I don't like it, but there's a lot of paramilitary/terrorist cells on Venezuela and the US is trying to avoid being the ones to deal with them, since that means Irak 2.0.
Its kind of weird that Marco Rubio is doing the state department's job but I guess that is the point we're at now in the US.
}
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Marco Rubio puts the negotiation with the Venezuelan Army on the table:
I don't like it, but there's a lot of paramilitary/terrorist cells on Venezuela and the US is trying to avoid being the ones to deal with them, since that means Irak 2.0.
Encouraging a handful of generals to overthrow the government... I mean holy shit nostalgia, this is like going to see an 80s cover band.
I assume were definitely going to get These Guys Will Defeat Communism[ (Death Squads) or at the very least Economic Populist-elect Dies in a Plane Crash. Also I know everyone says this, but I hope we get more of the old stuff; Fruit Company was just a much more vibrant album than Oil Refinery and of course they close with Poor People Try this New Drug.
tinwhiskers on
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
Rubio's interest in this situation is related to his position on the Committee for Foreign Relations. For reference, that was the committee which was chaired by one Elliot Abrams on his way to the Secretary of State position under Reagan - he spent the first day on the job covering up the El Mozote massacre in which El Salvadoran troops trained and backed by the US military slaughtered over 800 people. Abrams' later hits include such classics as the Iran-Contra affair but also, relevant to the current crisis, involvement in the 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chavez..
Marco Rubio puts the negotiation with the Venezuelan Army on the table:
I don't like it, but there's a lot of paramilitary/terrorist cells on Venezuela and the US is trying to avoid being the ones to deal with them, since that means Irak 2.0.
Encouraging a handful of generals to overthrow the government... I mean holy shit nostalgia, this is like going to see an 80s cover band.
I assume were definitely going to get These Guys Will Defeat Communism[ (Death Squads) or at the very least Economic Populist-elect Dies in a Plane Crash. Also I know everyone says this, but I hope we get more of the old stuff; Fruit Company was just a much more vibrant album than Oil Refinery and of course they close with Poor People Try this New Drug.
Surprisingly, is not about Maduro per-se. Is about the aftermath. All of this is to avoid to deal with an Irak, where US troops were required to deal with the guerrillas (and didn't have much success on the matter).
Honestly I think the whole idea is not to send any US troops there at all, but rather to persuade the Military to abandon the government, throw in with the opposition, and push for new elections. Basically turn a cornerstone of Maduro's support away from him. But the soft power apparatus of the US government is screwed so we have Rubio on twitter instead.
Has the Brazilian or Columbian stance changed at all? I seriously feel that's really important. There'll be no intervention of any kind if there aren't neighboring countries willing to provide staging posts and bases for the operation.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will discuss the situation in Venezuela later on Tuesday by phone, Lavrov said.
Russia and the United States have backed opposing sides in the political turmoil in Venezuela. Washington has recognized Juan Guaido as interim president, while Moscow continues to back President Nicolas Maduro, a staunch ally.
I thought Venezuela was bad, but good Lord, it just seems to be a cluster bomb caving in on itself. What was that estimate that the inflation is projected to go in to the millions of percents?
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BlackDragon480Bluster KerfuffleMaster of Windy ImportRegistered Userregular
I thought Venezuela was bad, but good Lord, it just seems to be a cluster bomb caving in on itself. What was that estimate that the inflation is projected to go in to the millions of percents?
Ouch, there hasn't been an actual hyperinflation bubble of Weimar Germany levels since Zimbabwe 20 years ago.
No matter where you go...there you are. ~ Buckaroo Banzai
I thought Venezuela was bad, but good Lord, it just seems to be a cluster bomb caving in on itself. What was that estimate that the inflation is projected to go in to the millions of percents?
Ouch, there hasn't been an actual hyperinflation bubble of Weimar Germany levels since Zimbabwe 20 years ago.
