Have you ever heard of a bigger corruption scandal?

[BirraImperial]

... I mean, where are all of CFC's Chávez-apologists now? Who will say a kind word about 21st Century Socialism, about the Bolivarian Revolution? Who will praise Kirchner's "heterodox" economic policy, their brilliant conduction of the Argentine economy? Or Lula, that great statesman, who certainly only became filthy rich during his rule due to a great coincidence? How do Lula's economic policies look now, with Brazil unable to escape stagnation and inflation, undeperforming all the developing world with the notable exceptions of Argentina and Venezuela?

They're still around, buying the State propaganda lies and deceits like "It's not our fault that toilet paper and food are missing, it's those greedy capitalist pigs super market owners that are hoarding the supplies to create chaos!, or "The greedy businessmen are sabotaging the Revolution on purpose!"

 

[luiz]

They're still around, buying the State propaganda lies and deceits like "It's not our fault that toilet paper and food are missing, it's those greedy capitalist pigs super market owners that are hoarding the supplies to create chaos!, or "The greedy businessmen are sabotaging the Revolution on purpose!"

I'm sure diehard blockheads still exist, but it's getting increasingly difficult to buy Maduro's explanations for Venezuela's collapse, as year after year he only makes things worse.

Venezuelans themselves are not buying it:

Venezuelan president's popularity hits new low

(Reuters) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's approval rating has slipped to 22 percent, the lowest of his nearly two-year rule as a result of economic problems, a local pollster said on Friday.

Maduro, 52, won election to replace his mentor Hugo Chavez after the latter's death from cancer in early 2013, but has seen his popularity eroded since as the OPEC nation suffers an economic slowdown, product shortages and soaring prices.

"His popularity has gone down a lot, he's at 22 percent approval. People are waiting for solutions," Datanalisis director Jose Antonio Gil told local TV station Globovision.

Recession-hit Venezuela has the worst economic performance of any major nation in the region, with widespread shortages of goods from milk to car parts, and 64 percent annual inflation.

The plunge in global oil prices, with Venezuela's crude worth $47 a barrel now compared to double that five months ago, has exacerbated the scenario. Maduro blames a U.S.-inspired "economic war" by political foes, but opposition leaders say 15 years of socialism are the cause.

Gil said 60 percent of people did not believe in Maduro's argument.

"Venezuelans' main problem is shortages," he said, confirming what other polls have shown, that product scarcities have overtaken violent crime as Venezuelans' main worry.

Opinion polls in Venezuela are divergent and controversial, but Datanalisis is one of the most closely watched and respected. Gil did not say when the latest figure came from or how many people were interviewed.

Datanalisis had put Maduro's rating at 24.5 percent in November, and about 50 percent after his election in April 2013.

Facing parliamentary elections this year, Maduro has promised a six-month economic recovery plan including reform of more than decade-old currency controls.

A three-tier system currently pegs the dollar to 6.3, 12 and 50 bolivars, depending on sectors, while the greenback goes for more than 170 bolivars on the black market.

Many economists recommend a devaluation or unification of rates and other measures to boost state coffers such as a rise in gasoline prices or sale of the Citgo refining unit.

Such moves, however, could have a political cost for Maduro, as Venezuela enters 2015 with the ruling "Chavismo" movement at arguably its lowest ebb since a brief coup against Chavez in 2002.

Only 16 percent felt "identified" with the ruling Socialist Party, he said, but the divided opposition coalition was hardly doing much better, with just 19 percent.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/01/02/uk-venezuela-maduro-idUKKBN0KB11I20150102

 

[Ajidica]

And I would like to congratulate myself on being right about the true nature of the Workers' Party all along, and warning everybody who cared to listen since 2002 that they're a dangerous gang of thieves, thugs and vermin, who view the Brazilian State as their personal property and playground. That this whole farce would end up in tragedy. But honestly being right all along about this brings me no joy, and after a while being right all the time about everything gets a bit tiresome

The Worker's Party may be corrupt [although I would hesitate to call them vermin, bad connotations exist from other cases when that word has been used to describe people] but nothing I have seen suggests any other Brazilian political party isn't as corrupt and self-serving, nor that they would have produced superior outcomes. Corruption exists across the political spectrum in basically equal amounts.

