Venezuela right-wing opposition wins control of National Assembly by a landslide

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Over the last 50 years there have been a lot of boats with a lot of migrants floating.  I have yet to see one floating to Cuba.

I hear ya.  But that doesn't mean that everyone's miserable, and it doesn't mean that the remedy for their misery would be laissez-faire capitalism.

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Do you need one to draw conclusions?

You keep demanding a "socialist success story".  Do you feel that I have an imagination, but you lack one?

It's honestly difficult to tell whether you believe that any and all socialism is bad, or believe that "too much" socialism is bad, or whether you're just going to keep moving the goalposts around the field depending on whether someone says "Sweden" or "North Korea".

Any chance you could pick just one, for the purposes of discussion?

Not a bad question.  Too much socialism is bad.  Some social programs are desirable.  Too many get abused.  99% of hard core capitalists believe in some social programs. 

RDP wrote:

You are wrong.  

Actually I am left and you are right wing, ignorant and ill informed. Flint Michigan says it all about the US and how well unregulated states do in providing basic services like water. As for the boatloads of black people they can't get to a boat because they are locked up in for profit prisons.

"While the United States represents about 4.4 percent of the world's population, it houses around 22 percent of the world's prisoners."[1] 

Given those private prisons make some people a lot of money I presume in your eyes they would be a good thing. 

Yet look what it accomplishes.  Look how it runs to the rescue when there is a natural disaster.  Look at how it is the place where most of life advancing technology germinates.  Look at how it was one of the few countries in the history of mankind to fight a civil war to end slavery.  Look at how men and women of colour occupy some of the most powerful positions in the country.  (Do you expect to see a black Prime Minister any time soon?)  I could go on.

Meanwhile, in Venezuela.

Venezuela government mulls move to dissolve congress

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Venezuela's government is considering asking the high court to dissolve the legislature controlled by President Nicolas Maduro's opponents who are seeking to remove him from office, a spokesman said Tuesday.

It was the latest maneuver in a political conflict that has raised tensions in the volatile South American country as it struggles with an economic crisis.

Maduro's side "has started discussions to request a consultation with the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court" with a view to achieving "the abolition of this National Assembly," ruling coalition spokesman Didalco Bolivar told a news conference.

Perhaps this is just sabre-rattling, and they won't make the ask.  But if they do, it'll be historic either way. 

Either the STJ will dissolve the National Assembly (and/or charge everyone with treason), which would be historic.

Or, the STJ will, for the first time since Chavez first took power, deny the government their wishes, which would also be historic.

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Look how it runs to the rescue when there is a natural disaster.  Look at how it is the place where most of life advancing technology germinates.  Look at how it was one of the few countries in the history of mankind to fight a civil war to end slavery.  Look at how men and women of colour occupy some of the most powerful positions in the country.

Getting back to YOUR point, is all of this good stuff happening in low-tax states, where the clever are legally permitted to prosper, or in high-tax states, where crypto-socialism robs the worthy?

So what are we talking about now... Haiti and Brazil?  Wandering from bashing socialism to U.S. apologism.

And does it make the U.S. somehow more moral that they slaughtered half a million people, rather than just putting it to a vote, as they did in Britain?

RDP wrote:

What is your benchmark for disaster recovery. 5 people dead doesn't seem so bad.  How many died in Haiti recently?

Haiti is a US controlled shithole. The US overthrew the democratically elected government and you are absolutely right to point out that the government they installed in its place is corrupt and inept and the people have suffered because of it. Canada was complicit and aided in this regime change and I condemn our government equally.

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The violent overthrow and forced exile of Haiti’s President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has ripped aside the democratic pretensions of Washington and the other major powers to expose the brutal and predatory character of resurgent imperialism. The actions taken by the US government in Haiti demonstrate the farcical character of its claims that the aim of the US invasion of Iraq was to inaugurate an era of democratization and freedom in the Middle East and around the world.

Aristide’s overthrow is the outcome of a bloody coup orchestrated by the Bush administration and aided by the Chirac government in Paris. It was executed by a band of killers drawn from the disbanded and discredited Haitian army and the CIA-backed death squads that terrorized the population under the former military dictatorship that ruled the country in the early 1990s.

Among those leading the armed bands that overran the country are Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former Haitian army officer sentenced to life at hard labor in connection with the 1993 assassination of political activist Antoine Izméry, and Jean-Pierre Baptiste, likewise sentenced to life for his role in a 1994 massacre. Both were leaders of the FRAPH, or Haitian Front for Advancement and Progress, a CIA-backed organization that carried out state terror against opponents of the military regime that ruled the country from 1991 to 1994.

Another leader of the armed bands is Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian military who received training from US Special Forces in Ecuador in the 1990s and was then sent back to Haiti, where he became a brutal police chief and sought to organize a coup in 2000. He is suspected of involvement in cocaine trafficking.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2004/03/hait-m01.html

So why do you make the outrageous claim that only five people died from Katrina.

