It does feel almost like tipping waitresses is here, for a long time we paid waitresses so poorly that the only way they made ends meat was through tips, now they get a decent wage (15 an hour) but the tips have remained so now they get paid quite well. My worry is that even if you upped the salary of the people the corruption is so accepted and so ingrained in the culture.
While I agree that some oversight and severe punishments would help, so far whenever a new government gets in they claim this is what they are about, but really it is about removing the other guys corrupt people and replacing them with his own loyal corrupt guys. It is a cultural and societal issue. You can't really speed up changing people's minds. The simplest way to remove a lot now a days would be to automate it online. If there is no person that has to approve or reject it then there is nobody to bribe in the process. The problem is the things you can't automate which I don't really have any simple solution for. Also the company to company relations where you need to finance your tax department to do full audits of a lot of companies. Then repeat those next year with a different person for the same period so the first bribe isn't enough. You need a smaller government, and for that you need a general belief among people that you can and will solve your problems, not the government. Big government = more money to loot. Not to mention taxes drowing people and companies. We have 5-6 people working in the private sector for every person dependant on government, while Argentina has close to 1-1 ratio. This is why Chile has a 10% poverty rate, and Argentina is bordering 40% and growing. Bigger or smaller government is not really the issue in my mind. It is efficiency of the government and value that the citizens get for their tax dollars. There are a lot of countries that have large governments and low corruption. Well that's because you seem hell bent on this "corruption" as Argentina's main problem. It's not; it's a symptom. The country has, for years on end, had a government that spends a lot more money than it makes, funding it by either printing money (causing inflation) and by getting loans from the FMI they will soon default and really crash the economy. Their taxes are too high as of now, and there is no way revenue would go up if they raised them. They also put all kinds of tariffs in imported products, making the general cost of goods even higher. Cutting government spending is the only solution, but they have a 100 year history of not understanding that. No country, even countries with big governments, run those kind of insane deficits. They run big governments because they could first afford them, and keep some sort of financial balance. Perhaps, you likely know a lot more about Argentina's government then me. When I look up some quick numbers the US government spends 41.6% of their GDP and Argentina spends 41, the US also has huge deficits (record breaking). So I think there are other problems. I mention corruption because that just takes money out of the system to very few and does not help the people. When you look at that index scored out of 100 Argentina is a 40 and the us is 71 (which is actually pretty bad too). That is a pretty interesting index because the higher you get the more most people would want to live there and vice versa as you go down. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index The US debt is a problem, however the country is in a unique position because it controls the international standard currency, has a continuously growing economy, etc etc. Morever, it's deficit is funded only on debt that it is still expected to be able to pay, not on printing and causing inflation. The US economy basically makes the world spin, they can "afford" to have big debt, for now. The government does not default payments and won't anytime soon. Argentina on the other hand prints money to pay it's unsustainable programs, has no trade to lower the costs of good, has shit productivty, innovation, etc. As I said, certain countries can afford certain things, but a country with barely anything valuable cannot. The US government is basically a rich guy that expends a lot of money, the Argentinian government is a poor guy that expends a lot of money and multiple debtors will come down knocking doors soon. You know which other other country started printing money to pay welfare it could not fund? Venezuela. Corruption is bad but other countries in south america with higher perceived corruption do not have imploding economies. Peru has been improving for 20 years, and Paraguay doesn't seem to be imploding as of now. Finally I would say I'm more likely to say I'm right because I didn't pick up on this Argentina thing now, I've been saying it for ten years. I will also predict now shit will be a A LOT WORSE in 3-5 years. Venezuela printing money was a symptom not a cause. They were taking in more than enough to pay for all their social programs, the issue was that money was going into the pockets of politicians and higher ups in the military. And now they are just full out drug dealers and illegal gold miners. You are right that when you pair high government spending with massive corruption it is worse than low government spending with massive corruption. I just think it would be better to attack the corruption. I don't understand your reticence to acknowledge basic reality. No amount of probity in politicans will make a government runing perpetually on deficit by printing money work. A guy who spends more than he earns, even if he gets in debt to help poor people, will eventually be bankrupt and pay the price. Argentina will never ever thrive until they reduce the number of government oficials and welfare programs. Morever, I would make the very sensible argument politicans who use unfunded public money to bribe people ("welfare" in exchange for votes) are most likely to be the worst kind of politicians and human beings. Edit: While not linear, there is a very strong correlation between smaller government and less perceived corruption. Scandinavian countries are the exception, not the norm. And Scandinavian governments are not runing on perpetual deficit.
