Good thing our economy is not primarily based on oil. Venezuela on the other hand...
Venezuela Collapse 2016
- Thread starter C130
- Start date
Good thing our economy is not primarily based on oil. Venezuela on the other hand...
Gauss
BANNED
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2014
- Messages
- 514
- Reaction score
- -1
- Country
- Location
Hamartia Antidote
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 35,188
- Reaction score
- 30
- Country
- Location
They won enough to make Maduro realize the people are getting restless and he may end up like Khadaffi.
jammersat
BANNED
- Joined
- Jun 8, 2014
- Messages
- 2,691
- Reaction score
- -8
- Country
- Location
That's unlikely, he lacks the charm gaddafi had
Not that I'm an anti American , we as Persians are always happy to see more resorts for the white Americans in the American continent , that makes them stay there and not come here
gambit
PROFESSIONAL
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2009
- Messages
- 28,569
- Reaction score
- 148
- Country
- Location
Maybe you should build more resorts in Iran so Iranians could stay there and not come to America.
Hamartia Antidote
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 35,188
- Reaction score
- 30
- Country
- Location
Maduro is in big trouble...the only thing that will save him is a large oil price spike.
Way more Iranians come here than Americans wanting to go there.
mike2000 is back
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Apr 12, 2015
- Messages
- 8,513
- Reaction score
- 19
- Country
- Location
lol I was about to say the same thing..
Socialism alias chavism will save him.
VENEZUELA GOT SUPER HOT CHICS THOUGH. MY BEST MATE WHO HAA BEEN THERE TOLD ME HE DIDN'T WANNA COME BACK. lol
NOW IS THE TIME TO VISIT CARACAS I GUESS
.
Hamartia Antidote
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 35,188
- Reaction score
- 30
- Country
- Location
Yep, my co-worker's wife looks like a supermodel. Those Spanish genes.
Hamartia Antidote
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 35,188
- Reaction score
- 30
- Country
- Location
Socialism has created a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela | City A.M.
Socialism has created a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela
Venezuela's accelerating economic meltdown is rapidly turning into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis. For too many in that country, the pervasive shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and other basic goods are making everyday life a nightmare. It is Venezuela’s version of the “winter of discontent,” except that it has been brewing for much longer and its unfolding consequences are far more frightening.
Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that the problem with socialists is that “they always run out of other people’s money” faced a unique challenge in Venezuela: during the course of a decade and a half, the government received nearly $1 trillion in oil revenues – the equivalent in today’s money of more than seven Marshall Plans. This was enough to mask the effect of hundreds of expropriations, stifling economic controls, and otherwise running the private economy into the ground.
Part of the windfall was spent on social programmes, which temporarily improved some social indicators and made the regime popular among poor Venezuelans. But a couple of years ago, the then minister of education admitted that the aim of the regime’s policies was “not to take the people out of poverty so they become middle class and then turn into escuálidos” (a derogatory term to denote opposition members). In other words, the government wanted grateful, dependent voters, not prosperous Venezuelans.
What defenders of the Bolivarian revolution have seldom acknowledged is that a significant portion of the oil revenues was simply stolen. It is difficult to specify an exact figure thanks to the government’s opaque finances, but two former ministers-turned-critics claim that it amounts to $300bn – an estimate consistent with independent analysis. No wonder Transparency International ranks Venezuela alongside Haiti as one of the two most corrupt countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Thatcher’s axiom did eventually catch up with Venezuelan socialism. Even when oil prices were hovering above $100 per barrel, the government’s finances went increasingly into the red. Now that a barrel of Venezuelan crude is trading at only $25, the situation has reached a breaking point. External debt has gone up by 115 per cent in the last decade and inflation is out of control: the IMF says it will reach 720 per cent this year. The situation is so bad that the government recently had to use 36 Boeing 747 cargo planes to import five billion notes of its worthless currency.
Behind the macroeconomic figures is a deepening humanitarian crisis. The government lacks the dollars to pay for imports which, compounded with price controls and their devastating effect on production, has caused widespread shortages. People queue for hours only to find empty shelves in government-run supermarkets. Even if they’re lucky, they can only buy a few products – in return for which they must undergo fingerprint scanning under the country’s rationing system. A national poll found that the percentage of Venezuelans eating two or fewer meals a day increased by more than 10 percentage points last year. Looting is now a common occurrence.
