Well, in this case you have common local citizens reporting, as main big news agencies are absent.
EDIT
For exmaple, they have already started shooting at people on teh streets. One hopes it is rubber bullets.
Iâm sure theyâll use rubber bullets when they run out of real ones.
Provocative. Itâll be worth it just to find out what happens.
Recognize Tsai as president of China, anyone?
Maburro replied by kicking out US embassy personnel.
US replied you ain´t president, you cannot do that, we do not have to listen to you, we´ll take measures to protect the integrity of our citizens and government employees.
Where´s the popcorn emoji?
Canada and US have issue statements of support the interim president. Mexico and the usual gang of idjits backs Maburro.
Dear Kman: there will be a peaceful gathering of Venezuelan citizens praying for peace in Venezuela at CKS today.
2 Likes
Curiouser and curiouser.
Any idea what US interests are in Venezuela at the moment, and how the new guy is likely to help them protect those interests? As far as Iâm aware itâs not of any particular importance to them at the moment, but maybe theyâre playing some game of intrigue that the world isnât generally aware of?
Oil. Metals. Rare minerals. Usual stuff.
Plus big sequioia on their shoulders from having oil companies and bansk kicked out before.
What happens if you kick out the ambassadors and they refuse to leave?
At a certain point, guns will be involved.
Iâm thinking Benghazi.
Oh yeah, forgot about the oil. I assumed theyâd just taken up the slack with sources elsewhere and Venezuela had dropped off the radar.
Eh Venezuela still has the largest oil reserves and production capacity in the world, surpasing Saudi Arabia and anyone else.
Denmark, France, 16 Latin American countries now supporting new president. EU calls to elections.
Capitalist systems have the concept of bankruptcy. Itâs a way of taking resources away from unfit administration and turning them over to people who might do a better job.
In global politics, this would be accomplished by an imperialist invasion or a regime change. In national politics, a revolution or a coup. In a democracy, an election might suffice.
When the unfit administration is good at holding on to power despite its incompetence at administering resources, it gets complicated.
Socialists say itâs all about distribution. But when theyâre in power they donât distribute all that well. Somehow something always goes wrong.
1 Like
Re-distribution. Not distribution.
2 Likes
Endless do-overs. They never get it right, because they focus on the wrong level. There is no right system for the wrong people.
Yep, redistribution into their own pockets. This happens in both socialism and capitalism, but it is more noticeable in so called socialist regimes because of the holier than thou attitude and them using the excuse of âdoing this for the peopleâ rather than âif you are poor is because you are lazyâ diatribe. In both cases, a group is demonized -in Venezuela it was the higher income elite, in capitalism lower income strata- and those are excluded, milked, used and manipulated for the little group to get the maximum profit.
However, as Roland said, the incompetence is noticeable when it generates overwhelming poverty and the system stops working. The medical system is a good thermomether. In Venezuela, they say they lack 90% of medical resources. Over 5 million people have left, and the first out were professionals, medical among them. In the US you have thousands going into Mexico and Central America looking for cheaper healthcare, heck, take the Taiwanese.
In Venezuela the fat lady sung when the supermarkets were empty. They blamed US. True, the US can and has done that in the past. But such a large big country to not be able tohave basics such as meat and vegetables is a real tragedy in organization which actually dates back to before the Chavez/Maburro debacle. A explained before, it was only when the fountain of oil revenues dried that the whole castle fell, but it was bound to fall anyways. In thsi they are right to blame others but mostly themselves. Instead of changing teh system and delinkiing themselves so that they could produce their own basics, liek medicine or food, teh Venezuelan government just switched providers anytiem it because too expensive. Eventually, not even having air fuel to bring stuff, they lost teh ability to feed themselves. And the rest is what we have seen.
The system itself must change. But in a healthier way, beyond righ or left. The idea is that everyone has a job, performs a job and is paid for such job in a way they can at least feed themselves. And that the country will unhook itself from the heroin addiction of export based economy.
1 Like
If anything, chaos in Venezuela benefits the U.S. Weâre the worldâs largest oil and gas producer now, and keeping Venezuelan oil off the markets guarantees higher prices for our exports.
Is that right?
When Chavez was playing silly buggers with the oil industry, the US must surely have ramped up domestic production to compensate; theyâve been through oil shortages before and donât want to play that game again. Although Iâm sure Venezuela still has massive reserves of oil, I suspect they have very few potential customers right now - or, at least, none that are going to be held over a barrel.
Thatâs been the South American story for, what, a couple of hundred years at least.
Which si why they must switch to a more varied economy, develop the internal market and local production. Develop transportation links and push educatuon, ccreativity, participation. Problem with oil is that it fosters a monolitical structure where only the top tiers get benefits as economic actors. The rest are idle⌠and we have seen the kind of evil idle hands have produced.
We have Tuvalu as the greatest example of what a âgreat cash cropâ can produce in teh long run. Once it falls, everything is gone. To build a more reliable system, you need more than fast riches that end up being flashes in the pan. It has to be sustainable.
Must be interesting having a few oil wells in you front yard.
None of this is news. The question is: why hasnât all this already been done by now?
The answer to that question is the root of all that is wrong with Venezuela.