53 Replies to “How Deep, Señor Maduro?”

  1. I thought that they were going to get it right next time. They must have run out of other people’s money too soon.

  2. Maybe Hillary or Bernie will get elected and invite all the Venezuelans to the USA and give them lots of free socialist stuff.

  3. All governments go bankrupt sooner or later.
    It’s just a matter of when.
    The trouble is that, being the government, they can do what they pretty well please with no one to stop them, their being the government and all.
    So, when the government spends like there’s no tomorrow — and most governments do to bribe their citizens so they can stay in power — and it’s in total control of the money — unlimited pieces of funny-looking paper rather than, say, a limited commodity like gold — it takes the country’s economy with it.
    That’s why one of the four horsemen of the Revealing (the Apocalypse) looks like this:
    5 When he broke the third seal, I heard the third living being say, “Go!” I looked, and there in front of me was a black horse, and its rider held in his hand a pair of scales. 6 Then I heard what sounded like a voice from among the four living beings say, “Two pounds of wheat for a day’s wages! Six pounds of barley for the same price! But don’t damage the oil or the wine!”
    — Revelation 6 (CJB)

  4. Elections have consequences. Not one tear, not one ounce of pity I have for those who voted for the commies, I hope they starve and eat each other. Sadly a lot of innocent people who never signed up for communism will suffer as well.

  5. Good thing Chavez’s daughters escaped the Socialist nirvana with $ Billions in American dollars … and are living the good life. That’s usually how Socialist dreams end. And now all the poor people can go back to being poor … and now … starving.

  6. “The answer is that Chávez turned the state-owned oil company from being professionally run to being barely run…”
    The underlying premise of the author is that socialism wasn’t the problem but the quality of leadership, implying that socialism, unlike its universal failure everywhere ,if done right will be a success. This is the universal fatal conceit of the left.

  7. Gov s overspend to make good economic times..
    The debt piles up (off stage)
    The gov does not intend to pay it off…
    At 3 percent interest, it gets paid anyway in 33 years
    And then gets paid again in later years….

  8. It could never happen here, we are so fortunate to live in a country where the budget balances itself.

  9. As if we need more proof of the Washington Post’s socialist leanings ….
    “The first step was when Hugo Chávez’s socialist government started spending more money on the poor, with everything from two-cent gasoline to free housing. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that — in fact, it’s a good idea in general …”
    Yeah, free shit for everybody … isn’t that Bernie Sanders tagline?

  10. Their socialist masters do not have much to worry about. They have disarmed the citizens. There are so few handguns, criminals are attacking the police for their weapons.
    The only threat can come from the military. Just like how the former colonel Chavez got his start.

  11. just one more group of the terminally stupid reaping the fruits of someone else’s labour. they just found out that the someone else no longer exists.

  12. Yes, sad for Venezuela, however,in our zeal to blame socialism, let us not forget that capitalism breeds problems as well. Just saw The Big Short. As far as I can tell, those bankers were bailed out by printing money. Plus tons of people lost jobs, houses, and pensions. The exploitation by the rich and powerful bankers in the US is no better than socialism. I believe most Venezuelans were just looking for a decent life –for which you can’t blame them. Perhaps the basic problem is human greed which will ruin any system.

  13. But… but.. Shawn Penn told us Hugo Chávez’s was a such a great example of how a great leader should be?
    –
    Is he dead yet?

  15. Hey Gary, the US still has the largest gold reserve in the world. Problem is, there is not enough gold in the world to run the world’s economy. No bible, no horsemen have anything to do with it. Not enough of that gold colored noble metal has been mined in the world to support the WORLD’s economy. The US’s 8133 million tons sounds like a lot, but even that is only worth about 200 billion dollars at $1,100/ounce. The problem with religious nuts (not normal people with religion) is they are stupid and have no common sense. The total gold reserves in the world today are not worth a trillion dollars. That would support about a couple of days operation of the worlds economy.

