benjipwns
Banned
I think you mean echoboomer.
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Venezuelan president called a Grinch after seizing nearly 5 million toys
- Thread starter Syriel
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JonnyDBrit
Member
This is kind of an interesting point, though it partly depends on how much the statement aligns with actual reality. Plus of course, the toys being seized without real compensation for their production, which is... not good for supply chains.
Well, it depends on how much lower the prices actually are, wouldn't be surprising if they sell the toys at a profit (they just need to pay for transportation since the toys are stolen) and they kill two birds with one stone.
the only reason those toys exist in venezuela to be confiscated is because of the profit motive. if you take that away to redistribute in a more socially desirable way then they will simply stop and then next year there are no toys for anyone.
trying to magically combine the innovation and productivity advantages and efficiency of allocating resources of adam smith's market society with the distributive justice of socialism is just having your cake while eating it too
Corronchilejano
Member
The "interesting point" is that the goverment has done so much of this (steal from the producers to give away to the poor) that nobody in their right mind would invest in Venezuela.
So 100%
The chinese/italians/portuguese/etc in the country came here because Venezuela wasn't prosper, just for fun.
lol ok.
-Plasma Reus-
Service guarantees member status
China is doing very well bruh.
benjipwns
Banned
Ahem. That's Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Silent Chief
Member
Putting supply and demand aside for a sec.
Buying things and reselling them for more is how commerce works. Inflation is very high in Venezuela. So the goods in inventory appreciate in value just because the money devalues. If inflation is 300% over a year, you have to resell your good that have been in storage at several times the original cost to make a profit. That might seem like price gouging but it's not. The alternative is to convert your money into a stable foreign currency and wait it out which creates more inflation.
Maybe Trump will show Americans how this works.
Buying things and reselling them for more is how commerce works. Inflation is very high in Venezuela. So the goods in inventory appreciate in value just because the money devalues. If inflation is 300% over a year, you have to resell your good that have been in storage at several times the original cost to make a profit. That might seem like price gouging but it's not. The alternative is to convert your money into a stable foreign currency and wait it out which creates more inflation.
Maybe Trump will show Americans how this works.
BronzeWolf
Banned
Company imports toys (a lot of them)
Government accuses company of "intending" to sell those toys at an extreme profit. Government removes 5 Million toys from market
Toys become scarcer in Venezuela.
Scalper sells bootleg toys for even crazier prices than Government intended.
Is this accurate?
Government accuses company of "intending" to sell those toys at an extreme profit. Government removes 5 Million toys from market
Toys become scarcer in Venezuela.
Scalper sells bootleg toys for even crazier prices than Government intended.
Is this accurate?
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
A thread about Venezuela is another thread where the country is treated as apetri dish to prove or disprove a theory.
At least we are past the point where people would just plainly deny that the situation was much worse than before Chavez.
At least we are past the point where people would just plainly deny that the situation was much worse than before Chavez.
TemplaerDude
Member
Fucking L-O-L
Your education system has gone a grade A job of making that some kind of scare word.
benjipwns
Banned
The Federation.
TheWasTheJoke
Member
Venezuala is an exercise in economic disaster and it is because of the far left, inhibitive, policies of it's government. Yes the government should and does intervene with the economy but we should not be carried away on a thread of left-wing populism into dangerous and charted waters.
You forgot that the government will distribute those toys to everyone if they don't forget in which warehouse they put them.
PdotMichael
Banned
trade unions
Lagspike_exe
Member
And it failed every single time it was tried.
I can't even remember where unbridled liberalism was tried though, even in the US spikes of pure capitalism were met with equal socialist forces like government regulation
TheWasTheJoke
Member
Why are you comparing modern day Venezuela (mild socialism) with ancaps (extreme capitalism) when you really should be contrasting it with mild capitalism aka western economies today, the most successful societies in history.
that's what I wanted to get across, that "it failed every single time it was tried" was only true where there was a requirement to go all the way
TheWasTheJoke
Member
Sorry If I misunderstand you, but Venezuela practices only mild socialist policy, at least in comparison to say North Korea or the USSR, but is still an utter economic disaster. Isn't that indicative that even limited socialism is a bad thing?