The value of the venezuelan currency effectively reached zero a year or so back. All business in the country is done in dollars, euros and so on. There was an article a few months back about people who had escaped venezuela making purses and bags out of trillion bolivar notes. They have gone through three currencies in 5 years.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
I thought Venezuela was bad, but good Lord, it just seems to be a cluster bomb caving in on itself. What was that estimate that the inflation is projected to go in to the millions of percents?
Ouch, there hasn't been an actual hyperinflation bubble of Weimar Germany levels since Zimbabwe 20 years ago.
The value of the venezuelan currency effectively reached zero a year or so back. All business in the country is done in dollars, euros and so on. There was an article a few months back about people who had escaped venezuela making purses and bags out of trillion bolivar notes. They have gone through three currencies in 5 years.
Yeah.
There hasn't been a single inflection point where it went into massive hyperinflation, rather it's been a long and steady and very high rate of inflation over a decade now. The Bolivar is effectively worthless. Precisely how worthless it is is really just an academic question
I thought Venezuela was bad, but good Lord, it just seems to be a cluster bomb caving in on itself. What was that estimate that the inflation is projected to go in to the millions of percents?
Ouch, there hasn't been an actual hyperinflation bubble of Weimar Germany levels since Zimbabwe 20 years ago.
The value of the venezuelan currency effectively reached zero a year or so back. All business in the country is done in dollars, euros and so on. There was an article a few months back about people who had escaped venezuela making purses and bags out of trillion bolivar notes. They have gone through three currencies in 5 years.
Yeah.
There hasn't been a single inflection point where it went into massive hyperinflation, rather it's been a long and steady and very high rate of inflation over a decade now. The Bolivar is effectively worthless. Precisely how worthless it is is really just an academic question
Indeed, it is pretty much the consensus of everyone in Venezuela and outside it that the full faith and credit of the Venezuelan government which backs the notes is worth nothing, and has been worth nothing for 5 years at least, so pretty much the currency is meaningless other than the brief periods where Maduro tries to force people to use it at gunpoint, and then immediately stops because the government can't even use it themselves because the cost of buying say, a can of coke from china in Bolivars is "All the Bolivars that could ever exist +1"
What hit home for me was when one guy said, "what I paid for a cup of coffee a few years ago, is now worth more than my house payment."
Venezuela needs to adopt the US dollar.
According to an economist, that's not exactly a good idea. I think the reasoning behind it was that inflation would affect dollars, rather than a regional currency.
Or something like that, I really can't remember what his reasoning is.
TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
Adopting another currency opens a country up to the danger of defaulting on debts payable in something they can't print more of (hi, Greece). In this case, it wouldn't ameliorate the fundamental issues of sanctions / being a pariah state, a petro-economy in a market where crude is at ~30% of the all time high from only a little over a decade ago, corruption, etc.
Adopting another currency opens a country up to the danger of defaulting on debts payable in something they can't print more of (hi, Greece). In this case, it wouldn't ameliorate the fundamental issues of sanctions / being a pariah state, a petro-economy in a market where crude is at ~30% of the all time high from only a little over a decade ago, corruption, etc.
It also means you can't adjust the value of your currency to deal with import/export problems.
Dollarization won't fix the main problem, that is that Venezuela doesn't produce anything since nobody wants to invest on a den of thieves that stole everything not nailed down. The country can't even give judicial security to anybody.
And since Venezuela has to import everything, the economy at the macro level is already dollarized.
Is another instance on how nothing will change until Maduro leaves.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
'Don't want to' and legally can't - buying Venezuelan bonds is illegal for Americans, at least. A couple billion are still held by US firms, which saw something like 46% returns in 2016 as servicing the debt contributed to the country's money problems even while predicting a default - the value fall by nearly half when Venezuela finally defaulted. Once imagines they expect to be made whole following a regime change and implementation of brutal austerity and re-opening of oil sales to the US, demonstrating that classic disaster capitalism: have a hand in creating or amplifying a crisis, invest in the crisis, and collect at the end by buying out after things have crashed and/or recouping your losses with bailouts.