The economic crisis is having a particularly nasty impact on healthcare. According to the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation, only 20 per cent of the drugs that doctors require are available. People must rely on social media to scout the country for medications for their loved ones. The lack of spare parts means that much medical equipment is useless: 86 per cent of X-Ray machines are out of service, for example. “Babies born prematurely are dying like little chicks” was a February headline of El Nacional, Venezuela’s last independent daily. It quoted a resident doctor in one of the public hospitals saying that, due to the shortages, they cannot save the lives of all patients. “We are operating under war conditions,” she said.
The reaction of the government, when it is not jailing opponents or shutting down media outlets, has been farcical. It recently encouraged people to create “urban gardens” so they can grow their own food. President Nicolás Maduro even claimed that he had 60 laying hens. One man told the US National Public Radio that he tried to follow the President’s example by buying 30 chickens, but he could not find feed for the birds, so his family ended up eating them all.
Not long ago Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, and other Labour bigwigs were praising this Bolivarian revolution. Sycophantic Hollywood stars, such as Sean Penn and Oliver Stone, flocked to Caracas to voice their admiration for its socialist policies. The lovefest continued even when many of the aforementioned problems were becoming apparent. Today, all we hear from them regarding Venezuela is deafening silence.
Socialism has created a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela
Venezuela's accelerating economic meltdown is rapidly turning into a full-fledged humanitarian crisis. For too many in that country, the pervasive shortages of food, medicine, electricity, and other basic goods are making everyday life a nightmare. It is Venezuela’s version of the “winter of discontent,” except that it has been brewing for much longer and its unfolding consequences are far more frightening.
Margaret Thatcher’s dictum that the problem with socialists is that “they always run out of other people’s money” faced a unique challenge in Venezuela: during the course of a decade and a half, the government received nearly $1 trillion in oil revenues – the equivalent in today’s money of more than seven Marshall Plans. This was enough to mask the effect of hundreds of expropriations, stifling economic controls, and otherwise running the private economy into the ground.
Part of the windfall was spent on social programmes, which temporarily improved some social indicators and made the regime popular among poor Venezuelans. But a couple of years ago, the then minister of education admitted that the aim of the regime’s policies was “not to take the people out of poverty so they become middle class and then turn into escuálidos” (a derogatory term to denote opposition members). In other words, the government wanted grateful, dependent voters, not prosperous Venezuelans.
What defenders of the Bolivarian revolution have seldom acknowledged is that a significant portion of the oil revenues was simply stolen. It is difficult to specify an exact figure thanks to the government’s opaque finances, but two former ministers-turned-critics claim that it amounts to $300bn – an estimate consistent with independent analysis. No wonder Transparency International ranks Venezuela alongside Haiti as one of the two most corrupt countries in the Western Hemisphere.
Thatcher’s axiom did eventually catch up with Venezuelan socialism. Even when oil prices were hovering above $100 per barrel, the government’s finances went increasingly into the red. Now that a barrel of Venezuelan crude is trading at only $25, the situation has reached a breaking point. External debt has gone up by 115 per cent in the last decade and inflation is out of control: the IMF says it will reach 720 per cent this year. The situation is so bad that the government recently had to use 36 Boeing 747 cargo planes to import five billion notes of its worthless currency.
Behind the macroeconomic figures is a deepening humanitarian crisis. The government lacks the dollars to pay for imports which, compounded with price controls and their devastating effect on production, has caused widespread shortages. People queue for hours only to find empty shelves in government-run supermarkets. Even if they’re lucky, they can only buy a few products – in return for which they must undergo fingerprint scanning under the country’s rationing system. A national poll found that the percentage of Venezuelans eating two or fewer meals a day increased by more than 10 percentage points last year. Looting is now a common occurrence.
The economic crisis is having a particularly nasty impact on healthcare. According to the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation, only 20 per cent of the drugs that doctors require are available. People must rely on social media to scout the country for medications for their loved ones. The lack of spare parts means that much medical equipment is useless: 86 per cent of X-Ray machines are out of service, for example. “Babies born prematurely are dying like little chicks” was a February headline of El Nacional, Venezuela’s last independent daily. It quoted a resident doctor in one of the public hospitals saying that, due to the shortages, they cannot save the lives of all patients. “We are operating under war conditions,” she said.
