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Mr. 47
Jul 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'll just go fuck myself, then.
Like a kickstarter or something?

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LGD
Sep 25, 2004

pretty sure the government is currently refusing various forms of aid on the grounds that it definitely isn't needed, so probably not

e: plus food might be a more pressing concern in the near future, that country is hosed

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless
the glorious island of Tropico has no need for your foreign devilry

Mr. 47
Jul 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'll just go fuck myself, then.
Venezuelans: PM me your address! This butthole tyranny will not stand!

Moon Atari
Dec 26, 2010

I haven't been following the news so don't know why the charitable effort is necessary. What dirty butthole producing shenanigans has venezuela gotten themselves into this time?

Nefarious 2.0
Apr 22, 2008

Offense is overrated anyway.

someone buy me some marmite

Mr. 47
Jul 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'll just go fuck myself, then.

Moon Atari posted:

I haven't been following the news so don't know why the charitable effort is necessary. What dirty butthole producing shenanigans has venezuela gotten themselves into this time?

Communism.

Fishy Joe
Apr 19, 2005
Eat at Fishy Joe's
The assholes of freedom run red with the blood of patriots

Chinatown
Sep 11, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
Fun Shoe
gently caress em

Preoptopus
Aug 25, 2008

Три полоски,
три по три полоски
I thought they needed beer

dookifex_maximus
Aug 10, 2016

by zen death robot
hey, hands off the market. it's busy correcting for surplus population.

Extra Large Marge
Jan 21, 2004

Fun Shoe
I'll do it, but only if the TP has American flags printed on it

dookifex_maximus
Aug 10, 2016

by zen death robot

Arian_Samurai posted:

I'll do it, but only if the TP has American flags printed on it

this is actually a great way of making sure it gets to the people.

ded
Oct 27, 2005

Kooler than Jesus
I have just the thing to send.


Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Moon Atari posted:

I haven't been following the news so don't know why the charitable effort is necessary. What dirty butthole producing shenanigans has venezuela gotten themselves into this time?

the short of it is their state income is heavily dependent on oil exports and OPEC tanked the market from like $80/barrel down to like $20/barrel and Venezuela's state is now unable to pay for all their communist stuff

apparently in Venezuela the means of rear end wiping are controlled by the state

also,

quote:

The National Superintendency of Fair Prices has reportedly instituted a policy of fining bakeries that allow lines to stretch out their front doors, according to PanAmPost. The head of this particular bureaucracy, William Contreras, claims the lines aren't a true indicator of a severe shortage of bread, but rather, a political "strategy of generating anxiety."

:ussr::ussr::ussr:

free hubcaps
Oct 12, 2009

all this in a country that once had one of the highest living standards in South America

Chavez was crazy like a fox, but Maduro just seems crazy. Theres something seriously wrong with your economy if your citizens are lining up at the border to buy basic supplies from stores in neighboring economic powerhouse Colombia

Nic Cage dick cage
Jun 23, 2009

Lipstick Apathy

Mr. 47 posted:

Like a kickstarter or something?

Depends on the quality of toilet paper and the amount and I am very sure you have no idea what you are talking about.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Anthrovore posted:

Chavez was crazy like a fox, but Maduro just seems crazy. Theres something seriously wrong with your economy if your citizens are lining up at the border to buy basic supplies from stores in neighboring economic powerhouse Colombia

Yeah it's kind of a mess being made way worse by the 'true believers' (I can only assume) in power.

tsa
Feb 3, 2014

Anthrovore posted:

all this in a country that once had one of the highest living standards in South America

Chavez was crazy like a fox, but Maduro just seems crazy. Theres something seriously wrong with your economy if your citizens are lining up at the border to buy basic supplies from stores in neighboring economic powerhouse Colombia

The only reason it wasn't like this during Chavez was oil prices. Turns out socialism doesn't work, a surprise to no one who has a functioning brain.

