A classic case of failure after the Government spent all of the other people's money and those other people no longer have the incentives or capabilities to make more money for the Government and the rest of the population to spend. China was dirt poor until they started free market incentives allowing their people to make and own the fruits of their work. Of course capitalism has its flaws if left unchecked as the 1% will eventually owns everything. Neither extremes are good for the general population and that is why some controls are needed.
Maduro should be asking himself, where the hell is John Galt? He must be captured at any cost...... But then, Maduro probably doesn't even know of his existence...
Nothing is going to improve in Venezuela until they have a regime change. And return the business cycle and social standards to the way it existed before Chavez screwed everything up. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world and they have had to import oil from the U.S. recently. That's disgraceful. But until they remove that Chavez/Castro wannabe, nothing will change. Until the people get tired of their situation and do something about it, it is going to be more of the same. But the change is going to have to come from within.
While tea probably won't do it, sustained widespread civil disobedience has proven to be an effective agent for regime change around the world in dozens and dozens of cases. No "gunpowder and lead" required. I'd prefer if people don't die if they can achieve the same result without dying.
Yes, they did. 50 Million people died in the European theater alone (not including Japan and Asia ). 25 million of those were Russian/Soviet. And 12.5 million of the Russians that died were civilians. But Russia fought the war with a lot of equipment we sent them overseas with the Lend / Lease program. And when Hitler invaded Russia/USSR (Barbarossa), Germany was successful because the Soviets had lined up all their equipment in nice neat little rows preparing to invade the West. I wonder ...if Hitler had waited a few days and the USSR invaded first........is it possible that we may have aligned ourselves with Hitler instead of Stalin? History is funny that way. Hitler is always vilified because he invaded Poland. But in history class they always fail to mention that after it was invaded, Germany took one half of Poland and the Soviets took the Southern half. Ever heard of the Katyn Massacre ? After Germany invaded and the Soviets took their piece of Poland, they told all the remaining Polish military officers to 'meet here' and we'll discuss what we can do about the Germans. Then, Soviet/Russian soldiers jumped off trucks, surrounded them and proceeded to kill 22,000 Polish soldiers and civic leaders. They did it in one day. They killed them because they were not communist. It did not matter if they were anti German. If they were anti communist, pro democracy or enemies of the state ( businessmen, priests, journalists etc..) they died. The Soviets did a good job fighting from Moscow to Berlin. One of the top 3-5 generals of the war was Zukov. He was amazing if you read about him. But while the Russians were fighting from Moscow to Berlin... the Brits and the U.S. were fighting in Western Europe, Africa, Southern Europe, the Pacific and Asia. In 1943, at the height of the war; something ridiculous like 90 percent of our Federal budget went to the war effort. We were giving as much as we could give. The Brits did an excellent job in WW2. But I would not put the Russians on a pedestal. They sound good on paper, but I would not have wanted to be in their Army. If you have some time read After the Reich or A Woman in Berlin by Anonymous. A Woman in Berlin details the personal experiences of a woman during the first 30 days or so after the war ended and the Russians occupied the city. 95 percent of all the females were raped, from infants to the elderly. And 95 percent is not an exaggeration. History doesn't tell you that 10 percent of all the women in Berlin committed suicide within 90 days after the war was over. After the Reich covers the last 90 days of WW2 up to about 1950 or so. It was not pretty. The Russians raped women all the way from Moscow to Berlin and murdered the men and civilians if they were not communist. They imprisoned hundreds of thousands of German men, took them to the USSR and used them as slave labor. Most of them never returned. In Czech, they rounded up 5,000 ethnic Germans (after the war was over) with the pretense of telling them 'what was going to happen now '......they met in a football stadium. After they were assembled, the Soviets and communist soldiers entered the stadium. gunned them down and threw hand grenades in the crowd.... killing men, women and children. It's an excellent read if you have an interest in WW2. I could go on and on......the Soviets won, but they aren't hero's. I wouldn't put them on a pedestal. Check out this link for war material production. It was amazing what was achieved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre.org https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrBT7nRjHxX8i8A23hXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--?p=Poland+Ww2+Russian+Massacre&fr=yfp-t-828989,333
+1 Many of the major social changes that have occurred ( not all, but many) were done from within. And done with popular support. The Magna Carta, the Russian Revolution ( even if we didn't like it), Independence of India from Britain, fall of the Berlin Wall and Eastern Europe, implosion of Russia, transition of China and Vietnam to capitalism. Cuba's recent move towards capitalism. It's hard to convince a population to change and believe it's a good idea when they have a gun pointed to their head.
Venezuela is an excellent opportunity for an economics lesson for those in the US that support Socialism. What happens when a certain percentage of the population pays nothing into the system and - on a net basis - takes money/goods/services from the system. Of course all countries have some percentage of people in this scenario, but the question is...what percentage is appropriate? In the US, it may be close to 50% at this point. In Venezuela, the taker side may be more like 80-90%. Many countries are on this dangerous path of politicians promising more than the last one, which increases the percentage of net takers if delivered upon. Economically, what percentage is sustainable and puts the country in the strongest possible growth position?
It appears a moderator changed my last response, taking out a quote of a previous poster, removing that poster's entire post, and then removing an entire sentence from my response and changing the last sentence of my response. Please. Don't do this. If you want to delete an entire post because it's inappropriate, have at it (this particular post of mine was in no way inappropriate, btw). If you want to delete my post because it doesn't make sense after removing the post it quoted, then that's your prerogative I guess. But don't change someone's post without consulting them and leave their name on it as if that's what they wrote, that's just wrong.
%% Exactly MJ; Crazy Bernie. Mayor '' Bloomberg Business Weekly'' [magazine] had a good picture rebuke= ''military uniformed PRICE CHECKERS'' Think about that; they march into a store to -you guessed it-check prices!!!!
The military should not be performing civilian services, but what would you expect from a failed, socialist banana republic? Why don't they police the streets and help reduce the crime rate?