1 hour ago, Darth Revenant said:

It's the oil that ruined them though.

aka, the Resource Curse:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

4 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

It's the oil that ruined them though. The fall of the oil prices in the 80's that started their economic instability as well as the following political instability that lead to several attempted coups. Chavez raised the quality of living over several years when he came into power and based it all on the oil. Oil prices fell again and the current economic crises was attempted to be solved by printing money. That didn't work. Btw, 90 to 93% of their exports are based on petroleum. That is quite a mono economy. Sure, they do export some iron products as well, a whooping 585 million dollars worth, which might seem like a lot but is in contrast with 25 billion dollaridoes worth of Petroleum products.

They were doing better under Chavez than they had been doing for most of the 80's and 90's and poverty was decreasing. But they based all of that on oil again. Basing your entire economy on a single resource is a poor policy, no matter how abundant said resource is.

That is not exactly true. The fall in the oil prices exasperated things. But socialism has a calculation problem. With no market that do not have anyway to assess demand or prices. And the venezuelling economy was not just oil. They didnt export a lot but that wasnt thenproblem. The problem was socialism litterally gutting the economy and Chavez stealing all the money. Blaming the oil price dropping for the problems caused by gutting a vibrant economy. Stealing businesses from their rightful owners.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

That is not exactly true. The fall in the oil prices exasperated things. But socialism has a calculation problem. With no market that do not have anyway to assess demand or prices. And the venezuelling economy was not just oil. They didnt export a lot but that wasnt thenproblem. The problem was socialism litterally gutting the economy and Chavez stealing all the money. Blaming the oil price dropping for the problems caused by gutting a vibrant economy. Stealing businesses from their rightful owners.

You mean the Bush family drug money bank Chavez nationalized? Papa Bush never forgave Chavez for cutting into his share of the cocaine money. Let’s never forget how much criminal behavior shapes American foreign policy (which is above either party).

31 minutes ago, Eoen said:

You mean the Bush family drug money bank Chavez nationalized? Papa Bush never forgave Chavez for cutting into his share of the cocaine money. Let’s never forget how much criminal behavior shapes American foreign policy (which is above either party).

Lets never forget the people Chavez disappeared and the suffering he caused his people. The Bush money doesnt compare to that.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Lets never forget the people Chavez disappeared and the suffering he caused his people. The Bush money doesnt compare to that.

Please there’s no end to the bull on both sides. The school of the Americas in Fort. Benning produced a tonne of tortures for the right wing regimes we installed in Latin America and they disappeared tens of thousands, the Bush family was involved in all that crap as George sr. was head of the CIA.

1 hour ago, Eoen said:

Please there’s no end to the bull on both sides. The school of the Americas in Fort. Benning produced a tonne of tortures for the right wing regimes we installed in Latin America and they disappeared tens of thousands, the Bush family was involved in all that crap as George sr. was head of the CIA.

Then stop acting like socialism is a good thing. It took a rich country and turned it into a country that turned to eating their pets. Not because oil prices dropped. That happened before Chavez with out major problems. When Chavez nationaluzed the oil industry he kicked out the people who knew how to run the equipment and replaced them with cronies who didnt. He did this to all sorts of companies. Every single one failed. Chavez destroyed Venezuela. Not the price of oul going down.

4 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Then stop acting like socialism is a good thing. It took a rich country and turned it into a country that turned to eating their pets. Not because oil prices dropped. That happened before Chavez with out major problems. When Chavez nationaluzed the oil industry he kicked out the people who knew how to run the equipment and replaced them with cronies who didnt. He did this to all sorts of companies. Every single one failed. Chavez destroyed Venezuela. Not the price of oul going down.

I never said it was, Chavez was better than the puppet we had there before him. Stop pointing out the sliver in their eye, while ignoring the log in our own, we play dirty pool routinely.

5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

That is not exactly true. The fall in the oil prices exasperated things. But socialism has a calculation problem. With no market that do not have anyway to assess demand or prices. And the venezuelling economy was not just oil. They didnt export a lot but that wasnt thenproblem. The problem was socialism litterally gutting the economy and Chavez stealing all the money. Blaming the oil price dropping for the problems caused by gutting a vibrant economy. Stealing businesses from their rightful owners.

The problems faced by Venezuela were greater than just an autocrat who happened to favour socialism. In '98 they had the same GDP level as they had in '63, wages were a third lower than they were in '78 during the boom and purchasing power followed the same pattern. In '96 they had had 100% inflation. All of these while they followed neoliberal market ideas, you know the economic ideas favoured by Reagan. So clearly blaming it all on Socialism is not correct, because their economy was a dumpster fire before that as well. Fact is Chavez managed to turn that around, reduce poverty and increase economic growth. The problem is that it was all based on one sector of the economy. Manufacturing and agriculture stands for a combined 15% of the economy, which is hardly a lot.

So no, the economy wasn't vibrant before. The situation improved early on during Chavez, then he got more autocratic and hardline as well as the oil price going down. They hadn't built up other sectors to manage that drop in oil revenue and Maduro was more interested in being an autocratic kleptocrat focusing on his cronies. The problems were way bigger than just socialism.