I think the issue here is more language than anything. Socialism was the particular flavour of Marxism that made the most headway in Western democracies. However as the Cold War settled in and anything remotely red was brutally stigmatised, far-left movements had to reel themselves in. Good examples of this were the Labor Parties in the UK and Australia, who internal schism essentially purged their commie elements and re-established themselves as 'social democratic' parties. The policies these parties then implemented, such as single-payer healthcare, were seen as socialist.
So essentially you have socialism meaning both interventionist capitalism and re-distributive Marxism, an annoying little mix-up which likely does demonstrable harm to leftist movements. One of these things is good in moderation and a tool of civilised government, the other very bad and will never work. What Venezuela is doing is the latter and it needs to be stopped.
I think the issue here is more language than anything. Socialism was the particular flavour of Marxism that made the most headway in Western democracies. However as the Cold War settled in and anything remotely red was brutally stigmatised, far-left movements had to reel themselves in. Good examples of this were the Labor Parties in the UK and Australia, who internal schism essentially purged their commie elements and re-established themselves as 'social democratic' parties. The policies these parties then implemented, such as single-payer healthcare, were seen as socialist.
So essentially you have socialism meaning both interventionist capitalism and re-distributive Marxism, an annoying little mix-up which likely does demonstrable harm to leftist movements. One of these things is good in moderation and a tool of civilised government, the other very bad and will never work. What Venezuela is doing is the latter and it needs to be stopped.
evil solrac v3.0
Member
Machado amigo como estas?
Muppet of a Man
Member
No, they are a mix of capitalism and socialism: I.e., social democracies. They are the compromise alternative and better than both individually.
In many ways, FDR's New Deal was social democracy lite. And due to it, there was the biggest middle class in US history from 1945 through 1975. Only when corporate actors and bankers actively lobbied to chip away at it and deregulate did we arrive at the neoliberal race to the bottom which is today's US.
QuickSilverD
Member
one of these we are going to have a Venezuela thread that doesn't devolve into an argument about what is and isn't socialism, I can reel it in my bones
Corronchilejano
Member
Why take the bill down?
I think it's a mistake to label those things as "socialist" rather than simply welfare projects or similar, less loaded terms. The very essence of socialism is that the workers - or the people - directly own and control the means of production and that the open market is to be replaced with a system that is for the benefit of the people as a whole, not the capitalists. That has never happened in a western country because it's inherently incompatible with capitalism.
I'm Swedish, us Nordics are absolutely not socialist in any sense of the word. The closest we got was the mixed economies we developed during latter half of the 20th century where the state played a dominant role in many fields. That's not the case today though, and in many examples we're even more heavily deregulated than even the US. Sweden doesn't even have a national postal service anymore for instance, we privatised it in the 90s (even if the main actor is still state owned, if not run.
Oh please, Machado don't parrot Maduro's bullshit and propaganda. Whatever number of 100 bills that are being counterfeit pales in comparison to legit money people have because of inflation they've created themselves.
The 100 bills thing is one of the most evil things he has done. The fucking around directly with people's money has begun. (because it's already being fucked by inflation) I'm certain this is a prelude to a nationalization of the whole banking system.
A whole bunch of money is going to disappear because there's no way to do all that in 72 hours (48 really, because today is a holiday) and of course poor people are going to be he most affected because they don't have bank accounts.
Their shitpost didn't warrant an explanation. It's a waste of time.
entremet
Member
When we have a historical case study that proves otherwise, the opinion has merit.
And people still use the Nordic countries without knowing what they're talking about. They're ardent capitalists.
After spending some time in Venezuela and working with several who live/lived there, the problem is the black market. But the only reason is exists is because the govmt tries to control the value of its currency through subsidization.