At this point, the only thing Venezuela has left to trade are the gold that Maduro is trying to ship out of the country and cripplingly imbalanced contracts for oil and other natural resources. With the way Chavez and Maduro went rampant with nationalizations, Venezuela is going to have to bend over backwards to get foreign firms to reinvest back in the country.
Let not any one pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part, and forms no opinion.
At this point, the only thing Venezuela has left to trade are the gold that Maduro is trying to ship out of the country and cripplingly imbalanced contracts for oil and other natural resources. With the way Chavez and Maduro went rampant with nationalizations, Venezuela is going to have to bend over backwards to get foreign firms to reinvest back in the country.
I mean, there's the gold that was already being held in the UK as security against a debt that has been repaid, that isn't being freed for use to buy food or anything else.
It's very "the other party is acting in bad faith and is totally untrustworthy"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday imposed sanctions on top Venezuelan security officials and the head of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA as it ratcheted up pressure on embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over an election it says was illegal.
Along with PDVSA head Manuel Quevedo, Treasury targeted three top Venezuelan intelligence officials and Rafael Bastardo, who U.S. officials say is the head of a national police unit responsible for dozens of extrajudicial killings carried out in masked nighttime raids on Maduro’s behalf.
“We are sanctioning officials in charge of Maduro’s security and intelligence apparatus, which has systematically violated human rights and suppressed democracy, including through torture and other brutal use of force,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Second, the humanitarian aid is already making it's way to the border:
Dueling concerts are being staged this week on both sides of Venezuela’s border with Colombia. After billionaire Richard Branson announced an aid concert in Colombia on Friday to benefit Venezuelans suffering food and medicine shortages amid their country’s economic crisis, Nicolas Maduro’s government ordered up a rival concert of its own.
Maduro denies any humanitarian crisis exists, and has blocked food and medicine from the United States that is being warehoused on the Colombian border from entering Venezuela, claiming the relief effort led by opposition leader Juan Guaido is part of U.S.-orchestrated “coup” to oust him from power.
Maduro’s government will throw what it has dubbed a “Hands Off Venezuela” concert Friday and Saturday on Venezuela’s side of the border. The government has not announced the lineup, but Maduro said that Venezuela will import 300 tons of aid from Russia and his government has promised to send 20,000 boxes of government-subsidized food to the poor in Cucuta, where tons of U.S. aid is sitting earmarked for Venezuelans.
The Maduro stunt of sending aid to the poor in Cucuta is one of those annoying "we are fine, really. Look, we can send aid to the neigboring country out of generosity" things
So that's fun. Everything so far shows that is likely that is going to be the hard way (sigh), but who the fuck knows anymore. What is observable is that Maduro is on the defensive:
PUNTO FIJO, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela on Tuesday shut the maritime border with nearby Dutch Caribbean islands ahead of an opposition effort to bring in humanitarian aid from foreign territories including neighboring Curacao despite the protests of President Nicolas Maduro.
And there's dissent on the ranks already, if the reports are accurate:
As far as I know, the plan is to use civilians to attempt to transport the aid. It makes sense even from a cynical view. If the aid gets through, that weakens Maduro. If Maduro has people attack them to prevent them from crossing, that also weakens Maduro.
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TL DRNot at all confident in his reflexive opinions of thingsRegistered Userregular
As far as I know, the plan is to use civilians to attempt to transport the aid. It makes sense even from a cynical view. If the aid gets through, that weakens Maduro. If Maduro has people attack them to prevent them from crossing, that also weakens Maduro.
Exactly. Someone driving a truck full of rice is as much a foreign invader as someone driving a tank.
It's like when a bunch of Blackwater mercenaries were killed in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, and the media kept repeating "terrorists killed some contractors working for the US government" as though they were building bridges or something. Here the NY Times describes them as civilians.
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
The "revolution" only defends their pockets, and the whole country suffers the consequences.
Did got a very nice speech from Trump on the US's President Day:
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
At what point does foreign debt preclude sovereignty?
