Chronicles in Socialism - Venezuela has Elections Sunday

[dismal]

Sounds like PSUV tactics.

That's probably not worse than taking toilet paper to artificially create scarcity.

You mean shortages created by economically illiterate price and currency control policies.

No that's not what I meant.

Yes, obviously the shortages have nothing to do with the government fixing prices below that which would give producers a reason to produce. The toilet paper makers just didn't want to sell toilet paper at the reasonable prices the government commanded because capitalism. That's why the government seizing the toilet paper factories solved the problem because socialism. Now all we lack is an explanation for why the government seizing the toilet paper factories didn't actually solve the shortages. I bet it's because Maduro lacks Chavez' charisma. Charisma allows for the suspension of the basic rules of microeconomics.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Anyone who has been paying attention to the economic war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will be familiar with the hoarding, dumping and smuggling of food as part of destabilization efforts by opposition food processing plants, points of sale and foreign entities.

Here in my home state of Aragua, we have been experiencing certain missing products in our retail markets for a week or two, only to reappear in a later week to create long lines of people waiting to buy from the new delivery. That problem has to do with the privately-run distribution system over which the government still hasn’t gained control. When a big shipment of the missing item(s) does arrive at a later date, it is typically off-loaded at a single store in this city of 300,000 people, creating the long lines of buyers who may wait for hours to make their purchase. The store itself often opens only one cashier for the desired product to make the sale of the product even slower. When the missing product does appear, another suddenly disappears. During the past two weeks our local supermarkets suddenly had zero rice or pasta, products that were there in abundance during weeks past. The illegal smuggling and hoarding operations are being busted on a weekly basis if not daily. But imagine the cost and difficulty for the government to search out all the hidden sites in a country of 30 million people across 23 states. However, the fact that the smuggling mafia are resorting to new innovative methods to hoard their stolen products (see second report with photos below) shows that the pressure is on.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_71293.shtml

 

[dismal]

Anyone who has been paying attention to the economic war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will be familiar with the hoarding, dumping and smuggling of food as part of destabilization efforts by opposition food processing plants, points of sale and foreign entities.

Here in my home state of Aragua, we have been experiencing certain missing products in our retail markets for a week or two, only to reappear in a later week to create long lines of people waiting to buy from the new delivery. That problem has to do with the privately-run distribution system over which the government still hasn’t gained control. When a big shipment of the missing item(s) does arrive at a later date, it is typically off-loaded at a single store in this city of 300,000 people, creating the long lines of buyers who may wait for hours to make their purchase. The store itself often opens only one cashier for the desired product to make the sale of the product even slower. When the missing product does appear, another suddenly disappears. During the past two weeks our local supermarkets suddenly had zero rice or pasta, products that were there in abundance during weeks past. The illegal smuggling and hoarding operations are being busted on a weekly basis if not daily. But imagine the cost and difficulty for the government to search out all the hidden sites in a country of 30 million people across 23 states. However, the fact that the smuggling mafia are resorting to new innovative methods to hoard their stolen products (see second report with photos below) shows that the pressure is on.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_71293.shtml

When government price fixing policies have their expected and well-documented effect of creating shortages this causes the expected and well-documented side effect of hoarding and black markets to arise.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_71293.shtml

When government price fixing policies have their expected and well-documented effect of creating shortages this causes the expected and well-documented side effect of hoarding and black markets to arise.

Also, when hoarding by people trying to create economic problems occurs, it can create artificial scarcity and an unstable market.

 

[dismal]

When government price fixing policies have their expected and well-documented effect of creating shortages this causes the expected and well-documented side effect of hoarding and black markets to arise.

Also, when hoarding by people trying to create economic problems occurs, it can create artificial scarcity and an unstable market.

Right. This is always happening. Unidentifiable people are always creating artificial scarcity in things like toilet paper for no identifiable reason.

It's purely a coincidence that in this case it happened in a country that has price controls of the sort that are well understood to create shortages.

 

[Bomb#20]

Well, it certainly is when you need it to be one in order to rescue a losing argument by socially constructing your opponent as a racist.

Since it is a social construct, any insulting condition you try to add to that is moot.

This isn't the forum for an argument about whether it's only a social construct; and the condition wasn't an insult but rather a criticism of an insult. KeepTalking already moved the goalposts once; we'll see if he doubles down triples down and accuses Derec of being racist against Greenpeace.

 

[maxparrish]

Anyone who has been paying attention to the economic war against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela will be familiar with the hoarding, dumping and smuggling of food as part of destabilization efforts by opposition food processing plants, points of sale and foreign entities.

