Venezuela'a foreign exchange reserves stand at less than $12 billion [1]. They pay over 15% of that <i>this month</i> to bond holders [2].<p>This makes no sense until one considers that the bond holders might be regime insiders. Venezuela is a state structured to maximise the transfer of wealth from the many to the few.<p>Shockingly, as recently as 2004 Venezuela boasted fair elections [3]. The degree to which Venezuelans are to blame for their predicament (and the related probability that they will recreate it in spite of aid) is a difficult moral question.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/venezuela-new-roadblock-recall-referendum-emerges" rel="nofollow">https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/venezuela-new-roadblock-re...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-venezuela-602c9bb4-8989-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506-20161003-story.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-venezuela-602c...</a><p>[3] <a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_recall_referendum,_2004" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_recall_referendum...</a>
I lived in Venezuela as the son of a diplomat in the late 80s. It was a wonderful country. As a middle schooler (grades 6-8) I rode my BMX bike all over Caracas with my buddy with no fear in the world.<p>The funny thing is, at that time, Venezuela was known to have suffered quite a decline from it's heights in the late 70s and early 80s when it was on the cusp of being a 1st world country thanks to the oil boom and (relatively) smart investment in infrastructure.<p>Even back then they had price controls, where the prices of things were printed on the packaging of all products.<p>It's always a shame when a country suffers, and it's particularly sad to me because I know the country well, and there are a lot of great things to celebrate about the country.
Unrestrained equality leads to dictatorship. Unrestrained liberty leads to dictatorship. Democracy requires a balance between equality and liberty, and the political pluralism that is inherent in the vying for power.<p>Partisan fanatics who breathlessly wait for the total victory of their side would do well to remember this.
As is too often the case, the "it's official" in the headline really means "it's not actually official, but this makes the headline more provocative". The article goes on to describe the remaining fig leaf of a supposedly independent judiciary.
Just three years ago: <a href="https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/309124649244057600" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/309124649244057600</a>
The headline conceals the subtext of the piece, which is that the author feels the courts did Venezuelans a favor by acknowledging what he says residents have suspected for over a decade: Venezuela has been a dictatorship for some time now.
I wonder which has the higher correlation to instability:<p>1 formOfGovernmentX - ie democracy, socialism, dictatorship, etc
2 On america's shit list<p>?
A country with one of the greatest oil reserves in the world, fertile land, good climate, access to the sea (world trade) and no military conflicts for a century was turned into a population of homeless people hunting dogs and cats on the streets in order to not starve to death - only possible with Socialism.<p>I remember how ten years ago people on my university (in a Western country) were trying to convince me that Chavez's version of Socialism is the future for humanity. And when he came to give a speech he was celebrated like a pop star.
Totally unrelated rant follows.<p>I wonder how a world without main stream media would look like... Would it be a better place? So much negativity, hidden agenda, pay for play, etc. is present, that one would probably be better off staying uninformed, than reading articles with God knows what agenda.
Where is the worldwide leftist intelligentsia that supported this totalitarian regime from the beginning with wet dreams of "21st century socialism"?<p>They are all quiet now and will surely soon claim that things went wrong there and misrepresent the original intents of the "revolution".<p>It's time to recognize that, once again, socialism resulted in the same results that it has always achieved: hunger, death, lost freedom. And this is not because "things went wrong". It's by design.
Maduro was elected president. There's no vote upcoming, just yet another recall referendum, this one which failed to get going in the courts.<p>Honduras on the other hand had an elected president. Obama bankrolled his generals, who overthrew him in a coup in 2009, and then he continued bankrolling them. Where are the US newspaper headlines about the Honduran dictatorship? The Organization of American States, with the exception of the US, is who was condemning this.<p>Insofar as Venezuela's oil business doing badly...what country is the the energy business doing well in? Fracking and North Dakotan energy businesses are going bankrupt left and right, which is said to be the fault of Arabian oil flows, but when Venezuela's economy suffers from the same thing it's said to be due to mismanagement or whatever nonsense.<p>Billionaire Jeff Bezos has his newspaper spin things in the interests of American billionaires, what a shock. The majority of Venezuelans don't give a damn what the yanquis think, they can just look to what they did to Honduras, a real dictatorship, seven years ago, and what they're still doing.<p>Americans loooove to get up and pontificate in some kind of imperial self-satisfaction. Like how the Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen would overthrow Afghanistan's secular government in the 1980s with America's arms, money and blessing. Kind of hit Americans in the ass when they strung Arabia with military bases, causing a response of a plane flying through the Pentagon from those guys they bankrolled in the 1980s like bin Laden. Blowback from America's imperial pretensions.
Can't wait until an election to declare the end of democracy? A recall referendum was thrown out by the courts, and the opposition haven't won an election in nearly 20 years.<p>It's official: Washington Post declares Venezuela a dictatorship on a monthly basis for past 17 years, is now openly encouraging a(nother) coup.<p>At least the editorial isn't written by Donald Rumsfeld, like it was in 2007[1].<p>"[..]a relatively large, relatively sophisticated major oil producer just three hours’ flying time from the United States has just become the second all-out, no-more-elections dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere."<p>Seems like a bit of a hysterical speculation based on the <i>judicial rejection of a recall referendum between elections.</i><p>I realize that the opposition placed a lot of their hopes of turning over the results of the last election on this, but just because their plan failed doesn't mean democracy has ended. And anyway, they've clearly fallen to plan B, the same plan for if the referendum was defeated, to get the US to help with another coup. Clinton has probably indicated that she's into it. She loves that sort of thing.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11...</a>