Mr. 47
Jul 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'll just go fuck myself, then.

tsa posted:

The only reason it wasn't like this during Chavez was oil prices. Turns out socialism doesn't work, a surprise to no one who has a functioning brain.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

tsa posted:

The only reason it wasn't like this during Chavez was oil prices. Turns out socialism doesn't work, a surprise to no one who has a functioning brain.

that's kind of a weird argument. you admit it worked okay under Chavez with high oil prices, but X happened and it collapsed so therefore it doesn't work.

Well... the number of capitalist societies that have undergone radical upheaval and collapse because of a financial crisis is much greater than the number of socialist ones. As if the USA has never had bread lines lol. Doesn't suddenly mean free market mechanics in their entirety are bunk.

Professor Shark
May 22, 2012

Please save your valuable American dollars for your closer, better Socialist neighbors, Canada! :canada:

When our housing bubble pops, which it may or may not be in the process of doing right now, we're super hosed Not "no toilet paper" hosed, but 1st World, don't-have-the-new-iPhone hosed

Dreddout
Oct 1, 2015

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Professor Shark posted:

Please save your valuable American dollars for your closer, better Socialist neighbors, Canada! :canada:

When our housing bubble pops, which it may or may not be in the process of doing right now, we're super hosed Not "no toilet paper" hosed, but 1st World, don't-have-the-new-iPhone hosed

:ohdear:

EorayMel
May 30, 2015

WE GET IT. YOU LOVE GUN JESUS. Toujours des fusils Bullpup Franais.
Send Venezuelans bitcoin, that will surely help the situation.

Bulgogi Hoagie
Jun 1, 2012

We

ded posted:

I have just the thing to send.




Venezuela is a bit behind the latest fashion and they much prefer Obama branded toilet paper

Farmer Crack-Ass
Jan 2, 2001

this is me posting irl

Moridin920 posted:

Yeah it's kind of a mess being made way worse by the 'true believers' (I can only assume) in power.

nah, the people at the top are corrupt and have basically been running the country as a gigantic foreign exchange scam for years. i don't think most of them give a poo poo about ideology, they just want to loot the country and live like royalty.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

nah, the people at the top are corrupt and have basically been running the country as a gigantic foreign exchange scam for years. i don't think most of them give a poo poo about ideology, they just want to loot the country and live like royalty.

Seems like it'd be in their best interest to not have it all collapse out from under them then but yeah you're prolly right.

Bulgogi Hoagie
Jun 1, 2012

We
lol you can loot the country and then hire some lowlifes in Europe and immigrate on an entrepreneur visa and live the rest of your days in peace if anything terrible happens

Mr. 47
Jul 8, 2008

Well, I guess I'll just go fuck myself, then.

Professor Shark posted:

Please save your valuable American dollars for your closer, better Socialist neighbors, Canada! :canada:

When our housing bubble pops, which it may or may not be in the process of doing right now, we're super hosed Not "no toilet paper" hosed, but 1st World, don't-have-the-new-iPhone hosed

I have a sneaking suspicion that the student loan bubble will destroy us first.

dookifex_maximus
Aug 10, 2016

by zen death robot

Moridin920 posted:

that's kind of a weird argument. you admit it worked okay under Chavez with high oil prices, but X happened and it collapsed so therefore it doesn't work.

Well... the number of capitalist societies that have undergone radical upheaval and collapse because of a financial crisis is much greater than the number of socialist ones. As if the USA has never had bread lines lol. Doesn't suddenly mean free market mechanics in their entirety are bunk.

I can address this: communism needs to fulfill 100% of the economy's needs to succeed in its stated goals whereas in capitalism the only need is for one agent to exist from year to year to keep the economy "going"

in communism, if one person dies, that's failure but in capitalism you can kill anybody and anything and it's a valid economic action, as long as the economy is extant

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week

dookifex_maximus posted:

I can address this: communism needs to fulfill 100% of the economy's needs to succeed in its stated goals whereas in capitalism the only need is for one agent to exist from year to year to keep the economy "going"

in communism, if one person dies, that's failure but in capitalism you can kill anybody and anything and it's a valid economic action, as long as the economy is extant

and yet capitalism is more successful than communism even when you measure both by the communist standard?