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
At what point does foreign debt preclude sovereignty?
At the point where plans to sell public assets to pay the debt are only stopped by sanctions, I would say.
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
At what point does foreign debt preclude sovereignty?
At the point where plans to sell public assets to pay the debt are only stopped by sanctions, I would say.
Im having a hard time following your reasoning here. We shouldnt worry about the US violating Venezuelan sovereignty becauss they owe money to China and Russia that they're struggling to pay back due to the US sanctioning them?
"Sovereignty" is a meme on Venezuela for many, many reasons. Just for a quick start, there's the 20$ billion that is owed to China and the 17$ billion owed to Russia.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
At what point does foreign debt preclude sovereignty?
At the point where plans to sell public assets to pay the debt are only stopped by sanctions, I would say.
Im having a hard time following your reasoning here. We shouldnt worry about the US violating Venezuelan sovereignty becauss they owe money to China and Russia that they're struggling to pay back due to the US sanctioning them?
Isnt thats basically circular reasoning?
No, we shouldn't worry about Venezuelan sovereignty because Venezuela already has no sovereignty. Is not merely debt, is the country being in hands of the gangs and the paramilitary and the drug traffickers and yes, all of the above are the Maduro regime. Guaido, the legitimate president, is already ordering the military to let the aid in. We'll see what happens.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan security forces have executed several people and arbitrarily detained hundreds of others in a campaign to punish people who protested against President Nicolas Maduro, human rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
In a report titled “Hunger, punishment and fear, the formula for repression in Venezuela,” Amnesty said dozens died during five days of protests from Jan 21 to Jan 25, almost all from gunshot wounds, and 900 people were arrested.
Amnesty called on the U.N. Human Rights Council to take action to address the “total impunity that prevails in Venezuela” by creating an independent investigative body to report on the human rights situation.
The protests were sparked by opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for people to demand a change in government after Maduro began a second term following a vote last year widely considered as fraudulent. Guaido on Jan. 23 invoked the constitution to assume an interim presidency, though Maduro says Guaido is leading a U.S.-directed coup against him.
“The authorities under Nicolas Maduro are trying to use fear and punishment to impose a repulsive strategy of social control against those who demand change,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty.
“His government is attacking the most impoverished people that it claims to defend, but instead it murders, detains and threatens them.”
Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not respond to a request to comment.
Amnesty said state authorities carried out extrajudicial executions as a method of social control, mainly using the National Police’s Special Actions Force (FAES) to target poor areas that had risen up against Maduro.
Posts
Andrew Neil is a right wing pundit, but that doesn't invalidate the factual account of what sanctions were applied and when.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I don't like it, but there's a lot of paramilitary/terrorist cells on Venezuela and the US is trying to avoid being the ones to deal with them, since that means Irak 2.0.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
Encouraging a handful of generals to overthrow the government... I mean holy shit nostalgia, this is like going to see an 80s cover band.
I assume were definitely going to get These Guys Will Defeat Communism[ (Death Squads) or at the very least Economic Populist-elect Dies in a Plane Crash. Also I know everyone says this, but I hope we get more of the old stuff; Fruit Company was just a much more vibrant album than Oil Refinery and of course they close with Poor People Try this New Drug.
Surprisingly, is not about Maduro per-se. Is about the aftermath. All of this is to avoid to deal with an Irak, where US troops were required to deal with the guerrillas (and didn't have much success on the matter).
Has the Brazilian or Columbian stance changed at all? I seriously feel that's really important. There'll be no intervention of any kind if there aren't neighboring countries willing to provide staging posts and bases for the operation.
Is almost like lending over 20$ billion to Chavez and Maduro wasn't a good idea or something.
And today there were mass protests in honor to the protesters killed in previous years:
In that protest Guaido declared that the humanitarian aid will enter the country on Feb 23. Will the issue be forced with an intervention? Who knows.