I'm trying to bring you to a reality where they don't need to print money because the money they take in doesn't just "vanish". The problem is likely not the welfare system.
And I've agreed with you, that in cases of corrupt inefficient governments smaller ones are better.
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I very interesting article on the "blood gold" in Venezuela, other than cocaine it is the biggest money earner for the government and military officials and of course the gangs that are running rampant. Miners are killed or mutilated for speaking out or not paying the gangs. And since it is high up political or military (often both/same) that are running it and funding the companies and gangs there is nothing the people or the miners can do other than pay.
It is pretty wild what is going on and a in depth but long article, worth the read for sure in my opinion. I wish it went more into the environmental damage though it does tough on it, between that and the human cost it is very disturbing.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/20/americas/venezuela-gold-mining-intl/index.html
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The Amazon has been set on fire. This is the climate/habitat catastrophe I warned Bolsonaro (with US support) could usher in.
Imazon, a Brazilian research center, reports deforestation in the first months of 2019 jumped more than 50 percent compared to the amount during the same period in 2018. Half of this deforestation has occurred illegally in protected areas, including hundreds of Indigenous lands that cover a quarter of Brazil’s Amazon and provide a crucial buffer for much of the rest. (In the rainforest bastion state of Amazonas, Indigenous lands account for close to a third of the standing forest.)
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It's most definitely not a natural disaster? Fires are being set by agribiz and their allies. This is well known.
Bolsonaro is saying (without a shred of evidence) maybe NGO's set the fires to make him look bad. Carlos Nobre, a Senior researcher with the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paolo, says otherwise.
DW: What's behind this surge in forest fires in Brazil? Is it to do with warmer temperatures or stronger winds this year, or is it something else?
Carlos Nobre: It is something else. In fact the dry season this year is not extremely dry, it is normal. The winds in that part of the Amazon are not that strong. So really, most of the forest fires in the Amazon are not natural forest fires, they are human-induced, usually by farmers and ranchers.
Unfortunately, in tropical agriculture, fire is still used routinely. And some of those fires spread, then reach and burn large areas of forest. The typical system in Brazil and in all Amazonian countries is that people cut down trees and then leave the area to dry out for about two or three months before setting it on fire in order to clear the land for agricultural purposes.
So this is a very common phenomenon. But what we're seeing this year is more deforestation. We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months.
www.dw.com
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On August 22 2019 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:It's most definitely not a natural disaster? Fires are being set by agribiz and their allies. This is well known. Bolsonaro is saying (without a shred of evidence) maybe NGO's set the fires to make him look bad. Carlos Nobre, a Senior researcher with the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paolo, says otherwise. Show nested quote +DW: What's behind this surge in forest fires in Brazil? Is it to do with warmer temperatures or stronger winds this year, or is it something else?
Carlos Nobre: It is something else. In fact the dry season this year is not extremely dry, it is normal. The winds in that part of the Amazon are not that strong. So really, most of the forest fires in the Amazon are not natural forest fires, they are human-induced, usually by farmers and ranchers.
Unfortunately, in tropical agriculture, fire is still used routinely. And some of those fires spread, then reach and burn large areas of forest. The typical system in Brazil and in all Amazonian countries is that people cut down trees and then leave the area to dry out for about two or three months before setting it on fire in order to clear the land for agricultural purposes.
So this is a very common phenomenon. But what we're seeing this year is more deforestation. We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months. www.dw.com
OH so everyone is guessing, we are gonna blame Bolsonaro anyway, and completely ignore that it was Bolivia's president that enabled further deforestation just a month ago.
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On August 22 2019 11:59 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2019 11:22 GreenHorizons wrote:It's most definitely not a natural disaster? Fires are being set by agribiz and their allies. This is well known. Bolsonaro is saying (without a shred of evidence) maybe NGO's set the fires to make him look bad. Carlos Nobre, a Senior researcher with the Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Sao Paolo, says otherwise. DW: What's behind this surge in forest fires in Brazil? Is it to do with warmer temperatures or stronger winds this year, or is it something else?
Carlos Nobre: It is something else. In fact the dry season this year is not extremely dry, it is normal. The winds in that part of the Amazon are not that strong. So really, most of the forest fires in the Amazon are not natural forest fires, they are human-induced, usually by farmers and ranchers.