Volcott
Mar 30, 2010

People paying American dollars to let other people know they didn't agree with someone's position on something is the lifeblood of these forums.
Better red, then dead.

Moridin920
Nov 15, 2007

by FactsAreUseless

dookifex_maximus posted:

I can address this: communism needs to fulfill 100% of the economy's needs to succeed in its stated goals whereas in capitalism the only need is for one agent to exist from year to year to keep the economy "going"

in communism, if one person dies, that's failure but in capitalism you can kill anybody and anything and it's a valid economic action, as long as the economy is extant

yeah sure but there's no reason we can't borrow some things and have socialized healthcare and also a free market for other things

it's getting too extreme on either end that gets you into trouble

Klyith
Aug 3, 2007

GBS Pledge Week
anyways the problem in Venezuela isn't that they were communists, it's that Chavez was a stupid communist


For years they had state-enforced, below market prices for lots of basic staples. Flour & corn, eggs, toilet paper, you name it. When oil was high and the bolivar was more valuable than their neighbor's money, what this meant was that all their own local farmers were driven out of business by imports. Venezuela's home economy literally goes to weeds as farmers and toilet paper-makers all abandon their jobs to move to the city and get their kids into the shiny new state-supported schools. A middle class supported by nothing but state oil revenue appears from thin air.


Then oil crashes, the bolivar goes with it, and suddenly all the flour were buying from Columbia, the eggs from Cuba, and toilet paper from the US is 5 times as expensive. But Chavez (and later Maduro) don't raise the prices you're allowed to sell for! So if you run a venezuelan grocery store, you will be losing money if you stock anything on your shelves. Naturally, nobody orders anything and the shelves go bare. The only time flour and TP are in evidence is when some party stooge forces the issue. If you are a baker, you have to decide between making bread from 75% sawdust or just abandoning your business and move to the countryside where they can't find you.

Meanwhile the government is printing extra money to pay the salaries of all the civil servants and oil workers, so heavy inflation begins to take hold. The real prices (ie black market prices) for staples shoot up into the stratosphere, the currency loses value even faster because everyone knows it's worthless.


if you are a communist dictator, your one job is to avoid re-creating a bad Ayn Rand book about the evils of communism.

dipple
Oct 22, 2008

LGD posted:

e: plus food might be a more pressing concern in the near future, that country is hosed

isn't it a tropical wonderland that you can just walk into the forest and get a banana or parrot or something edible

ChrisHansen
Oct 28, 2014

Suck my damn balls.
Lipstick Apathy
Can't they just tear down the rainforest instead of wasting my time?

free hubcaps
Oct 12, 2009

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

nah, the people at the top are corrupt and have basically been running the country as a gigantic foreign exchange scam for years. i don't think most of them give a poo poo about ideology, they just want to loot the country and live like royalty.

Case in point, I remember for like a year plus after Chavez died, his daughters refused to move from the presidential palace to let Maduro move in. they apparently threw wild parties constantly oh and also they are somehow rich as gently caress. from totally legitimate means, no doubt.

victory to the proletariat

Volcott
Mar 30, 2010

People paying American dollars to let other people know they didn't agree with someone's position on something is the lifeblood of these forums.
You can support the Venezuelan economy by buying videogames.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/447530

The devs tried coming up to the states pre-release for a conference of some sort and the government decided they were a flight risk.

Mariana Horchata
Jun 30, 2008

College Slice

Volcott posted:

You can support the Venezuelan economy by buying videogames.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/447530

The devs tried coming up to the states pre-release for a conference of some sort and the government decided they were a flight risk.

what in the world

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schmitty9800
Feb 10, 2003

When i was in a peace group like 12 years ago a couple people from Ven came and talked about how great the country was and how good Chavez was and stuff, acting like none of us had the internet

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