Here in my home state of Aragua, we have been experiencing certain missing products in our retail markets for a week or two, only to reappear in a later week to create long lines of people waiting to buy from the new delivery. That problem has to do with the privately-run distribution system over which the government still hasn’t gained control. When a big shipment of the missing item(s) does arrive at a later date, it is typically off-loaded at a single store in this city of 300,000 people, creating the long lines of buyers who may wait for hours to make their purchase. The store itself often opens only one cashier for the desired product to make the sale of the product even slower. When the missing product does appear, another suddenly disappears. During the past two weeks our local supermarkets suddenly had zero rice or pasta, products that were there in abundance during weeks past. The illegal smuggling and hoarding operations are being busted on a weekly basis if not daily. But imagine the cost and difficulty for the government to search out all the hidden sites in a country of 30 million people across 23 states. However, the fact that the smuggling mafia are resorting to new innovative methods to hoard their stolen products (see second report with photos below) shows that the pressure is on.

http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_71293.shtml

How strange. So, seemingly long ago, when Venezuela was primarily driven by a market economy, there was "abundance". There was no government control of the distribution system, or takeovers of supermarket chains and distributors, or draconian price controls and a milk, flour, or toilet paper shortage was unthinkable. Oddly, the strategy of hoarding against other sellers was suicide.

Then the socialist government, in its wisdom, wipes out the pricing system, destroys the value of the Bolivian, and imposes "fair" prices and pervasive controls. In the predictable result of massive shortages and hyper inflation the "solution" is to go after those mostly imaginary "hoarders" and visible businesses, often taking them over. And the result?

The the same massive shortages in State owned stores and among distributors.

Gee, ya think the Chavezista cadre needs to rethink it's 1930s communist bad guy paradigm?

 

[maxparrish]

Even VOX gets it:

How bad is inflation in Venezuela? So bad, according to a Monday story by the New York Times's William Neuman and Patricia Torres, that some thieves are declining to steal Venezuelan currency because it's so worthless.

The Venezuelan economy is a disaster, owing to the country's byzantine currency pricing system as well as falling oil prices (the oil sector makes up 25 percent of Venezuela's GDP and is the linchpin of its economy). According to International Monetary Fund projections, GDP is likely to shrink by 10 percent in 2015, the most severe contraction anywhere on the planet; inflation is at 157 percent. Basic goods are nearly impossible to find.

http://www.vox.com/2015/10/19/9568391/venezuela-currency-thieves

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Since it is a social construct, any insulting condition you try to add to that is moot.

This isn't the forum for an argument about whether it's only a social construct;

It's the political forum so it is indeed the right forum to say it's a social construct. Everyone will notice, though, that you've added the word "only" as in "only a social construct." While race is a social construct, of course, people constructing it use a variety of sources including political and biological. That's why Filipino was a race in the 1942 US draft registration and that's why now people will call Hispanic a race.

... and the condition wasn't an insult but rather a criticism of an insult. KeepTalking already moved the goalposts once; we'll see if he doubles down triples down and accuses Derec of being racist against Greenpeace.

Yours was a statement about someone's personal motivations.

Let's look at this "brown people" thing though:

I see, so now Italians are "brown people" too?

There is no "now" about it because Italians have been considered brown people at least sometimes with the KKK being against them in the past and also racialist science classifying them as different than White in the past. Some people "now" are also stuck in the past.

In 1775, "John Hunter of Edinburg included under the label light brown, Southern Europeans, Sicilians, Abyssinians, the Spanish, Persians, Turks and Laplanders, and under the label brown, Tartars, Africans on the Mediterranean and the Chinese."[3] These races formed two elements of a seven-race schema.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_(racial_classification)

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The Supreme Court suspended the inauguration of 3 opposition lawmakers.

 

[maxparrish]

The Supreme Court suspended the inauguration of 3 opposition lawmakers.

Of course they would (as we discussed in the other thread). The PSUV runs the election boards, creates the ballots, tosses the leaders of the opposition into jails, bans opposition leaders candidates, takes over most of the media, and spends government revenue as their own campaign coffers.

And these robed party members suspend the election of the victims for some kind of newly alledged "irregularities"? Only in the land of surreal socialist legalities.

I also noted, by the way, that other unspecified (and future?) requests by unspecified parties for other contests was denied. I suspect MUD has its own list of close losses that the "Supremes" denied.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

From the link:

The court approved injunctions against the election victories of three opposition MPs and one from the ruling Socialist Party while it hears a legal challenge against them.

Holy crap, legal challenges to elections are unheard of in democracies!

 

[maxparrish]

From the link:

The court approved injunctions against the election victories of three opposition MPs and one from the ruling Socialist Party while it hears a legal challenge against them.

Holy crap, legal challenges to elections are unheard of in democracies!

Oh yes. In fact, legal challenges (among other state processes) are "heard of" in Venezuela, military dictatorships, Islamic republics, monarchies, communist regimes, oligarchies, and normal democracies - thank you for your insightful contribution.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

From the link:


Holy crap, legal challenges to elections are unheard of in democracies!

Oh yes. In fact, legal challenges (among other state processes) are "heard of" in Venezuela, military dictatorships, Islamic republics, monarchies, communist regimes, oligarchies, and normal democracies - thank you for your insightful contribution.

..and when George W Bush complained to the Supreme Court. *Ah, the smell of American exceptionalism in the morning.*

 

[dismal]

Oh yes. In fact, legal challenges (among other state processes) are "heard of" in Venezuela, military dictatorships, Islamic republics, monarchies, communist regimes, oligarchies, and normal democracies - thank you for your insightful contribution.

