Venezuela

[Pi]

Miss Venezuela was one of my favourite gender studies.

I thought her numbers always stacked up well.

They've got some nice Anti-Government protesters too.

maybe i was wrong... exercise (rioting) and dieting (starvation) through socialism

[David]

Seeing as how we're talking about everything but the actual situation in Venezuela, here's a recent news story:

http://abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/venez ... es/8764958

Footage has emerged of Venezuelan security officials seizing two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, after they urged protests against a new legislative superbody widely denounced as anti-democratic.

Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were both under house arrest, the former for his role in leading street protests against President Nicolas Maduro in 2014 and the latter on charges of plotting a coup.

[Pi]

^ oh alright

this is another good article on the situation


http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/arti ... -collapse/

realistically it will probably end in some kind of military coup as it has in the past

[stui magpie]

Geez I really hit a nerve with the crack about brickies labourer.

[Pies4shaw]

Seeing as how we're talking about everything but the actual situation in Venezuela, here's a recent news story:

http://abc.net.au/news/2017-08-01/venez ... es/8764958

Footage has emerged of Venezuelan security officials seizing two opposition leaders from their homes in overnight raids, after they urged protests against a new legislative superbody widely denounced as anti-democratic.

Leopoldo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma were both under house arrest, the former for his role in leading street protests against President Nicolas Maduro in 2014 and the latter on charges of plotting a coup.

It's a long way away and there are no Islamists, right? What else would I want to know?

I mean, unless I was buying it - as you know, I'm always on the lookout for real estate. Do they have a "third-world toilet" stamp duty exemption on acquisitions of failing, South American states?

[Mugwump]

[HAL]

Interesting reason. What happens the rest of the time?

[David]

^ Well, you know, as they undoubtedly say in Russia, there are democracies and then there are democracies.

We can find plenty of examples of social democratic states running into debt, but what are the alternatives? The US, about as radical a capitalist state as you get in the West, has huge amounts of debt; and is also (through its institutions) responsible for unleashing a worldwide economic crisis that we're still recovering from. So, for all the condemnation of socialism as a failed experiment, where's the evidence that unfettered capitalism works? The best societies, by nearly any measurement, are still the ones that employ a mix of both.

[Mugwump]

^ my point was not that unfettered capitalism works - it clearly does not. It was merely that socialists seem committed to the idea that government programmes should continuously expand, that this is usually offered to voters on a "someone else will pay" basis, and that we may well be on a slow path to breakdown as a result. At minimum, we are creating debts for future generations to fund and pay back, so that this generation can live beyond its means.

The alternative is to raise taxes to pay for programmes so that budgets and state debt are balanced across the cycle. These taxes should be funded by the average Joe and Jo, so that they hear their taxes rising every time they hear a politician promising to spend new money. We are not Vz, but we have plenty of the irresponsible Vz mindset.

[Wokko]

"A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a "mixed economy": a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy."

[Mugwump]

"A pure laissez-faire capitalist society has never existed. The closest any country has come to pure capitalism is 19th century America. Twentieth century America is not a pure capitalist country, but is a "mixed economy": a mixture of freedom and controls. i.e., crippled capitalism, i.e., a hampered market economy."

Disagree, Wokko, i think history shows that market failure (mostly monopoly and collusion and corruption) naturally emerge from unfettered capitalism, and this capitalism does tend to eat itself.

[Wokko]

That pretty much all stems from Government interference and "crony capitalism". In an otherwise ethical society with a robust justice system the less Government involvement in commerce the better.

[Pies4shaw]

Why?