700% inflation and no toilet paper and crime. Three strikes and this second rate USD zombie nation is OUT.
Baseball is one of the best exports of Venezuela. But US teams can't stand the crime: shutting down in the country. https://t.co/JZl2qnwo0b— Bill Thayer (@LacusCurtius) January 22, 2016
Wonderful liberal mecca.
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ReplyDeleteLooks like that apart of 'dutch disease' the country suffers from an overly complex exchange and monetary system, which is partially responsible of the wild variations in price.
ReplyDeleteApparently there are like 4 different sort of currency pairs and conversions which make price discovery and exchange pretty much impossible.
Is not just toilet paper, there is a wild difference in prices of certain goods and commodities, with some extremely depressed/deflated in one currency and others extremely inflated.
The definition of a monetary system gone wrong.
There are two major issues operative:
ReplyDelete1. The Left doesn't have a viable social, political and economic alternative to the neoliberal status quo.
2. It is difficult to buck the status quo when TPTB are strongly opposed to change that doesn't benefit them directly. Basically, neoliberalism is enforced globally as TINA, and alternatives are not only opposed but undermined and if necessary attacked.
The Left needs to face up to the challenge and get its own ducks in order, or taking on TPTB will be a futile exercise doomed to failure.
Except that Chavez was never actually "leftist"! Populist clientelism which collapsed with the oil price. Leftists care about the real economy and things like democracy and due process too.
ReplyDelete""! Populist clientelism which collapsed with the oil price."
ReplyDeleteThey have to end their adulterous love affair with the USD and just issue their own munnie....
" The Left doesn't have a viable social, political and economic alternative to the neoliberal status quo."
ReplyDeleteSeems to me if the Europeans would get over their deficit phobia then they'd have a pretty decent model, or at least at one time they did. No reason you can't have universal health care and full employment.. But for some reason the Europeans feel they need to drench their populations in taxes. Crazy!
It's incredibly difficult to get people to realize that government, on average, shouldn't balance their books.
@ Joe
ReplyDeleteThe problem with the Left in general is too many competing ideas, too many competing visions, and too many competing personalities. In addition, the Left tends to oppose hierarchical organization in favor of consensus decision making.
Another problem is in the opposition to "capitalism." There is no post-capitalist model that appears viable. The closest the Left gets in modified capitalism that leaves the structure of capitalism in place and consequently, when the Left does accede to power in such a system, it either caves to capitalism when the going gets rough, or is eventually replaced by a hard core capitalist opposition that is well funded.
Generally, the Right is very well funded, highly organized and owns the levers of control like the media, while the Left is poorly funded, loosely organized, and controls no levers. For example, Bernie Sanders is center right on the global political spectrum but he is still marginalized by the US press, who have ignored his unexpected rise against HRC.
As a result, Leftist parties find it difficult to attain power, or to maintain power if they achieve it.