So Latin American news and politics.
I asked myself why we don't have a thread for that.
Then I realized the only possible answer was because someone hadn't created one.
And that was unacceptable. Because Latin America is filled, filled mind you, with the kind of drama Hollywood Hacks would give their souls to write and that Shakespeare copyrighted before copyright was a thing.
For example:
Venezuela:
Following the death of popular leader Hugo "Authoritarian Santa" Chavez, the government was left in the hands of Nicolas "Ralph Kramden" Maduro. Chavez and Maduro both believe(d) (one of them is dead now) in using their countries wealth to uplift the masses. Free-housing, health care and education among other things. They also believe in suppressing the opposition.
This worked well when Oil (a major export for Venezuela) was $110 per barrel. Well maybe not well, but they were holding shit together.
Not so much now. Now the Venezuelan economy looks like Godzilla just stomped through town. Life is now ultra hard, supplies are hard to get scarce, the black market is running at extortionate prices and people are a little pissed.
So they voted in the opposition. Who are kind of yuppies.
And the opposition wants
Maduro out of office and
a bunch of their jailed friends released.
They are running into a little problem though. The Supreme Court of Venezuela keeps blocking them. You see before the election Maduro was granted "Emergency Powers" and his party had control of Parliament. So at pretty much what was literally (not figuratively) the last minute, they rammed a bunch of appointments onto the Supreme Court.
Outgoing National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello called a number of extraordinary sessions last week at which 13 new Supreme Court judges and 21 substitute judges were named.
So that's interesting.
Next Example:
Brazil:
The B in BRICs.
A Country that used to have a larger economy than the UK.
Until the economy fell to shit. Due to the collapse of... can you guess what commodity collapsed?
If you guessed Oil you're right! Also China slowing down and not needing so many raw resources.
Ultimately the effect of the collapse of oil just brings to mind what the Wu-Tang clan said so many years ago. "
Diversify your stocks and bonds, bitches!"
Unfortunately the collapse of oil is not the only thing sucking money out of Brazil's pockets.
It turns out that Petrobras (the state-run Oil Company) was kind of used like a private piggy bank for politicians
So that was costly.
And it turns out the fairly popular ex-President Lula may have been involved.He's the mentor to the current President Dilma Rouseff. Who offered him a Cabinet level job to shield him from Prosecution. On Tape.
Now Dilma is going through the impeachment process.
But this has nothing to do with Lula or Petrobras (at least officially). And its nothing to do with being the one corrupt official in the Brazilian government. Since a lot of Brazilian politicians are corrupt.
A LOT
Dilma is being impeached for juggling the books to make the GDP look better before the last election.
Get live updates on todays impeachment proceedings
Here!
Posts
Latin America is just getting warmed up and so am I.
A nasty earthquake hit Ecuador.
Less fascinating slice of corrupt political infighting and more "Depressing Tragedy made worse through systemic poverty"
It is worth saying that there is no consensus about how much of Venezuela's economy under Chavez was held together by Petrodollars. Things fell apart well before the $/barrel of oil even came close to where it is now, and the height of Venezuela's standard of living does not correlate with the peak prices of oil.
Oil represented maybe 30%~ of the country's reserves; a whopping 60%~ was held in gold bullion, which saw large value growth rather than contraction while Chavez was in office.
The infamous shortages were almost certainly caused by a failed price control regime, foreign exchange control & agricultural reforms (people sometimes ask why socialists are so fixated on agricultural norms & making sure agriculture works; this would be why). Nobody in the Chavez government had the necessary expertise to competently run a body like CADIVI even if the idea was sound (which it may or may not have been), and they weren't willing to bring in experts to help (for fear of polluting the system with free market / capitalist modeling).
Oil or not, there is little reason that Venezuela couldn't have established a service-based economy and functioned similarly to any of the Nordic socialist-democratic countries; unfortunately, Chavez ideologically isolated himself & refused to take the humble road of asking for western help in complex economic arenas where he was simply ignorant (and it certainly didn't help that free & fair elections in Venezuela always seemed to be an 'oh we'll get around to it any day now' priority for the administration. In fairness, Chavez was popular enough that he probably would have easily won most elections right up until his death - but that's hardly an excuse not to at least put the structure in place & hold the damn elections, and probably impose a term limit while you're at it to demonstrate that you're interested in the future of the country more than self-aggrandizement).
But ... this is latin america.
Good point. The economy was mismanaged earlier and the collapse of oil by itself was probably not the only or even primary reason they are screwed now.
Of course it really did not help for a massive section of the economy to take a giant (50%) dive.
If they were already on their knees this was a GIANT kick in the nuts.
Distinctly unhelpful.
Oh and not going to get better in the next few months either.
From the BBC livestream
Though this is not what is happening here it seems.
From the BBC
Edit:
To Clarify: This is a YES or NO vote.
Even with 500 people this does not have to take this long.
Now to the Senate!