The reaction of the government, when it is not jailing opponents or shutting down media outlets, has been farcical. It recently encouraged people to create “urban gardens” so they can grow their own food. President Nicolás Maduro even claimed that he had 60 laying hens. One man told the US National Public Radio that he tried to follow the President’s example by buying 30 chickens, but he could not find feed for the birds, so his family ended up eating them all.
Not long ago Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Livingstone, and other Labour bigwigs were praising this Bolivarian revolution. Sycophantic Hollywood stars, such as Sean Penn and Oliver Stone, flocked to Caracas to voice their admiration for its socialist policies. The lovefest continued even when many of the aforementioned problems were becoming apparent. Today, all we hear from them regarding Venezuela is deafening silence.
Hamartia Antidote
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Nov 17, 2013
- Messages
- 35,188
- Reaction score
- 30
- Country
- Location
Venezuela Sends Gold to Switzerland to Pay Debt As Reserves Dwindle
Venezuela sent USD$1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in January in order to pay part of its debt to bondholders, which in February alone amounted to USD$2.3 billion, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration reported.
According to CNN Money, Venezuela is running out of reserves and it is becoming increasingly likely that it will have to default on its debt at some point this year.
According to Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann and Ricardo Hausmann recently wrote in the PanAm Post that Venezuela has little choice but to restructure its debt, preferably under a new government.
President Nicolás Maduro’s government presumably decided to ship Venezuelan gold to Switzerland so that it could be verified and exchanged for cash. Alternatively, the country could also use its gold “as collateral in exchange for a cash loan from banks in what is known as a ‘gold swap,'” CNN Money explains.
On February 5, Reuters reported that Venezuela had begun “negotiations with Deutsche Bank AG to carry out gold swaps to improve the liquidity of its foreign reserves.”
Neither of the two sources, however, confirmed the statement.
According to CNN Money,
This shipment is pretty unusual. Gold is traded a lot, but countries usually keep their gold for safekeeping in places like the Federal Reserve Bank’s vault in New York. When they trade gold, it usually goes from one vault to another.
This week, Venezuela revealed that its total reserves had dwindled to USD$ 14.5 billion, the lowest amount since 2003, of which USD$ 10.9 billion are held in gold.
“Experts believe,” CNN Money wrote, that Venezuela “has less than $1 billion in cash reserves.”
Venezuela Makes $1.5 Billion Payment to International Creditors - WSJ
Venezuela sent USD$1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in January in order to pay part of its debt to bondholders, which in February alone amounted to USD$2.3 billion, the Swiss Federal Customs Administration reported.
According to CNN Money, Venezuela is running out of reserves and it is becoming increasingly likely that it will have to default on its debt at some point this year.
According to Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann and Ricardo Hausmann recently wrote in the PanAm Post that Venezuela has little choice but to restructure its debt, preferably under a new government.
President Nicolás Maduro’s government presumably decided to ship Venezuelan gold to Switzerland so that it could be verified and exchanged for cash. Alternatively, the country could also use its gold “as collateral in exchange for a cash loan from banks in what is known as a ‘gold swap,'” CNN Money explains.
On February 5, Reuters reported that Venezuela had begun “negotiations with Deutsche Bank AG to carry out gold swaps to improve the liquidity of its foreign reserves.”
Neither of the two sources, however, confirmed the statement.
According to CNN Money,
This shipment is pretty unusual. Gold is traded a lot, but countries usually keep their gold for safekeeping in places like the Federal Reserve Bank’s vault in New York. When they trade gold, it usually goes from one vault to another.
This week, Venezuela revealed that its total reserves had dwindled to USD$ 14.5 billion, the lowest amount since 2003, of which USD$ 10.9 billion are held in gold.
“Experts believe,” CNN Money wrote, that Venezuela “has less than $1 billion in cash reserves.”
Venezuela Makes $1.5 Billion Payment to International Creditors - WSJ
AZADPAKISTAN2009
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2009
- Messages
- 37,669
- Reaction score
- 68
- Country
- Location
Well if things get worse the Venezuelan folks can migrate 90% of population to USA
However the oil prices are set to bounce later in year
However the oil prices are set to bounce later in year
gambit
PROFESSIONAL
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2009
- Messages
- 28,569
- Reaction score
- 148
- Country
- Location
We will let only the women thru.
Similar threads
