Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

The FBI is investigating how Diosdado, Aissami and "The Cartel of the suns" are related to one of their most seeked terrorists following the lead of the security guard so far.

El culillo en su maximo nivel.

edited 31st Jan '15 6:10:21 PM by HibikiOni

Apparently there was a protest about the lack of staple foods, high inflation, crime, and long queues. No. Long Queues are not a part of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking, it is quite Serious Business when it comes a thing so troublesome it impacts significantly negatively on people's lives.

Maduro's answer? Arrest the people who own the stores.

That statement was more like propaganda, but yeah he did blame them for that too. It was originally a need to find a scapegoat for the scarcity by attacking small business owners and blame them for everything. He also did a similar thing with drugstore owners who are currently in jail. Again, not surprising, the government has been blaming business since i can remember.

edited 5th Feb '15 2:00:56 PM by HibikiOni

Looks like he's also grabbed a chain of stores into the bargain. I don't know if 'control' means outright nationalisation or selling it off to cronies though.

So what sort of incentives are there for people to actually run businesses there? Do they get extra leniency or grants if they swear fealty to Maduro, pray to gold statues of Chavez, talk to little birds, prefix their shop's name with "The People's-", burn US flags, or what?

The above may go to a paywall, so here's another article about it.

I wanted to see what the state was of stores that were already nationalised. Did they have huge queues? Were their shelves empty? Were they doing great and proved Maduro's theories? According to this Wikipedia article, it's the second of the three. Do those more in the know about this kinda thing agree with it?

edited 5th Feb '15 3:35:07 PM by betaalpha

There are some left wing latin american politicians from Bolivia, Ecuador and Chile who would still argue that the nationalization of the stores is a good thing and the problems that come with it aren't created by corruption or wrong politics but try to find more scapegoats like the empire or the economic war the same way Maduro is and all that crap. Here's a pick of one of those stores.◊

What i think the government is currently trying to do is to make people panic (either the middle class or the lowest classes) and try to riot so they can justify ignoring the constitution to use lethal force to kill the people who try to protest and send people to jail massively. That way those of the lowest classes who remain will be too scared to do anything. The recent authorization of the ministry of defense that violates the constitution shows how far they are willing to go. It might be their last method because it's too risky even for them.

edited 5th Feb '15 4:11:12 PM by HibikiOni

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not at all an authority or close to the issue, though I daresay Maduro's not likely to be after a riot of the lower classes because those are where his support base lies and cracking down on them would surely be his death. I think he's most likely trying to ride out the economic crisis until the price of oil increases again and he can use that to bail himself out. Or failing that, just keep the house of cards wobbling on for as long as possible.

Okay, I will admit, that shelf store is extremely well stocked. What's the name of it?

edited 5th Feb '15 5:18:11 PM by betaalpha

So what sort of incentives are there for people to actually run businesses there?

Pretty much none. The few who keep running businesses do it because, well, they have to keep eating, and many can't just leave the country.

What about small businesses or mom and pop stores? Will Maduro go after them?

edited 5th Feb '15 5:14:35 PM by Quag15

Nah, that'd be too much effort everywhere for too little reward. I don't think there would be enough military and police staff to go after every last one of those, and the net gain would be minimal. At that point they might just as well go about executing babies in the street as well, because they'd have gone completely insane.

The thing is, small mom and pop business still depend on the imports from the bigger companies, so they're also screwed without the need to personally go after them.

State/Government stores are the ones with the longest queues. Anything they take over is guaranteed to fail within months.

They don't expropriate small businesses or anything, but they do that thing where they take over a warehouse's or truck's supplies and do a broadcast gloating over how they caught a speculator/hoarder sabotaging the economy. One of my cousins got caught in one of these schemes and got some shipping confiscated.

edited 6th Feb '15 4:29:30 AM by Stormtroper

Has anyone pointed out that the nationalized stores have the longest queues of all in the national media? Or anywhere else inside the country? Seems like a pretty easy blow to get in, if you're a government critic, to turn Maduro's own statement against him.

(I thought the nationalized stores were immune to long queues due to either having nothing left worth selling, or by using government funds to keep all the tills open and the shelves stocked).

Here's the first news article I got when I Googled 'Venezuela'

edited 6th Feb '15 5:45:34 AM by betaalpha

Oh baby, the US is preparing something big and I really want to thank Captain Salazar for his beautiful song.

A minor salary is more or less over 5.000BS.F and I've heard of bags of diapers being sold on 1.200BS.F...

Anyway, the opposition has always said that expropriations are a bad thing and nothing good comes from it and yes, they have also said that the government is only looking for scapegoats and the nationalized stores are way worse. The problem is that there is a large part of the lower class who have become too apathetic towards the opposition to bother resisting in any way, so they don't care if what the government says is true or not as long as the government gives them what they want.

The problem is that the lower class is the one who is being the most affected and a social explosion is very likely to happen, I think it's a question of when and it's not the first time that it happens either that's why i believe the government is going to use it to their favor.

Edit: More and more members of the government are getting arrested for corruption in USA. Serves them right!

Three students of the UCAT in Tachira were shot and wounded by the GNB. God this people are crazy...

The whole SIMADI thing started today at 170BS.F, if we divide that by 6.30 minus 1 the devaluation should be around 2598%. The devaluation isn't calculated like this exactly but I'm sure It's close...