7 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

The problems faced by Venezuela were greater than just an autocrat who happened to favour socialism. In '98 they had the same GDP level as they had in '63, wages were a third lower than they were in '78 during the boom and purchasing power followed the same pattern. In '96 they had had 100% inflation. All of these while they followed neoliberal market ideas, you know the economic ideas favoured by Reagan. So clearly blaming it all on Socialism is not correct, because their economy was a dumpster fire before that as well. Fact is Chavez managed to turn that around, reduce poverty and increase economic growth. The problem is that it was all based on one sector of the economy. Manufacturing and agriculture stands for a combined 15% of the economy, which is hardly a lot.

So no, the economy wasn't vibrant before. The situation improved early on during Chavez, then he got more autocratic and hardline as well as the oil price going down. They hadn't built up other sectors to manage that drop in oil revenue and Maduro was more interested in being an autocratic kleptocrat focusing on his cronies. The problems were way bigger than just socialism.

except Chavez didnt turn that around at all. He was able to hide what was going to happen for a time. But not very long.

29 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

except Chavez didnt turn that around at all. He was able to hide what was going to happen for a time. But not very long.

It’s hard to turn a country around on a dime after decades of neglect. Also we had an embargo on them the whole time. If socialism was so awful for the economy of other countries we wouldn’t need all the dirty tricks we use to stomp it out every time a populist movement rises.

1 minute ago, Eoen said:

It’s hard to turn a country around on a dime after decades of neglect. Also we had an embargo on them the whole time. If socialism was so awful for the economy of other countries we wouldn’t need all the dirty tricks we use to stomp it out every time a populist movement rises.

If Socialism didnt have a history of killing their own people....You know like they have done in Venezuela, Cuba,USSR, North Korea, China, Vietnam, the Ukraine, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia the list goes on. How many times does it have to fail in a deadly manner before you get it? Can you name one country where socialism has given the results promised? I know a lot of people that have actually lived in these countries. Not a single one says socialism is a good thing. People build boats out of garbage to escape these places. That tells me at least that maybe socialism is a bad thing.

9 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

If Socialism didnt have a history of killing their own people....You know like they have done in Venezuela, Cuba,USSR, North Korea, China, Vietnam, the Ukraine, Yugoslavia, East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia the list goes on. How many times does it have to fail in a deadly manner before you get it? Can you name one country where socialism has given the results promised? I know a lot of people that have actually lived in these countries. Not a single one says socialism is a good thing. People build boats out of garbage to escape these places. That tells me at least that maybe socialism is a bad thing.

How many Americans have been killed by the US government? At least 3 million by my count, millions more if we count Native Americans.

How many millions of others round the world? **** we killed at least five or six million Germans after WW2.

Just now, Eoen said:

How many Americans have been killed by the US government? At least 3 million by my count, millions more if we count Native Americans.

What aboutism does not fix socialism. The US doesnt have a body count of around 100 million. https://freethepeople.org/how-many-people-has-socialism-killed/

47 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

What aboutism does not fix socialism. The US doesnt have a body count of around 100 million. https://freethepeople.org/how-many-people-has-socialism-killed/

Sure it does we’ve been involved in dozens of medium level conflicts since the Soviet Union and China did their evil. Every year of my life we’ve been in someone else’s country propping up a minority oligarchy to the detriment of most of the locals.

Our predication is more sophisticated though and we have better propaganda, we hire the locals to do the massacres for us. We send in economic hit men before the military, after them comes the wolf in sheep’s clothing NGOs, and the IMF and other UN implements.

But let’s not forget it was wall-street who put the Bolsheviks in power in Russia. It was the OSS who put Mao (a Yale man) power. It was the OSS who put communists in power in Laos.

And let’s not forget our Gladio operations in Europe where our ex Nazi allies bombed civilians all over Europe and blamed it on the Soviets.

This is not...Star Wars. 😌

20 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Can you name one country where socialism has given the results promised?

Holland. I lived there for 6 years, and it's as close to "working Socialism" as I've ever seen and has historically been both popular and successful, but that's in large part because the residents are willing to pay up to 62% in tax to live there (at least when I was there around the turn of the millennium). It's not without it's problems (like any country) but it works as well as I've ever seen.

It's easy to confuse any form of socialism with some kind of communism where no one is allowed to own anything or the government is going to take your stuff and redistribute it, I get it, but let's not misconstrue bad leadership and corruption with societal principals. The only way a country can truly evolve and serve it's citizens is via compromise and the adaptation of all good ideas. Holland has taken the elements of socialism that work for it's people - healthcare, education, housing, social net, high taxes - and combined that with capitalism and it works delightfully well (again, haven't lived there for 20 years, I'm sure things have changed/degraded since then, as they have across the globe).

In the same way that Holland isn't TRUE socialism, the US isn't a true democracy, nor is it truly capitalist society. It also isn't anywhere close to perfect, but no where is perfect. All things in moderation, people

15 minutes ago, Sturn said:

This is not...Star Wars. 😌

I thought I was back on Reddit for a minute there

30 minutes ago, Sturn said:

This is not...Star Wars. 😌

True but fiction is informed by reality, all the **** the Soviet Union, the USA, France, China, and Germany have done the Empire (or even the Republic) would do. Lucas himself said he was inspired by real world events and politics. There’s a reason why guys with British accents command Stormtroopers.