  17. one problem with your premise, gold does NOT under pin the value of a currency, productive labour does. Gold is just a symbol. Other than that spot on.
    Fearless leader, quit picking on the Joos

  18. There are a bunch of reasons why I don’t believe in the gold standard, but to say that the gold is “only worth” is not one of them. If gold was the only means of trade, the amount of available gold would be equal to the value of the whole economy.
    Money is supposed to be a store of value. Money predates governments. When governments get into debt they have a vested interest in destroying the value of money by inflation to get rid of their debts. When they do that money is no longer serving its purpose. There used to be a time when banks issued their own banknotes. I think this is better than government doing it because unlike a government a bank has a vested interest in its currency retaining its value. And if we have different banks issuing money you have a free market for money and people can use or not use a particular banks money.
    Governments controlling the printing presses and having the power to say “this note is legal tender” is a recipe for disaster.

  19. How absolutely right you are. The gold bugs and religious nuts don’t understand that. As far as debt is concerned – just because you have a mortgage on your house doesn’t mean it is not worth anything. I did not go into the value of labor, infrastructure and private property value with this nut because it only would have distracted him. You are absolutely right, however. This guy ought to be wary, however, there are thousands of scam artists waiting to fleece him, many are religious.

  20. In the past, we had banks issuing their own currency. That didn’t work in spades. It was terribly misused. We operate today on the concept of the “faith and trust of the United States.” That means it all goes into one pot and if a piece of that pot fails, the rest is still there. We establish a national bank and then established a federal reserve.
    By the way, we talk about the national debt. In PV it is actually much less than that of WWII. The so-called “Trillions” we wasted in Iraq actually contain the daily cost of running and maintaining a military around the world. WWII costs at least $16T PV, not including the trillions we loaned other countries and used to rebuild, that we never got back. China only has about 5% of our national debt and they use that for trade and to back their currency. Most of our national debt is borrowed from our hated seniors and retirees, their bank accounts ant trust funds.

  21. Ineptocracy
    (in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers. synonym- socialism.
    Today’s Venezuela being the perfect example. Who’s next?

  22. We operate today on the concept of the “faith and trust of the United States.”
    How much longer do you think that people are going to have faith in and trust the United States? As a Canadian I have seen the value of my currency go from about 1.02 US to .69 US over the last 5 or six years. A big chunk of that is due to oil prices, but we just had the “bad luck” to elect a kleptocratic government of our own. God knows what why savings will be worth in 5 years.
    We are not just talking about the United States here, we are talking about the concept of government mandated currency. How well did that work out for Venezuala? Zimbabwe? Argentina? Mexico? Weimar Germany? I could go on but I don’t think there is a need. Money in whatever form it exists is basically just an accounting system to keep track of human labour, and we are not going to come up with a perfect system.

  23. oh, *that* oil. I thought the Good Book was referring to you know, cooking oil or the stuff used in lamps. lol !!!
    anyways, so this is what happens with running an economy by edict. money, finance, there are certain ‘rules’ kinda like the law of gravity. nature WILL have its way and methinks nature has a hand in economic affairs as well. socialist edicts be damned.
    too bad Cesar didn’t live long enough to see his ‘brainchild’ explore the real world.

  24. So what is it that comrades Notley and the airhead in Ottawa don’t understand about their ideology.
    Make no mistake they will by diktat go the same path.
    As comrade Notley already illustrated by submitting the Farmers of Alberta to their diktat.
    Right now it seems benign though they are working to tighten the screws, little bit by little bit, nobody will ever notice until it will be too late. If you remember, the socialists said that they will finish the job after they pass the bill.
    Not unlike certain Pelosi proclaimed that they had to pass the obamacare to see what’s in it.
    As they sometime poetically say, same shit different pile.

  25. Money’s only value is the confidence you can convince people to have in it. Loose that confidence and you have poor butt wipe.