- John Stuart Mill
I've been accompanying some of the Brazilian crisis, and oh wow it's a doozy
Not Venezuela level of bonkers but still pretty ugly
http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21697095-hardly-any-federal-deputies-favour-impeachment-gave-stated-charges-their?fsrc=scn/tw_ec/why_vote_to_impeach_dilma_rousseff_
I'm not sure if Dilma Rouseff's impeachment process, seen in a vacuum, isn't richly deserved; I am sure this process was a farce
(There's also this article by Perry Anderson, which is a very long read. PA is a Marxist, so some of his comments on economical matters need to be taken with a healthy pinch of salt: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/perry-anderson/crisis-in-brazil)
I hope nobody is killed
A BBC article pretty much backing up your point.
This is a pretty desperate play that may cost her some support. She just put a gun to the head of what's left of the economy. Furthermore America has rules about aid to countries whose heads of state have been illegally overthrown. These could be some hard times coming up.
You get a feeling that she thinks the whole game is rigged from the beginning. That no matter how much support she has on the streets or from the people, the halls of power are against her. She is also probably upset that most of the sons of bitches lining up to replace her have done worse things.
I think she is corrupt, I think she tried to shield her old really corrupt boss from prosecution and I think she rigged the numbers before the last election to make the economy look better than it was. I just don't know if I would call those egregious sins in you know Brazil. Where I needn't have to remind you: 300 out of the 500 or so members of parliament are under investigation.
Whatever happens it is the people who will suffer.
Poor Brazilians. They just cannot catch a break.
...Depending on how the numbers were massaged, honestly that's a pretty common practice even in the most large & stable countries.
'I'LL BURN DOWN THE HOUSE IF YOU KICK ME OUT!'
Doesn't breed much confidence in her innocence, though.
Tell me about Paraguayan politics. I want to hear about the dark heart of South America.
Have they been engaged in any questionable engagements recently?
http://newnations.bandcamp.com
Not that I have heard.
But I did want to point out that my news sources are limited. I have the BBC, NPR, and Al-Jazeera.
And all of them seem to treat Latin America like an unloved and an unwanted step-child.
Anybody have a good Latin America only news source? Like Al-Monitor is for the ME?
It probably will end with both parties backing down, but you never know.
Fights over land end ugly. And of course the poor dead kid.
Venezuela is instituting Mandatory power cuts. Public Employees will be getting Fridays off and the country will be out of beer in a couple of weeks.
So that will end well.
the country is doomed
The current Argentine president was mentioned in the Panama papers I believe.
Kinda makes Nixon look good.
― Marcus Aurelius
Path of Exile: themightypuck
Just remember: if she's Nixon, the opposition's Spiro Agnew
Does she have much support? My impression was that her popular approval ratings are abysmal.
The goverment is so hated that they managed to revive one of the two big parties of the pre-Chavez era, Democratic Action.
You can see the Venezuelan political distortion, where anything that isn't batshit Castro-Communist Military worship is "the ultra right allied with Imperial United States interests". The center of Democratic Action's revival is the new President of the Congress, DA's Secretary Henry Ramos Allup.
Yep, the VP of Socialist International is a member of the "ultra right". :rotate:
For keeping up with the news, I recommend Caracas Chronicles. They are a blog in English that manages to put the day to day misfortunes of the country, and the go-to authority now that people are realizing that maybe the likes of George Cicahello-Maher and Eva Golinger are full of shit. They also manage to explain the distortions of the country, like this helpful chart that explains how the country's economy was destroyed in order to steal the profits from Oil sales:
It just got worse.
2-day work week.
I don't know how Venezuela is going to avoid collapsing at this point.
I can't tell at this point if this is some organized political conspiracy (it feels a little like the Godfather doesn't it) or if its just that Brazil if THAT fucking corrupt.
I really can't tell.
Or at least that's what they claim.
Countdown towards the Supreme Court ruling that those signatures don't count in 3....2...
That is not an economic opinion regarding runaway inflation. A few months ago, dozens of cargo planes delivered billions of new banknotes to Venezuela. 10 billion more notes are on order for next year, but they may not get printed. According to a leaked letter from De La Rue, Venezuela still owes the currency printer $71 million for previous orders. Venezuela owes so much to so many different printers that they are having trouble even getting bids to print next year's order. To date, all the bids received amount to only one third of what they are seeking. The currency houses are convinced that Venezuela literally cannot afford to have that money printed.
- John Stuart Mill
Isn't something like 2/3 of the legislature also under investigation for corruption?
Why not both?
It's important to recognize that this is in full swing:
but, at the same time, if you cannot afford flour at $5 but you can afford to queue to buy it at $3, it's still unambiguously better off for you.
IDK is being able to only afford 3lbs or flour worse of than being able to afford 5lbs, but not being able to buy any because there is no flour at any of the stores.
Me being able to afford all the Unobtanium in the universe hasn't done me much good lately.
Yep. Making lines as a full time job (hello 10x Black Market, and fuck you) is that awful. And of course, completely military controlled.
Any conversation about Venezuelan politics, both past and present, starts with how despictable is our military and how they have always tried to rule their country as their personal fiefdom. Which is now a reality thanks to Chavez (a military man himself, let's not forget).