24 minutes ago, DangerShine Designs said:

Holland. I lived there for 6 years, and it's as close to "working Socialism" as I've ever seen and has historically been both popular and successful, but that's in large part because the residents are willing to pay up to 62% in tax to live there (at least when I was there around the turn of the millennium). It's not without it's problems (like any country) but it works as well as I've ever seen.

It's easy to confuse any form of socialism with some kind of communism where no one is allowed to own anything or the government is going to take your stuff and redistribute it, I get it, but let's not misconstrue bad leadership and corruption with societal principals. The only way a country can truly evolve and serve it's citizens is via compromise and the adaptation of all good ideas. Holland has taken the elements of socialism that work for it's people - healthcare, education, housing, social net, high taxes - and combined that with capitalism and it works delightfully well (again, haven't lived there for 20 years, I'm sure things have changed/degraded since then, as they have across the globe).

In the same way that Holland isn't TRUE socialism, the US isn't a true democracy, nor is it truly capitalist society. It also isn't anywhere close to perfect, but no where is perfect. All things in moderation, people

Since they are a market economy no they are not. So much so their Prime Minister said to stop claiming they are socialist.

8 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Since they are a market economy no they are not. So much so their Prime Minister said to stop claiming they are socialist.

Great, way to prove his point, and mine from the other day about Scandinavia. And what Sanders wants to do.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

https://freethepeople.org/how-many-people-has-socialism-killed/

This is a right-wing libertarian site. It's biased as **** and probably filled with misinformation.

7 minutes ago, StarkJunior said:

Great, way to prove his point, and mine from the other day about Scandinavia. And what Sanders wants to do.

This is a right-wing libertarian site. It's biased as **** and probably filled with misinformation.

Miss information? So you dispute the number of people Stalin and Lenin killed? You dispute the number of people killed by Mao? You know these numbers can be independently verified right? I mean these were numbers I learned in history class a long time ago.

And your claim about what Sanders wants to do runs into the problem that what Sanders says he wants to do and the policies he pushes look nothing like what they actually do in Scandinavia.

3 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Miss information? So you dispute the number of people Stalin and Lenin killed? You dispute the number of people killed by Mao? You know these numbers can be independently verified right? I mean these were numbers I learned in history class a long time ago.

Did I say I disputed any of those? No, but nice try. I'm not spending hours coming through a biased source, which very likely has misinformation or skewed facts/data to support a point, to pick out what is legit and what isn't. It has an agenda to support and that is very clear.

Link a similar thing from AP or Reuters and then I'll look at it.

19 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Since they are a market economy no they are not. So much so their Prime Minister said to stop claiming they are socialist.

At no time did I say they were socialist. I said that they had taken elements of socialism and combined that with capitalism and had "working Socialism". America calls itself a democracy and it's not, I'm not arguing the semantics of what a particular government calls itself, I'm discussing where socialism has been proven to work and Holland's current state has evolved out of socialism .

And I may have gotten here late but if the argument is "America should and will never be a socialist country" then I agree completely, but people really do like social programs that our taxes pay for (roads, social security, schools, cops) and America could absolutely stand to learn a lot from Europe. Figure out how to support and subsidize education for all, figure out global healthcare because as bad as people may want to say the NHS or Canada's system sucks, they are WAY superior to the "nothing" that 44 million Americans (including my inlaws) have.

As an abstract thought, part of the issue with any kind of discussion like this right now is that people are super polarized and I see so many discussions (Reddit, Quora, Twitter, Facebook, all the dark places) devolve quickly from "healthcare for all would be great" into a "FU, 'murica" argument but no one can convince me that a) America isn't an amazing country, it is, or b) that it wouldn't be better still if we took a more European approach to caring for our people.

2 minutes ago, DangerShine Designs said:

At no time did I say they were socialist. I said that they had taken elements of socialism and combined that with capitalism and had "working Socialism". America calls itself a democracy and it's not, I'm not arguing the semantics of what a particular government calls itself, I'm discussing where socialism has been proven to work and Holland's current state has evolved out of socialism .

And I may have gotten here late but if the argument is "America should and will never be a socialist country" then I agree completely, but people really do like social programs that our taxes pay for (roads, social security, schools, cops) and America could absolutely stand to learn a lot from Europe. Figure out how to support and subsidize education for all, figure out global healthcare because as bad as people may want to say the NHS or Canada's system sucks, they are WAY superior to the "nothing" that 44 million Americans (including my inlaws) have.

As an abstract thought, part of the issue with any kind of discussion like this right now is that people are super polarized and I see so many discussions (Reddit, Quora, Twitter, Facebook, all the dark places) devolve quickly from "healthcare for all would be great" into a "FU, 'murica" argument but no one can convince me that a) America isn't an amazing country, it is, or b) that it wouldn't be better still if we took a more European approach to caring for our people.

We do not call ourselves a democracy. We are a Representative Republic.