Welcome to New Zenezuela comrades
Democratic socialism is working in Venezuela. It’s working to make everyone miserable and hungry. The economic decline Venezuelans are now experiencing is unsurpassed in the past 45 years outside of countries in the midst of war:
Zimbabwe’s collapse under Robert Mugabe. The fall of the Soviet Union. Cuba’s disastrous unraveling in the 1990s.
The crumbling of Venezuela’s economy has now outpaced them all.
Venezuela’s fall is the single largest economic collapse outside of war in at least 45 years, economists say.
“It’s really hard to think of a human tragedy of this scale outside civil war,” said Kenneth Rogoff, an economics professor at Harvard University and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund. “This will be a touchstone of disastrous policies for decades to come.”
To find similar levels of economic devastation, economists at the I.M.F. pointed to countries that were ripped apart by war, like Libya earlier this decade or Lebanon in the 1970s.
Venezuela stopped releasing economic information five years ago but estimates by the IMF and others point to massive hyperinflation. Prof. Steve Hanke estimates the current annual inflation rate is 64,585 percent.
Starvation, lack of medicine. Lack of law and order. And a deceitful socialist government still doing its best to lie about the causes while preventing people from finding out what is happening. This is now the top example of economic devastation (apart from war) in recent history. But on the far left, dictator Maduro is still the victim and America is still the enemy.
Given the scale of this disaster, it’s no longer acceptable for Labour and Green Socialists to roll their eyes at the mention of Venezuela. They need to explain in detail how their proposals for a socialist New Zealand differs in kind from the (once widely admired) socialism Hugo Chavez introduced in Venezuela. And if they can’t spell out those differences in some detail, we should take that as an admission that they can’t guarantee the same thing won’t happen here.
But…Cindy will do it properly this time! There will be dancing and love for everyone. No hate, none of that awful hate caused by greedy capitalism. Cindy promised “A house for everyone”, so true and no more child abuse or domestic violence, oh and bunny rabbits and rainbows will produce plenty of electricity for all our electric vehicles. We will all live on a universal basic income and be equal. Such Fun!
It’s all the americans fault. Those poor people in Venezuela are suffering because the yanks stopped importing their oil from Venezuela. They didn’t like the thought of having a successful socialist country so close to them.
Are you admitting Cuba is not successful?
Ignorance is your strength, isn’t it?
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSVE1&f=M
The US does buy Venezuelan oil. But in case you haven’t noticed, the US is now also a net producer of oil, so it buying less of it.
Its not even a clever wee troll is it!
Colinxy delivers a damned good slapping to the horned horse….noice..
So America should prop up every other economy even when they have their own resources. And then get shit for it?
Cindy will have us do that. No more drilling!
You will support Trump then?
Successful with American money, anyway shouldn’t you be anti oil? Venezuela should just adapt, shouldn’t it, or shall we buy our oil from there as we have closed down our own industry in essence?
Maybe that was the CoL’s “brilliant” plan?
Destroy our own industry and buy Venezuelan oil to make the dream of socialist utopia a reality?
It wouldn’t surprise me with all their brain power on offer.
Perhaps RM until they catch on to the fact that the massive oil resources Venezuela has is a very heavy crude and requires bending or dilution for most exports. Rather like an extender added to cooking or baking to support the main expensive ingredient. Like lentils and barley for dogs tail soup. The most significant message is that nationalizing an industry can be it’s eventual failure. As depicted in the Cossack ad we are fortunate to see again today. It again raises the question of how safe the Kiwisaver and Cullen Super Fund with the letter restarted with borrowed funds? Especially as the $NZ seems to dropping to dip below the previous 12 month low in the $NZ0.64/$US1.00 range. Even before the Wellbeing Budget. What do the money markets know that we are yet to see as the result of ignoring real fiscal responsibility being replaced by feelz?
those people are suffering because they voted in a socialist moron nothing to do with any other country. You really are on the low IQ scale or you don’t avail yourself of facts.
Stupid government choice can lead to starvation and it has.
Please bring some friends. Despite what you might think, the right do not tend to like echo chambers and do try to work out how others think and whether or not they might have a point. Or think that if the different voice bothers hearing a different point of view themselves might that they might actually concede the same. Some of them might even have thought similarly when they were young, but reality, real world stuff, soon bites.
If the planet needs saving it is technological advances that will do it, not closing down industries. When industries near their use by date, they naturally do that themselves, so that they continue to have an income stream.
You should actually be thanking holysheet for not wiping you off the face of his blog, but you see, you are no threat, and speaking for myself, I have no problem with other people having opinions, as long as I am allowed to have mine.
Don’t for a minute think that I won’t fight for mine, because while I am doing that I am doing it for other people too. My friends, my family, and every stranger that does not have the confidence or time to speak up themselves.
You really are a joke troll account, aren’t you fairy poop? Nobody actually believes or says that, not even retards.
Fairydust reckons that “the yanks stopped importing their oil from Venezuela”. The US Energy Information begs to differ. In Dec 2018 the USA imported 17,846,000 barrels of crude oil & petroleum products from Venezuela yet the socialist government still couldn’t supply arse paper for its citizens.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MTTIMUSVE1&f=M
But it will get worse before it gets better.
Fairydust…. proof once again that labour supporters are morons. But this uber moron has the gall to have a crack at the blog owner in another post. BTW a mate in Aussie reckons some poor joker bet 700 large ones on a Labour victory…. Bet he is not having a good day and if he was a Labour supporter…. Diddums..