Ouch, there hasn't been an actual hyperinflation bubble of Weimar Germany levels since Zimbabwe 20 years ago.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
The value of the venezuelan currency effectively reached zero a year or so back. All business in the country is done in dollars, euros and so on. There was an article a few months back about people who had escaped venezuela making purses and bags out of trillion bolivar notes. They have gone through three currencies in 5 years.
Yeah.
There hasn't been a single inflection point where it went into massive hyperinflation, rather it's been a long and steady and very high rate of inflation over a decade now. The Bolivar is effectively worthless. Precisely how worthless it is is really just an academic question
Indeed, it is pretty much the consensus of everyone in Venezuela and outside it that the full faith and credit of the Venezuelan government which backs the notes is worth nothing, and has been worth nothing for 5 years at least, so pretty much the currency is meaningless other than the brief periods where Maduro tries to force people to use it at gunpoint, and then immediately stops because the government can't even use it themselves because the cost of buying say, a can of coke from china in Bolivars is "All the Bolivars that could ever exist +1"
Venezuela needs to adopt the US dollar.
Guglielmo Picchi is a member of the Italian parliament.
So, that's all the EU except Greece I believe.
According to an economist, that's not exactly a good idea. I think the reasoning behind it was that inflation would affect dollars, rather than a regional currency.
Or something like that, I really can't remember what his reasoning is.
It also means you can't adjust the value of your currency to deal with import/export problems.
And since Venezuela has to import everything, the economy at the macro level is already dollarized.
Is another instance on how nothing will change until Maduro leaves.
- John Stuart Mill
I mean, there's the gold that was already being held in the UK as security against a debt that has been repaid, that isn't being freed for use to buy food or anything else.
It's very "the other party is acting in bad faith and is totally untrustworthy"
Second, the humanitarian aid is already making it's way to the border:
"Leaked". Right.
https://www.apnews.com/cb1d2de0d88c416c96d244f5bc20e034 The Maduro stunt of sending aid to the poor in Cucuta is one of those annoying "we are fine, really. Look, we can send aid to the neigboring country out of generosity" things
So that's fun. Everything so far shows that is likely that is going to be the hard way (sigh), but who the fuck knows anymore. What is observable is that Maduro is on the defensive: And there's dissent on the ranks already, if the reports are accurate:
And wouldn't be Venezuela without a round of shit talking:
So, going to have to wait to see what happens.
As far as I know, the plan is to use civilians to attempt to transport the aid. It makes sense even from a cynical view. If the aid gets through, that weakens Maduro. If Maduro has people attack them to prevent them from crossing, that also weakens Maduro.
Exactly. Someone driving a truck full of rice is as much a foreign invader as someone driving a tank.
It's like when a bunch of Blackwater mercenaries were killed in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004, and the media kept repeating "terrorists killed some contractors working for the US government" as though they were building bridges or something. Here the NY Times describes them as civilians.
The "revolution" only defends their pockets, and the whole country suffers the consequences.
Did got a very nice speech from Trump on the US's President Day:
Is a long road to Saturday.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here.
That is too late to complaint about "foreign invaders". Overall, Maduro is on the defensive. The foreign aid will come through Aruba? Colombia? Brazil? All of the above?
My bet is mainly through Brazil, the indigenous population has already faced against the Army with success.
At what point does foreign debt preclude sovereignty?
At the point where plans to sell public assets to pay the debt are only stopped by sanctions, I would say.
Im having a hard time following your reasoning here. We shouldnt worry about the US violating Venezuelan sovereignty becauss they owe money to China and Russia that they're struggling to pay back due to the US sanctioning them?
Isnt thats basically circular reasoning?
No, we shouldn't worry about Venezuelan sovereignty because Venezuela already has no sovereignty. Is not merely debt, is the country being in hands of the gangs and the paramilitary and the drug traffickers and yes, all of the above are the Maduro regime. Guaido, the legitimate president, is already ordering the military to let the aid in. We'll see what happens.
And there's another report from an ONG detailed the people that the regime has killed since this started:
Champion of the poor indeed.