https://youtu.be/Id--ZFtjR5c

Watch this on Chavez. It's super powerful and I've seen it make people cry. The poor people in the movie that you see cheering for Chavez are now cheering for the opposition.

enlightenedcentrism.jpg

It’s important to know the VZ is not really socialism. It is a social democracy that happens to be in opposition to imperialism

First off, you can blame the hyperinflation on the West. The US has been engaged in currency manipulation in VZ for a while.

As far as “normal” inflation it isn’t actually the evil you are making it out to be. It’s actually not a bad policy in certain situations. The thing is, inflation is always going to hurt the rich a lot which is why you hear so much screaming and yelling about it from the opposition (which is made up predominantly of the wealthy in VZ) and in the US media.

Also this whole paradigm of "who is to blame" is bad. It inserts us and by proxy the US/west as neutral arbiters of global justice whose job it is to determine who is right or to blame for stuff and fix it.

The only thing we should be worried about is what our country(ies) are doing that they should not be. The US has been meddling in VZ affairs for a long time. Manipulation currency, blocking trade, pushing for a coup, etc. And that should stop. It does not matter if the Maduro is partially to blame or whatever. That is not our problem. That is for the people of VZ to solve.

Agreed that the US should not meddle, obviously. Disagree that discussing who is to blame is some problem.

While I don't doubt they have I would like to know what exactly it was and how it lead to the hyperinflation. Because if hyperinflation were such an easy thing to inflict on the West's enemies, I would think you would see it more often.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/garthfr.../#57391f0515e4

Here is a Forbes article on the hyperinflation there and of course the only thing Forbes loves more than the green new deal is trashing Venezuela so take it for what it is worth, but it seems fairly objective:

Remember that guy who "worked at Home Depot" down in Alabama or something that was running a currency exchange website? He was like a former VZ national who was in the military and participated in at least one or two coup attempts against Chavez? That was obviously a CIA op.

Inflation hurts the poor more than the wealthy, just like linear taxation.


I don't think Western millionaires have been buying Venezuelan pesos, so I don't believe our Elite is concerned about Venezuelan inflation except insofar as it strengthens our buying power there (but afaiu we aren't buying* much anyway).


The concentration of the Venezuelan economy in a single resource is a failing arisen from their command-style economic policies, with Chavez buying into the imperialistic "this is what makes us valuable" narrative.

First I've heard of this but obviously whatever he did wasn't the cause.

*it's unclear whether the threads' malcontents would prefer trade, ie imperialism, or isolation, ie strangulation.

Was wanting to save this for another day but glad someone is taking this up.

Make Venezuela Great Again.

*it is unclear why IANAW believes trade is synonymous with imperialism

There are rich capitalists in VZ believe it or not, IANAW

Or why countries can't be self-sufficient.

Most investments are relatively inflation-proof. The people who get hurt by inflation are the ones who don't have enough money to invest in anything.

I feel like you do not understand what inflation is or something

So, next steps seem predictable

Trump declares national emergency to fund wall

Trump re opens gov

Trumps says see you at the State of the Union Nancy

I feel like you don't understand that wealthy people don't store their wealth in hard currency beneath the mattress.

But yeah, what do I really know about inflation anyway? Not like I live in a country where money loses half its value every couple years or something.

Time to pile into Zimbabwe bond notes

I wonder how it is that I can have a lot of savings and not be freaking out over all the inflation here. Oh wait, it's I rubbed two braincells together and realized I should only convert my wealth to pesos right as I spend it.

lol and what you don't understand is that poor people don't have wealth to store at all.

Inflation decrease the value of money you don't spend (i.e. save). The poorer you are the lower your savings rate and thus the less you are affected by inflation.

There are ways that inflation hurts poor people depending on how the inflation occurs. But generally speaking wages are sticky and so if inflation happens very quickly (i.e. the hyperinflation that Dustin was talking about) poor people can be in a bind.

You talk about investments being "inflation proof" which is more or less a paradox. The only thing that is immune to inflation is not having money saved.

In any case, I'm not sure what your ultimate solution is--orchestrate a coup against a democratically elected President because you from your vantage point in Argentina think his policies are bad? Surely that is not what you are suggesting.