  26. I think we are in general agreement here but are now flogging a dead horse. Money is merely a medium of exchange to facilitate trade. However, as to faith and trust, the united States has the most powerful military in the world by a factor of four up to 10. The Chinese have a larger number in numbers, but those are all phoney figures. They have and count PT boates and riverines. We have destroyers that are larger than WWII battleships. We have ten times the displacement tonnage as any other country, including ten super carriers in commission, eleven littoral carriers, four battleships that still can operate, but need too much maintenance. We have more operational military aircraft than the rest of the world put together. Our stare, although many believe are declining, are actually getting better as the EU declines and collapses. We couldn’t trust the much to help us, only the Brits. We have the largest nuclear fleet. We have a space fleet that, although it declined under obama, now has a half dozen or more independent operators. We have more civil airlines than most of the rest of the world put together. We are mostly energy independent and can get that way in a few months time. Because we have already built out country, we don’t need much in the way of steel industries.
    The United States still has the largest economy in the world. What the United States doesn’t have is a classy, respected government. But that is a problem where ever the libruls hold sway. Since they hold sway most everywhere, the rest of the world is more worse off than us anyway. By the way, I include Canada with the US, whether they want to be or not. Canadian officers help man NRORAD and their ships are welcomed and serviced at Pearl Harbor. gotta go not.

  27. ummmm, what if the price of gold goes up 100 times in the next, oh, say 20 to 40 years?
    nah, lets really crank it up 1000 times to jive with the supply-demand thingy they teach in macroeconomics 101. same time line. there. NOW there is enough gold to run the world’s economy. better buy some now y’all !!!

  28. Um, no.
    It is a country’s resources as a whole, including productive labour, that underpin a nations currency. And that depends on how other country’s perceive a nations value. Witness the drop in Canada’s $ in the last six months along with the drop in the price of a BBL of oil. That has nothing to do with productive labour. It has everything to do with a “thing” – like gold – which is no longer as highly valued as it once was.
    Gold reserves, along with other foreign currencies, also underpins the wealth of national currency. These foreign currencies are known as “foreign reserves.” Gold is another form of foreign reserve. One of the intrinsic values that gold has is that you cannot just create it the way socialists governments magically print money – nowadays often through the slight of hand of lowered interest rates. Or, as in the Japanese or Swedish cases (both hard left governments), negative interest rates.
    When currency is given away free, as in every socialist controlled market, it quickly becomes value-less. When a currency is worthless, we return to the barter system, which is how the free market eventually values labour productivity. The creation of a currency results in a substitute for things bartered only if it is not messed around with by socialist economic diddling.

  30. Its all very confusing. It would be easier to understand living if I could believe in life after dying. It would be easier to understand the economy if I could believe in gold. At the end I think its all just too complicated but I know this for damn sure – if it sounds too good to be true, then its too good to be true. Right now I’m really glad to live in Saskatchewan – the last bastion of honest conservatism in North America.

  31. This is the country favoured by Mayor Coderre and other Liberals as a source of stable petroleum imports. Favoured over Alberta and its dirty, compromised product; how preferable it is to deal with honest, competent governments.

  32. Conservative values… Yo
    Two hundred billion gold would not pay one day’s interest on the world’s debt.

  33. Hey, Old Country Boy! The verse I quoted from the Bible relates the CONSEQUENCES of power-mad, self-aggrandizing liars, imbeciles, dim-wits, and con-men running governments today.
    It speaks of the CONSEQUENCES. Venezuela is a typical example of the CONSEQUENCES. Cuba is also an excellent example where nearly everyone is equally poor, except, of course, the con-men at the top.
    That’s why I wrote about an “unlimited supply of funny-looking money” versus a limited supply of a commodity.
    Second, labour, like gold, is limited, but funny-looking pieces of paper – supposedly “money” – are not. If labour is rewarded with funny-looking pieces of paper, that’s what that labour is worth, that is, paper, i.e., it’s not worth the paper it’s written on. If labour is rewarded with an equally limited commodity then that labour maintains its value.
    Third, you’re the religious nut.

