Venezuela - Mass Protests - Page 5
Forum Index > General Forum |
crazyweasel
607 Posts
| ||
crazyweasel
607 Posts
On February 25 2014 10:29 siri wrote: so this means what? The reason some people close their store and dont sell their goods is not to create artificial shortages like she implies. Its because the inflation is so high that they will either have to raise substantially prices to not lose money (and risk getting their stores robbed by the "people"), or just wait it out until things stabilize. The reason for the huge shortages is because the government stop giving dollars to importations, and because the national production got destroyed with the many years of corrupt expropriations. She is full of shit, and you dont need much time to live there to realize that its much more complicated than that. you have to consider that venezuela's economy is still 2/3 not-nationalized (or expropriated). inflation, also, has to be considered with world's economical system where basically money is evaluated (partly and mostly) according to GDP. the thing is, in emergent countries the bigger sectors of the economy (aka primary : forest/mines/oil) belongs to transnational. money made out of these sectors is then calculated in that transnational locality's PGB and not the country where it was taken from. these countries are left with low expertise, low tax income (compared to what's taken in term of capital) and overall lower GDP. now GDP is a big part of money evaluation (is a country able to pay his debt). considering a low gradation of emergent countries' money -> goods stocking cost more -> that said country has to either expand his goodstocking expenses (by reducing his expenses in other sectors like jobs and social measures) or either buy less goods. in that case the price of goods will raise to the roof because people have to eat, its not a flexible thing there's ALWAYS demand for food. | ||
Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
On February 25 2014 10:32 nunez wrote: haha, take your time buddy. your reading comprehension will get there eventually. until then you should try to think a bit more before you post. so instead of insulting opponents can you actually answer a simple question: "what caused the shortages?" | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
it was getting comical, he explicitly quoted the part that literally shows you why he's being stupid as a means to show me why i was being stupid. on your question, seems like a farfetched request to make. if i could answer that i'd prolly get a nobels prize in economics to go with my post. here's a relevant bbc article though, i don't know if i posted it before. Jose Luis Iragorry puts the crisis in perspective. He is a dairy farmer with 120 head of cattle, working in Zulia province, the country's agricultural heartland close to the Colombian border. sourceHe says smuggling is the main reason most Venezuelans have not seen fresh milk or butter for most of this year, although he denies involvement himself and says that the biggest worry for producers like him is security. might as well add in this this vice article i read recently too. However, he emphasizes the structural threats to the global food system haven't been addressed. Bar-Yam has written at length about what he believes to be the root cause of food price swings: financial speculation and food-for-fuel policies like ethanol subsidies. Both, he argues, artificially drive up prices on the global market and, in turn, cause hunger and unrest. source | ||
JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
Shortages ensue. | ||
KwarK
United States40785 Posts
| ||
funkie
Venezuela9374 Posts
On February 26 2014 11:34 KwarK wrote: How absurd. The government orders everyone to sell their stocks at below market value so the deprived villagers the government is trying to help buy them and then resell them across the border for their real value and pocket the difference causing the government to try to intervene in the market more. Colombians have been coming to Venezuela to get all sorts of goods and then take it there by contraband. In December, we had this thing were they would come here and change their Pesos for Bolivares. When the government "advised" businesses to lower their prices or face penalties, even the most mundane things seemed cheap for the regular colombian. Same things happens with Oil, a shitload of trucks, even a group of those being linked to Zulia's Governor son, have been taking Oil there to make the most of it by contraband. Who regulates what goes in/out in the border? The GNB. Why haven't they stopped the contraband? because they get a piece of the cake. Businesess have been closing regularly early or not opening at all these days because of fear. Fear they might get sacked for everything they have. Some of those got sacked in a timely manner, in 4 different states. All sorts of shots got robbed and they were happening all at the same time, when the "president" was giving a speech on National tv. Also the tupamaro + GNB attacks happened the first few days in a similar manner. They waited around 7-8pm and the president would go on national tv to give a speech about how much of a dick he is, and then the attacks would start again. Tear gas, "Perdigones", bullets and whatnot are the usual suspects. | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
On February 26 2014 10:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Venezuela heavily subsidizes food which drives up demand, while punishing suppliers which drives down supply. Shortages ensue. a capitialist bed time story. to cross quote itsjustatank On February 26 2014 10:08 itsjustatank wrote: considering most if not all american food is subsidized to be at an artificially low price, the point is pretty moot. and same in norway and the rest of the world, and partly why venezuela under chavez and maduro has been successfull distribuiting food (good infrastructure and governement subsidies). the latter part of your stab is a bit more on point but too vague to parse. i think venezuelas economic policies play a minor part. corruption, counter-revolutionary and imperialist mischief are the usual suspects. | ||
Cheerio
Ukraine3178 Posts
On February 26 2014 10:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote: Venezuela heavily subsidizes food which drives up demand, while punishing suppliers which drives down supply. Shortages ensue. On February 26 2014 11:34 KwarK wrote: How absurd. The government orders everyone to sell their stocks at below market value so the deprived villagers the government is trying to help buy them and then resell them across the border for their real value and pocket the difference causing the government to try to intervene in the market more. I guess nunez should give you a nobel prize. And to nunez: that's not fairytale, that's how market economies work. If you have never studied economics, that would be hard to grasp, because those phrases are leveraged by some background knowledge. But for those who did, it's that simple. | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
the venezuelan economy as a whole, a perfect example of a system you can model with two straight lines on a sheet of paper. when it comes to jonny (and i'm sure for you too) economics is ideology dressed up in bad math. insufficient and overly simplistic. | ||
JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On February 26 2014 23:40 nunez wrote: a capitialist bed time story. to cross quote itsjustatank Well they really do subsidize food, and food consumption really has increased. And they really do things that interrupt food supply like shutting down supermarkets. Price controls also create an incentive for producers to produce less and retailers to stock less, and they really do use price controls and in a heavy handed way at that. Currency controls are also making it harder for producers to work with foreign suppliers, which stalls production. I'm sure ills like corruption play a role as well, but when the Venezuelan government designs a system that gives bad behavior (smuggling, hoarding, etc.) a profitable outcome and good behavior (producing, selling, etc.) an unprofitable one, you wind up with an outcome that is both terrible and predictable. | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
these regulations are reactions to contra-revolutionary economic warfare and corruption. like f.ex. the currency control system which seems to be scaled down now. you're pointing the finger at 'poor economic policies', blaming them for problems they were made in response to, very silly. | ||
JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On February 27 2014 03:42 nunez wrote: venezuela have been remarkably proficcient at supplying food to their people, and none of these policies sets venezuela markedly apart from the rest of the world (especially not subsidies). these regulations are reactions to contra-revolutionary economic warfare and corruption. like f.ex. the currency control system which seems to be scaled down now. you're pointing the finger at 'poor economic policies', blaming them for problems they were made in response to, very silly. Yeah, they're remarkable proficient... except for the whole shortages thing. | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
i meant un’s millennium development goals of course. | ||
JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On February 27 2014 03:53 nunez wrote: haha, well yes, except that, it's actually ironic when you think about it. i meant un’s millennium development goals of course. Well, like I said before - they subsidized food and increased demand for food. That means more food getting to people (increased demand). Where they failed was in developing supply for the long haul: The country's production of many foodstuffs has fallen sharply. While official numbers are scarce, Carlos Machado, an agricultural expert at IESA business school in Caracas, estimates that from 2004 to 2012, corn production has fallen by 25% to around 1.5 million tons, rice by 34% to 650,000 tons and cattle production by 27% to around 300,000 tons, based on scattered government data and information from farmer information. To bridge the gap in 2012, the state and the private sector spent an estimated $8 billion on imports, up from roughly $7 billion the year before, according to analyst estimates and state data. Link | ||
DeepElemBlues
United States5076 Posts
On February 27 2014 03:42 nunez wrote: venezuela have been remarkably proficcient at supplying food to their people, and none of these policies sets venezuela markedly apart from the rest of the world (especially not subsidies). these regulations are reactions to contra-revolutionary economic warfare and corruption. like f.ex. the currency control system which seems to be scaled down now. you're pointing the finger at 'poor economic policies', blaming them for problems they were made in response to, very silly. socialist bedtime story? the labor force participation rate went from 52% to 46% during chavez's 13 years of rule. that result is one of the reasons that has required more direct subsidization and that can help drive shortages. US food subsidization is not to make food cheaper for consumers. the number one food subsidization in the US is for corn grown not to be eaten but to be turned into fuel. other than that, US food subsidization is so farmers don't go out of business because food was already so cheap. you're telling us we're putting the cart before the horse but that is what you are doing. food is produced in such massive quantities that farmers can't survive just selling their produce, they don't make enough money. this is the same today as it was in the 1920s when most of this subsidization started. the only difference is today huge agricorporations own most farmland and the subsidies are more for the small individual farmers who are left. i mean look you can blame it all on counterrevolutionaries and reactionaries and say price controls and subsidization are a response to class warfare by plutocrats but price controls cause shortages. period. doesnt matter why they were put in place, that is what price controls do. actually venezuela's policies do set it apart from most of the developed world. france doesn't have shortages. the US doesn't have shortages. canada doesnt have shortages. not to the degree of venezuela or, say, egypt, another country where things like bread are nearly free to the people. what a surprise, egypt has had problems in recent years with food shortages. there is a huge difference between subsidizing farming and subsidizing the cost of food to the consumer. gasoline is subsidized to 10 cents a gallon for Venezuelans, how many tens of billions of dollars of lost revenue is that? the venezuelan government could easily afford to make these shortages go away... if they weren't basically subsidizing cuba's entire economy out of socialist brotherhood and subsidizing that gasoline to keep the proletariat from hating on them. even pure as the driven snow revolutionary policies aimed at the pigdogs of the plutocracy and their lapdogs in the bourgeoisie have unintended consequences. | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
| ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
you know, instead of paraphrasing you should just really post the article you're copy pasting from debbie, that's what i do anyways. i can't seem to find a source for your labour rate participation claim. it was an unsourced claim. it seems to be either increasing (esp for female) or staying about the same for the various groups... source as oppsosed to the us total one falling 4% (you'll have to find the data yourself, couldn't link directly too it). source blaming the govt for the currency control when you are touting the opposition as saviors is bs, since it was a product of contra-revolutionary bullshit in the first place. edit: i do think the point about food-for-fuel subsidies is pretty interesting though, and it featured heavily in the vice article i posted earlier, where the system-theorist (mmm) places the blame for unrest like you see in venezuela and egypt on financial speculation and this food-for-fuel business. | ||
JonnyBNoHo
United States6277 Posts
On February 27 2014 04:47 nunez wrote: i would tend to blame the criminals driving the black market (increased demand)... a more grievious offense than trying to combat hunger and poverty. Correct - blame the government | ||
nunez
Norway4003 Posts
for one, yes i'm sure corruption is rife. | ||
| ||