Unfortunately, in tropical agriculture, fire is still used routinely. And some of those fires spread, then reach and burn large areas of forest. The typical system in Brazil and in all Amazonian countries is that people cut down trees and then leave the area to dry out for about two or three months before setting it on fire in order to clear the land for agricultural purposes.
So this is a very common phenomenon. But what we're seeing this year is more deforestation. We estimate that the forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon have decreased something between 20 and 30 percent compared to the last 12 months. www.dw.com OH so everyone is guessing, we are gonna blame Bolsonaro anyway, and completely ignore that it was Bolivia's president that enabled further deforestation just a month ago.
I can't speak to your claims without further vetting of them but perhaps he has some culpability too (though as you say you're guessing) but that's not really relevant to Bolsonaro's clearly destructive approach to the Amazon and indigenous people there.
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This is scary shitty times. Between this and gold mining in Venezuela and I'm sure a ton of other things I don't know about the environment is being destroyed. down south. Unlike GH I don't blame the US since the same or worse is happening in areas that the US does not support. But I do blame greed and corruption, which is prevalent through out the entire region (greed the whole world and corruption is particularly bad down south). I don't think any party down there will stop either since they all seem rotten to the core. Somehow they need to get the middle class big enough and strong enough to rail against all the bullshit.
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On August 22 2019 23:07 JimmiC wrote: This is scary shitty times. Between this and gold mining in Venezuela and I'm sure a ton of other things I don't know about the environment is being destroyed. down south. Unlike GH I don't blame the US since the same or worse is happening in areas that the US does not support. But I do blame greed and corruption, which is prevalent through out the entire region (greed the whole world and corruption is particularly bad down south). I don't think any party down there will stop either since they all seem rotten to the core. Somehow they need to get the middle class big enough and strong enough to rail against all the bullshit.
An important difference between gold mining in Venezuela and setting the Amazon ablaze while championing open fascism is only one of those is an immediate threat to the survival of humanity globally.
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On August 23 2019 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On August 22 2019 23:07 JimmiC wrote: This is scary shitty times. Between this and gold mining in Venezuela and I'm sure a ton of other things I don't know about the environment is being destroyed. down south. Unlike GH I don't blame the US since the same or worse is happening in areas that the US does not support. But I do blame greed and corruption, which is prevalent through out the entire region (greed the whole world and corruption is particularly bad down south). I don't think any party down there will stop either since they all seem rotten to the core. Somehow they need to get the middle class big enough and strong enough to rail against all the bullshit. An important difference between gold mining in Venezuela and setting the Amazon ablaze while championing open fascism is only one of those is an immediate threat to the survival of humanity globally. Well the people who lit the fire may be put in jail. It will be a test to the rule of law in Brazil and if it still matters. The gold mining is a threat and is done not only with approval by the Maduro government. But by the government. So you can split the hairs as much as you like. It isn't the ISM it is greed which sadly applys no matter the ism. It is of course the poor and so on suffering most in Venezuela despite being "socialist" go figure.
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On August 23 2019 08:02 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2019 07:15 GreenHorizons wrote:On August 22 2019 23:07 JimmiC wrote: This is scary shitty times. Between this and gold mining in Venezuela and I'm sure a ton of other things I don't know about the environment is being destroyed. down south. Unlike GH I don't blame the US since the same or worse is happening in areas that the US does not support. But I do blame greed and corruption, which is prevalent through out the entire region (greed the whole world and corruption is particularly bad down south). I don't think any party down there will stop either since they all seem rotten to the core. Somehow they need to get the middle class big enough and strong enough to rail against all the bullshit. An important difference between gold mining in Venezuela and setting the Amazon ablaze while championing open fascism is only one of those is an immediate threat to the survival of humanity globally. Well the people who lit the fire may be put in jail. It will be a test to the rule of law in Brazil and if it still matters. The gold mining is a threat and is done not only with approval by the Maduro government. But by the government. So you can split the hairs as much as you like. It isn't the ISM it is greed which sadly applys no matter the ism. It is of course the poor and so on suffering most in Venezuela despite being "socialist" go figure.
Burning the Amazon for profit is Bolsonaro's (and the US's) plan?
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Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like.