  34. Francisco D’Anconio’s response to the oft heard saying that money is the root of all evil is found at the following link. It is well worth reading even if you are not an Ayn Rand fan. http://jim.com/money.htm

  35. Churchill said that Capitalism is the worst economic system in the world, except for every other system.
    Next in the queue, Greece followed by Ontario under Hugo Wynne and then Alberta under the Notley Crew.

  36. Alberta’s oil, like Venezuela’s, is merely an opportunity. Put a cleptocratic communist government in charge and the economy will decay. To use the available opportunity, policies amenable to private enterprise must be developed. If Notley and Trudeau crush the Alberta economy with their collective stupidity and greed, Venezuela provides us with an example to which we can look forward. The resources are valueless without development.

  37. Thanks. I always enjoy a refreshing dose of reason, even decades after reading all her works. She only gets more prescient with time.

  38. You DO realize that gold is no different than wampum … or beads … Beaver pelts … or shells … or whatever medium of economic exchange ever invented by man ? Gold isn’t magic. I hope you aren’t one of those bitter, old GOLD clingers ?

  40. yep.
    I am a late convert to Ms Rand’s writings. the trick is to get the FULL message which requires extensive reading and evaluation. something the leftist run edukashun system won’t allow.
    cater to the lowest common denominator is that outfits specialty.

  41. It is useful to understand that countries where multiple
    foreign currency exchange rate systems are put in place
    “to punish the rich and help the poor” are for the most
    part ruled by a massively corrupt Marxist overclass with
    unrestricted and exclusive access to the best $$$ rates.
    A debased economy and hyperinflation hold no terrors for
    such scum.

  42. Yeah but that isn’t real socialism. Neither was China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and all of those other catastrophes.
    Next time we’ll get it right. You have to have faith, and not let those hundreds of millions of destroyed lives distract you.

  43. Right now I’m really glad to live in Saskatchewan – the last bastion of honest conservatism in North America.
    Gee, I didn’t know conservatism included socialist welfare systems such as ‘free medicine’…all because Sask is so ‘conservative’ they are unable to manage on their own and welcome Federal funds and oversight on how to manage their own jurisdiction.
    45 rigs drilling in ‘conservative’ Sask
    133 drilling in ‘socialist’ Alberta…

  44. Francisco D’Anconio’s response to the oft heard saying that money is the root of all evil …
    Of course the correct quote is ‘love of money is the root of all evil’…
    1Ti 6:10 For the love of money is the root of all the evils: which while some coveted after, they were seduced from the faith, and pierced themselves through by many pangs.
    The context is ‘to love more greatly’, to the exclusion of anything else. Of course money isn’t evil, it’s just a thing. The purposes it’s put to, or actions to acquire money, can be evil.
    Socialism and communism is, at it’s base, the love of money. Many ‘pangs’, as Venezuela is learning.

  45. You’re right, gold isn’t magic. But it has been accepted as currency by most cultures for all of recorded history. It is rare, it is divisible and it is sought after and it is outside the hands of government. Gold has been used as currency since before governments existed and it will be used as currency long after. I have a Confederate States of America ten dollar bill. If has been worthless since shortly after it was printed. I have old European coins that became worthless when new currency systems replaced them, but an ounce of gold that had value to the ancient Egyptians and the emperors of Rome has the same value today as it did then.

  47. TC, learn the definition of “underpin”, you actually support my contention without realizing it. Oil, gold, steal, corn wheat, and any other commodity needed in a modern society don’t happen without Labour, period. Thusly productive labour is the ONLY currency underpinning. Even GD printing presses don’t run without labour. So labour and only labour are the factor, period!!

  48. sunday school, the brainwashing tool
    full bore stupid is not a desired quality by mature adults

  50. You are of course correct. However the truncated version I used is what is commonly stated by the moochers and looters. Personally, I think Timothy is not quite correct. Rather than the love of money I prefer the love of other people’s money is the root of all evil.

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