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Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh named storm and fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. The storm is currently ranked as the third most intense United States landfalling tropical cyclone, behind only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Overall, at least 1,245 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest United States hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Total property damage was estimated at $108 billion (2005 USD),[1] roughly four times the damage wrought by Hurricane Andrew in 1992.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina

Cuba on the other hand knows how to deal with hurricanes. It is that tiny socialist country that is recognized as the leader in disaster prevention.

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Cuba is the largest and most populated island in the Caribbean yet is consistently experiences the lowest death tolls during hurricane season.[5] According to United Nations, it's not because Cubans are lucky but because they're prepared.[6] According to Oxfam, from 1996-2002, only 16 people were killed by the sixhurricanes that struck Cuba.[7]

Cuba has a world-class meteorological institute, with 15 provincial offices. They share data with US scientists and project storm tracks. Around 72 hours before a storm’s predicted landfall, national media issue alerts while civil protection committees check evacuation plans and shelters. Hurricane awareness is taught in schools and there are practice drills for the public before each hurricane season.[7]

State run television and the civil defense authority broadcast to the population with information and instructions about what measures to take. Each residential block has a person assigned to take a census on who is being evacuated to which shelter, with special attention paid to the elderly and pregnant women, and as efforts are organized locally, compliance is increased.[7]

The response system has four stages. In Stage I, which takes place 72 hours before landfall, the Civil Defense Structure is placed on an alert, and the media begins broadcasting warnings of the impending storm. At Stage II, 48 hours before the storm, the DCN (National Civil Defense) in each municipality or zone begins to organize hurricane preparation efforts, such as sending students home from schools. Shelters are inspected and supplied, and evacuations begin. Once the hurricane makes landfall, Stage III begins, during which the media continues to provide coverage of the hurricane, and the DCN attempts to maintain lines of communication. After the hurricane has passed, Stage IV begins, and people return to their homes, after they have been certified as sound by the DCN. Rescue operations and tallies of damages begin.[7]

RDP wrote:

I never said socialism = communism.  It doesn't. 

Compare someone making $100/hr to someone making minimum wage.  I guarantee you that one is more productive than the other.  I'll let you guess which one is which.

Those working 60hrs. per week making minimum wage have made a few bad life decisions that they are paying for now.

Why would a greedy capitalist pay people to smoke cigars and snort scotch whiskey?  Seems somewhat inconsistent with what we would expect a greedy capitalist to do.

(Right-wing) Paramilitaries assassinate Socialist Party activist and burn her body...

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A community activist and local leader of Venezuela's Socialist Party was killed by alleged members of a paramilitary gang in Caracas, according to a party spokesman.

Elizabeth Aguilera, was the head of her local unit of the PSUV, the ruling party headed by President Nicolas Maduro.

Wait, there's more ...

"Aguilera was shot multiple times in the Cota 905 sector, a popular area in the south-center of the Venezuelan capital. Her body was also burned and photographs were posted on social networks, presumably by Aguilera's murderers."

That is, they're so confident with Yanqui support that they're basically boasting about their atrocities. Sounds like Ukraine to me.

Maduro Hands over Power to Defense Minister

So basically, food distribution, pharmacies, shipping ports and state-run social programs are now the military's bailiwick.  That, and the military owes Maduro one back-scratch.

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Venezuelanalysis.com has not reported this, and they're generally one of the most reliable sources for news about Venezuela. Which leaves me skeptical about an article that to me looks like a right0wing smear piece against Maduro.

It's there, in the article just above the one you linked to.

They're not the first company to turn off the lights and take the loss, and they probably won't be the last.  Clorox did the same thing, and the government took them over too, but I don't recall that turning into ample supplies of cleaning products.  Raw materials are part of it, but so is access to hard currency, and runaway inflation.  Companies whose earnings are losing value for every day they have to wait just to exchange them for dollars are understandably going to be less than enthusiastic about running at full production.  They're not charities.

Anyway, we'll know who's lying here when we either do or don't see a sudden adequate supply of paper products in Venezuela.

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I know what side I support when it comes to choosing between a socialist oriented government or the glorious rights of private property.... regardless of what happens.

Can we count on you to do your part to insist that it's an urgent and necessary choice?

Those lucky poor.

This thread looks like the comment section of the Alabama Daily Hillbilly.

Imagine talking about sending people to grow food to help feed the country in a crisis. Slavery!!

What next!?

Sending notices to young people that they have to don uniforms and go abroad to murder foreigners and come back maimed or dead themselves? On pain of prison for refusing!!????

No, sorry, that couldn't happen, don't know what came over me.

Oh wait, I know: "You can work wherever you want (if you can find a job that is) - but you have to hand over a big chunk of your earnings to the government, to do with as they please!"

More slavery.

Gimme a gun and let me defend my homestead. The fuckin' socialists are comin'.

Price controls are a laudable goal.  The poor deserve to eat too.  But it seems to me that they can only work under two conditions:

1.  The price of a good -- let's say milk -- can't be set so low as to be a disincentive to producing, distributing or selling it.  I'm not suggesting that farmers, truckers or stores have to make outrageous profits, but none of them are charities either.  If the government wants to take on one or all of these roles then they're welcome to do so pro bono if they wish -- that's pretty much why Venezuela can continue to sell gasoline at a tiny fraction of the price of milk.  But if it costs $1.50 to produce a gallon of milk, you can't fix the price of a gallon of milk at $1.40, no matter how much the consumer might want or need that price.  If you fix the price reasonably (i.e. those involved are earning a fair profit) and the poor still cannot afford milk, it would be better to simply give money (or milk vouchers) to everyone to cover the difference.