The govmt does provide free/cheap living goods to the people (who have to wait in lines all day to get, hope you don't have to work or no toilet paper for you).
The black market buyers (Columbia, Brazilian) get first pick as they pay the operators in US $. They buy these subsidized goods at pennies on the dollar and resell in both Venesuela and their home countries for a nice profit.
The operators do this because they themselves cant get the subsidized govmt good for their family, its easier to get on the black market with US $.
The poor get the shaft as there are little goods left when they get to the end of the line.
The govmt does provide free/cheap living goods to the people (who have to wait in lines all day to get, hope you don't have to work or no toilet paper for you).
The black market buyers (Columbia, Brazilian) get first pick as they pay the operators in US $. They buy these subsidized goods at pennies on the dollar and resell in both Venesuela and their home countries for a nice profit.
The operators do this because they themselves cant get the subsidized govmt good for their family, its easier to get on the black market with US $.
The poor get the shaft as there are little goods left when they get to the end of the line.
Lagspike_exe
Member
There are infinite shades of gray, but between government regulated economies and liberal economies, liberal economic model has proven far more successful in a wide range of scenarios than the government controlled one.
Socialism is inherently re-distributive, that is the main point of socialism. What you are comparing are centrally controlled communist economies (like the former USSR) and market oriented economies that have government interventions to a certain degree (setting maximum prices, nationalizing certain companies etc). The first type has proven catastrophic in most cases and it requires a highly centralized government to even work. The latter has proven to be very inefficient and has been dismantled in most countries since the 1980s. Venezuela is the latter type.
benjipwns
Banned
It was more textbook fascism/corporatism lite. Large Firms-Government-Labor together as one body negotiating with itself. The NRA probably was just above lite and could have been worse before it somehow was stopped.
The bulk of the New Deal programs died off with the war and never did anything but shuffle money around to elect Democrats. So it's hard to credit them for things after the war.
The rest of the world rebuilding from utter destruction and rising from poverty/marxism is a more likely contributor to the beginnings of reducing global income inequality.
jakonovski
Member
This definition jumble is getting weirder all the time. Now we're apparently counting redistribution of wealth and social ownership of societal services, both key tenets of socialism, as capitalism. This frankly robs meaning of both isms.
It's doubly ridiculous from a personal perspective, as someone whose existence as a productive citizen is a result of a government having put social needs before market needs, often explicitly under the banner of socialism. Even today, I'm part of a workers' union that out of tradition refers to each other as comrades in official communication. But apparently we're ardent capitalists with no socialism in sight?
edit: and to be clear, I'm not saying Nordic countries aren't capitalist. I'm saying they're both socialist and capitalist. Excising one or the other when describing a mixed economy is purely propagandistic endeavor.
It's doubly ridiculous from a personal perspective, as someone whose existence as a productive citizen is a result of a government having put social needs before market needs, often explicitly under the banner of socialism. Even today, I'm part of a workers' union that out of tradition refers to each other as comrades in official communication. But apparently we're ardent capitalists with no socialism in sight?
edit: and to be clear, I'm not saying Nordic countries aren't capitalist. I'm saying they're both socialist and capitalist. Excising one or the other when describing a mixed economy is purely propagandistic endeavor.
Corronchilejano
Member
Can we leave the socialism talk aside and discuss the actual topic?
Muppet of a Man
Member
When you invest in the workers to a large degree through socialized/universal/subsidized healthcare, higher education, housing, and/or mass transit, you are in effect returning the power back to the workers by unencumbering them of debt.
And_Gignac
Member
He is going to give the toys to poor children, which the headline and article curiously omits.
That sounds like a FANTASTIC idea. Made a thread for it:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=226458232
That worked so well the last time...
Corronchilejano
Member
Would you like if someone broke into your house and gave all your stuff to poor people? Because that's what's happening here. That's pretty much what the venezuelan goverment is famous for. And it's not a good thing.
Thank you so much.
I didn't know that makes stealing OK. Good to know!
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