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On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote: Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
Mr. Bolsonaro — who once said that Brazil’s environmental policy is “suffocating the country” and on Sunday triumphed in the national election — has promised to champion his country’s powerful agribusiness sector, which seeks to open up more forest to produce the beef and soy that the world demands.
Mr. Bolsonaro has said he would scrap the Environment Ministry, which is mandated to protect the environment, and instead fold it into the Agriculture Ministry, which tends to favor the interests of those who would convert forests into farmland.
He has dismissed the idea of setting aside forest land for native Brazilians who have lived in the Amazon for centuries, promising that “there won’t be a square centimeter demarcated as an indigenous reserve” under his leadership.
Recent studies show that forest reserves controlled by native people in many countries provide some of the best defenses against deforestation. Mr. Bolsonaro sees other uses of the forest, though. “Where there is indigenous land,” he has said, “there is wealth underneath it.”
www.nytimes.com
We're a top consumer of the resources they are trying to exploit. Or as Bolsonaro put it the resources under the Amazon/it being used for big ag, a "virgin that every foreign pervert wants."
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Supporting his government and supporting the burning of the rain forest so farmers can till more land is not the same thing, I would hope you would understand this.
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On August 23 2019 09:39 JimmiC wrote: Supporting his government and supporting the burning of the rain forest so farmers can till more land is not the same thing, I would hope you would understand this.
lol?
This like when Trump supporters say they support Trump but not the bad things he campaigned on?
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Nope, since I don't support Trump or US foreign policy. It is mainly about how you are drawing very strong conclusions from a congratulatory tweet Trump sent out. Had he sent out one that said "Burn it all down so your farmers can grow more soy so that China has another cheaper option than us and hurts my trade war" I'd be on board. But sadly a 8 month old tweet from Trump when he changes his mind like the wind changes directions around here it is hard for me to jump to the firm conclusions you have that the US supports the burning of the rain forest.
Now drawing the line from Maduro to the murders of the indigenous or the gold or ... or... or... is a lot easier because he is the one doing it directly. And yet you still support him because he claims to be socialist.
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On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote: Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like.
What do democratically elected Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have todo with the other 2 dictators with countries where civil liberties do not exist? They say mean things?
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On August 23 2019 10:17 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote: Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like. What do democratically elected Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have todo with the other 2 dictators with countries where civil liberties do not exist? They say mean things? They are all leaders I don't like. I tried to pick some from the entire political specturm to show that was not my only criteria.
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On August 23 2019 10:52 JimmiC wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2019 10:17 GoTuNk! wrote:On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote: Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like. What do democratically elected Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have todo with the other 2 dictators with countries where civil liberties do not exist? They say mean things? They are all leaders I don't like. I tried to pick some from the entire political specturm to show that was not my only criteria.
I'm sorry to imply anything then, that's a perfectly valid point.
I'm honestly appaled how some people, like GH, but all over instagram, can't wait 2 seconds when a natural disaster happens and inmediatately use it to put baseless blame on politicians they don't like. Or again in GH's case, on unrelated countries they deeply hate, like the US.
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On August 23 2019 11:06 GoTuNk! wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2019 10:52 JimmiC wrote:On August 23 2019 10:17 GoTuNk! wrote:On August 23 2019 08:52 JimmiC wrote: Source that please? Especially the US part. I would be interested in how it benefits them.
You would be a lot easier to take if instead of railing against the US you were actually railing again oppression. Than you would see Maduro for what he is. Trust me when I tell you it is great to be able to hate Maduro, Bolsonaro, Putin, Kim, Trump, and the like. What do democratically elected Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro have todo with the other 2 dictators with countries where civil liberties do not exist? They say mean things? They are all leaders I don't like. I tried to pick some from the entire political specturm to show that was not my only criteria. I'm sorry to imply anything then, that's a perfectly valid point. I'm honestly appaled how some people, like GH, but all over instagram, can't wait 2 seconds when a natural disaster happens and inmediatately use it to put baseless blame on politicians they don't like. Or again in GH's case, on unrelated countries they deeply hate, like the US.
lol yeah, appalled I'm sure.
It's not a natural disaster by anyone's accounting so you might as well stop with that. It's like dropping a bomb off the coast and calling the tidal wave a natural disaster. Yes fires and tidal waves are natural disasters, but not when they are direct results of human practices.
Slash and burn is obviously a policy supported by the US (in South America) and several governments in South America themselves. Namely Bolsonaro who has openly said that he's going to uproot indigenous peoples for the resources under them.
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