OH MY COD!

edited 12th Feb '15 7:18:04 PM by HibikiOni

A COUP PLOT HAS ATTEMPTED TO today we're devaluing the venezuelan currency by 65% MURDER THEalso we increased public transport fees by 40% PRESIDENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!""

edited 13th Feb '15 4:05:16 PM by betaalpha

This is it.

The marxism has won.

No more social classes.

Devaluacion superrecontrarrechisima.

edited 13th Feb '15 11:24:26 PM by HibikiOni

So, according to Swissleaks, Chavez had 4 accounts on HSBC. Total amount of money: 12 billion US dollars.

Link here (in Portuguese).

Meh, nothing new. I'm sure the government stole and gave away billions of trillions of our dollars since Chavez got to power. Before he showed up I'm sure the Adecos and Copeyanos were doing exactly the same thing ever since Perez Jimenez was overthrown while people are starving to death. And even his government was military corrupt.

Recently Diosdado has been reminding me of Noriega with his Machete declaring war to the US in despair.

edited 14th Feb '15 1:31:22 PM by HibikiOni

Right now, we can't even find toilet paper in the stores here. Literally. After our reserves run out, we're having to rely on paper towels.

A Cuban Peso has more value than a Bolivar now...

From now on it's just like the linch said... 'There is only darkness for you... And only death for your people.'

edited 15th Feb '15 1:10:13 PM by HibikiOni

At this point, I'm thinking most of the country deserves it, really. If we couldn't and didn't want to defend our country, maybe we deserve sinking down with it. Not that it'll teach anyone their lesson, of course.

Maybe so. We all have to pay the consequences victim or not alike whether we like it or not and it won't mean we will find redemption just like that. But still, I think trying is the best we can do.

In almost 200 years of history we still haven't learned anything. Just like there are people who say that if Chavez hadn't died we wouldn't be this way.

"En todos los países y en todos los tiempos, aun en estos modernismos, en que tanto nos ufanamos de haber conquistado para la razón humana una vasta porción del terreno en que antes imperaban en absoluto los instintos se ha comprobado que por encima de cuantos mecanismos institucionales se hallan hoy establecidos, existe siempre, como una necesidad fatal, el gendarme electivo o hereditario de ojo avizor, de mano dura, que por vías de hecho mantiene el temor y que por el temor mantiene la paz…”

1919 El Gendarme necesario. Laureano Vallenilla Lanz

edited 15th Feb '15 3:52:31 PM by HibikiOni

Mmmhhh... I disagree. I still have faith in Venezuela.

We've come a long way through the last 200 years, since the times of mass ignorance where obtaining political power meant using your charisma to recruit cannon fodder to die in vain for your personal purposes. That practice died a century ago and since then it's been a steady struggle for growth in political consciousness and democratic principles, starting with the Generation of 28, the dismantling of gomecism, the October 18th revolution and subsequent democracy (even if short-lived), January 23rd and the subsequent period of democracy and about two decades of economic and social prosperity, while the rest of Latin America was surmised in military dictatorships and mass poverty. We've made lots of mistakes for the past three decades, but the good side of our history can't be discounted.

On our economic ignorance, we have the liability of depending on a highly volatile resource which prevents us non-economists from having an intuitive sense of how well the economy is doing since governments can hide mismanagements during windfalls. Personally back in 2012 I had no idea we were going to be facing scarcity, rampant inflation (well above wage increases), etc., and it's made me learn quite a few things about economics.

Being an oil country is also a huge liability politically speaking, it means economic power is concentrated on whatever group manages the devil's excrement, and money is power, setting the foundations for despotism. They say it's very difficult for an oil country to become democratic, and as far as I know we're the only country to have done so (the other way around doesn't count).

As for today, our neo-totalitarism/competitive-authoritarism/government-with-democratic-deficit/dictablanda hasn't been able to do in 16 years what ordinary dictatorships do in a matter of months, because they know if they step too far too early a good chunk of the population won't take it passively, be it 2014's SOS Venezuela, 2007's protests and constitutive referendum, or 2002-2003's chaos (even if those backfired horribly), all while the government has had the sheer luck of going through an oil boom.

All in all, despite our blunders, the above still makes me believe our society has potential.

This was one of the most difficult to compose posts I've made anywhere, but I had to so as to set my thoughts in order. Hopefully I'm not deluding myself.

I disagree, despite the efforts of Betancourt and Raul Leoni, IMHO the masses have always wanted "someone" to wash away all their problems, when Perez Jimenez got back to the country and he wanted to become senator he had way more popular support than any of AD or Copei's members and yes, when it didn't work the people wanted and tried to get him back in absolute power in 1973... It's always been there. That doesn't mean we can't change thought.

The SEBIN broke into Ledezma's office and took him away after beating the crap out of him. God what a bunch of cowards...

I don't think this was such a good idea for them, I mean I'm sure Ledezma has won twice against chavism fairly and sending him to jail may backfire on them.

The government is constantly trying to polarize the population through the media and is increasing repression against any resistance, I think they do want violence so they can justify further repression.

edited 19th Feb '15 7:25:21 PM by HibikiOni

I think this is where my faith/hope lies.

I don't think jailing Ledezma is a good idea for them either. Can they rack up the burden of holding political prisoners just like that? Either way, in the name of decency they better release him right away.

edited 19th Feb '15 7:46:26 PM by Stormtroper

Profound change is very possible

My fear, is that it always seems to be bloody