..and when George W Bush complained to the Supreme Court. *Ah, the smell of American exceptionalism in the morning.*

Honestly, if you defend this I don't understand how you can expect to have any credibility here ever again.

One party has been in control of everything in Venezuela for over a decade and stacked all of the institutions in its own favor, even to the point of locking up multiple opposition leaders.

That party's policies have been so disastrous that they still managed to get absolutely thumped beyond all recognition in the election, just as polls said they would.

Now we're asked to believe the opposition, who has been mostly trying to avoid jail for the last few years, was rigging the election instead of the corrupt and incompetent regime that controls everything?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When government price fixing policies have their expected and well-documented effect of creating shortages this causes the expected and well-documented side effect of hoarding and black markets to arise.

Also, when hoarding by people trying to create economic problems occurs, it can create artificial scarcity and an unstable market.

Except the only "hoarding" we are seeing is companies objecting to being ordered to sell at a loss.

 

[maxparrish]

..and when George W Bush complained to the Supreme Court. *Ah, the smell of American exceptionalism in the morning.*

Honestly, if you defend this I don't understand how you can expect to have any credibility here ever again.

One party has been in control of everything in Venezuela for over a decade and stacked all of the institutions in its own favor, even to the point of locking up multiple opposition leaders.

That party's policies have been so disastrous that they still managed to get absolutely thumped beyond all recognition in the election, just as polls said they would.

Now we're asked to believe the opposition, who has been mostly trying to avoid jail for the last few years, was rigging the election instead of the corrupt and incompetent regime that controls everything?

I doubt that Don2 has the heart (let alone the knowledge) to defend a faux independent judiciary, hence his pointless drive-by snarking. None the less, it is an opportunity to educate the forum's residue of left Venezuela loving true believers on their latest failed experiment in a third world "progressive" Xanadu.

The broad outlines are sufficiently instructive. The elections concluded December 6th. The national (and local) election boards, run by the Chavezistas, counted the votes. And then they certified all the winners as "winners". The assembly-persons elect now await the new session, on January 5th.

A week ago a plot to overturn 22 seats was exposed by MUD, and angry denied, by the PSUV "jurists". However, it seems that under the public spotlight, the coup was not canceled...just scaled back to look a little less grotesque. Suddenly on 28th and 29th the Supremo Electoral Chamber was reopened (canceling holidays) so as to receive an immediate writ requesting the certified results of eight elected MUD winners be nullified by courts.

And the Electoral Chamber Judges hearing the case? None other than Fanny Marquez, Christian Zerpa and Indira Alfonzo, the first two being crash appointed a week ago in the constitutionally dubious marathon "special sessions" to pack the courts (which was already packed).

So far (and its not over), the "objective" court ordered the suspension of the swearing in of 4 elected representatives. The "complaint" is not clear (as far as I can tell, Venezuelans tend to write a lot of imprecise ornamented rhetoric as "law") BUT part of it is the complaint that there was way too many null votes (ironically caused by the governments own intentionally confusing ballots and their own voting machine's unfriendly software) AND their were unsupported speculations on illegal contributions (note the irony of complaining over alleged use of private funds, in contrast to PSUV actual misuse of the public funds for its own election).

Among the novel developments:

- IF suspending the four elected office holders were legal, the opposition still retains a 2/3rds majority. The math is that 108.66 is a two-thirds majority in a reduced sized assembly, but the opposition would still have 109. Did the Chavesta court geniuses get their math wrong? Oh dear...wait for 'new orders' I imagine.

- It is unlikely that EVEN under a Chavezista constitution the courts have the power to order an equal branch, the assembly, to not appoint its own members. These four are the certified winners. One supposes that assembly persons can be impeached under a trial process, but the election is a done deal. Whatever 'recount' or other annulment options that were available BEFORE official certification are now moot.

- "In an interview with the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional , constitutional lawyer Jesús María Casal, said ... that in no case should (it) prevent the swearing in of the deputies. Another constitutional (expert), Carlos Ayala, agreed that the Assembly will be constituted with 167 deputies elected."

- The opposition has promised to march all 112 members to the swearing in and to seat them. Should the Supremos not like it, what might they do? What might Maduro or the military do?

Anyway, its not over. More judicial "orders" will be forthcoming, long before any actual investigative process is started (let alone completed).

 

[Angra Mainyu]

- IF suspending the four elected office holders were legal, the opposition still retains a 2/3rds majority. The math is 108.66 is two thirds of a reduced sized assembly. The opposition would have 109. Did the Chavesta court geniuses get their math wrong? Oh dear.

Another interpretation is that the 2/3 are counted over the total number of members counted as the normal/legal number, not the circumstantial number that resulted from objections, etc. The Constitution does not seem to clarify the matter.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Unsurprisingly, the opposition lost the 2/3 majority.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-35307504#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa

 

[Derec]

Also, there is no such thing as inflation.
For economy czar of crisis-hit Venezuela, inflation 'does not exist'

Why does Venezuela always keep reminding me of Golgafrinchan B Ark ...