2.  There must be an adequate supply of the good -- again, let's say milk -- that's being fixed.  As soon as there's a scarcity, demand goes up, and people will seek out milk on the black market if they want it enough, and they'll pay as much as their demand tells them to.  This is clearly tied to the condition above in the sense that if the price of milk is fixed too low, and farmers or stores say "screw it" and stop producing or selling milk then supply goes down and the black market price goes up.  The lucky few who manage to buy a gallon of milk for $1.25 may indulge themselves by drinking it, but there's a clear incentive for some to try to sell it on the black market for $10 or whatever.  But if theres plenty of milk to go around then the black market in milk is out of business -- who's going to pay black market prices for a good that's neither overpriced nor scarce?

Where Maduro's got it all wrong is in trying to strongarm companies into going along with his arbitrary pricing, then trying to strongarm them again when they elect not to bother producing or selling any more.  If he wants to tax all companies (and/or all individuals) in order to finance subsidies, that might have legs, but it seems to me a non-starter to simply decree that this or that grocery store must bear the full burden of feeding everyone at prices they can afford.

And this is why I say to RDP that this isn't "socialism", or at any rate, not the only "socialism".  Smarter socialism could fix this.

The last time price controls were implemented in the U.S., it was by that notorious socialist, Richard Nixon.

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Force a lower price on producers, you get less product.  Force a higher price on consumers, you get less demand.

I think that really depends on whether the good that's being price controlled is readily available, and whether producers/sellers can still realize a reasonable profit.  An example here in Toronto is taxicabs.  It's no coincidence that they all charge the same rates (which the City recently dropped by $1).  But there's no shortage of taxi drivers, because even with controlled rates, they can still earn a living.  If the City were to offer more plates, they'd get bought up like nothing.

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You would think that by now someone would've stumbled onto smarter socialism.  We've had about 100 years of experiment.

OK, but don't forget that the poster child for Capitalism had its 240th birthday a month ago.

It went from nothing to superpower in about 170 years.  No country compares to that.

Russia was around for about a 1000 years.   The US isn't doing so well now...just like the 70's.

What Venezuela's diaper shortage says about the country's economic crisis

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Last month, Kimberly-Clark announced they will not make diapers in Venezuela. The corporation produced almost half of the country's diapers. Now, diapers are difficult to come by on store shelves. 

The shortage is yet another sign of just how dire Venezuela's economic crisis has become.

And it's a big problem for Pedro Rosas. He's an economist based in Caracas and his wife just had a baby about a month ago. Now, buying much-needed diapers is a complicated process. 

​Rosas can only buy 2 packs at a time, twice a week — once on a weekday, and once on the weekend. And he has to prove that his demand for them is legitimate.

"You also need to show that you need the diapers," Rosas says. "That you're not buying them just to re-sell them. So the pregnant woman has to be there, or whoever is buying the diapers has to show a recent birth certificate, also the ultrasound and medical report."

Huh?  What?

The government took over a factory that was supposedly flush with raw materials. 

Employees?  Check.

Materials?  Check.

Factory?  Check.

It's the People's factory now.  So what's the problem??

Mr. Magoo...I don't get you.  You post material that I should be posting but you don't seem to make the full connection.  Do you think the system in Venezuela is fundamentally correct and simply needs some tweaking to work?  Or, as I believe, the system just simply won't work (hard core socialism) because it is inconsistent with human nature.  

For the above post, why produce when the government has decreed that your clients can only buy 2 packs.  ie the government has mandated that the demand for your product is to be slashed.  

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro Looks to a Marxist Spaniard for an Economic Miracle

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CARACAS, Venezuela—President Nicolás Maduro, hoping for an economic miracle to salvage his country, has placed his trust in an obscure Marxist professor from Spain who holds so much sway the president calls him “the Jesus Christ of economics.”

Alfredo Serrano—a 40-year-old economist whose long hair and beard have also elicited the president’s comparison to Jesus—has become the central economic adviser to Mr. Maduro, according to a number of officials in the ruling United Socialist Party and other government consultants. His rise has come at the expense of advisers who, though also leftist, have urged the president to undertake more conventional steps to address Venezuela’s dysfunctional economy, such as liberalizing the country’s tightly controlled currency, these people say.

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“This is a very intelligent, very qualified man who’s building new concepts for a new economy of the 21st century,” Mr. Maduro said at a book fair last year, as he admired Mr. Serrano’s 2014 tome “The Economic Thought of Hugo Chávez.” “He’s a man of great courage.”

At this point I wouldn't really be shocked if Serrano's book blares out over loudspeakers as office workers hoe the yam crop.

Exactly.  That "conscientious stupidity" is what I'm talking about.

AKA "Let's just print more money" or "Let's just take over this company and then forget about it".

Sorry I don't have a nice one-bit graphic for it though.