 

[luiz]

The Worker's Party may be corrupt [although I would hesitate to call them vermin, bad connotations exist from other cases when that word has been used to describe people] but nothing I have seen suggests any other Brazilian political party isn't as corrupt and self-serving, nor that they would have produced superior outcomes. Corruption exists across the political spectrum in basically equal amounts.

And you're saying that based on what, exactly?

Corruption in 2003-2015 has been way, way worse than between 1994-2002.

The Workers' Party was already responsible for the previous biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history (Mensalão in 2005), and now apparently they outdid themselves and went for the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the human race. No party is pure and sinless, but the Workers' Party took corruption to new heights, and degraded the institutions to a point without parallel in democratic history.

 

[luiz]

Speaking of the spectacular failures of the economic policies of Argentina and Venezuela, I was reminded of this paper, written by Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards, which Krugman recently brought up in his blog to talk about Putin. The Abstract:

Macroeconomic populism is an approach to economics that emphasizes growth and income distribution and deemphasizes the risks of inflation and deficit finance, external constraints and the reaction of economic agents to aggressive non-market policies. The purpose of our paper is to show that policy experiences in different countries and periods share common features, from the initial conditions, the motivation for policies, the argument that the country's conditions are different, to the ultimate collapse. Our purpose in setting out these experiences, those of Chile under Allende and of Peru under Garcia, is not a righteous assertion of conservative economics, but rather a warning that populist policies do ultimately fail; and when they fail it is always at a frightening cost to the very groups who were supposed to be favored. Our central thesis is that the macroeconomics of various experiences is very much the same, even if the politics differed greatly.

Depressingly, that paper was written in 1989. And yet when Chávez started his nonsense in 1999, imbeciles from Hollywood to Paris were quick to comment on how "revolutionary" and "innovative" his policies were. This time it will be different! This man will be able to single-handedly repeal the so-called laws of economic! The poor will finally rise, their plight is finally over!

16 years later, the Venezuelan poor don't have toilet paper to wipe their butts, and the hospitals where their sons hit by stray bullets are being operated suffer from rolling blackouts.

That was the reality of Salvador Allende's government in Chile, it was the reality of Garcia's in Peru, it was the reality of João Goulart's in Brazil, it is the reality in Maduro's Venezuela and Kirchner's Argentina, and to some extent of Roussef's Brazil.

All those experiments have been tried and failed many times, in many different countries and under different circumstances. And yet you can bet your entire bank account that next time some Latin American baboon puts on a red suit and starts to promise a new version of workers' paradise, all the while shaking his closed fist at the US, the Noam Chomskys, Sean Penns and Oliver Stones of the world will be ready to offer their unreserved praise. Not to mention certain posters on CFC, who seem to take pride on being wrong about everything, every single time.

 

[Ajidica]

How convenient to ignore that the collapse of export prices of copper slashed Chile's budget by, if I remember right, around a third. Any government would have a hard time following through on even the most small-minded economic plans if they discovered that their budget was slashed by a third with similar levels projected for the next few years.

 

[LamaGT]

And you're saying that based on what, exactly?

Corruption in 2003-2015 has been way, way worse than between 1994-2002.

The Workers' Party was already responsible for the previous biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history (Mensalão in 2005), and now apparently they outdid themselves and went for the biggest corruption scandal in the history of the human race. No party is pure and sinless, but the Workers' Party took corruption to new heights, and degraded the institutions to a point without parallel in democratic history.

In Ukraine, Kravchuk "the liberator" came and stole everything he could, creating the current oligarchy and corruption.
Kuchma came and let him and his cronies steal
Yuschenko and Timoshenko came and stole under the pretense of liberators from thieves.
Yanukovich then made a come back and made his family the richest in Ukraine
And now Poroshenko and his cronies are getting down with stealing government property and coal trade with the supposed "terrorists".
All of them were from different parties and factions.

Corruption never comes without company, and I doubt the situation in Brazil is at all different.
Your position would be overall much easier to believe if you weren't a rabid anti-socialist in every other aspect.

 

[luiz]

How convenient to ignore that the collapse of export prices of copper slashed Chile's budget by, if I remember right, around a third. Any government would have a hard time following through on even the most small-minded economic plans if they discovered that their budget was slashed by a third with similar levels projected for the next few years.

Read the damn paper and see for yourself all the multiple ways in which Allende's administration screw up. How their whole theory was based on the flawed assumption that real wages could be drastically increased without triggering inflation as long as there was idle capacity and price controls were enacted; how they completely ignored the role of the real exchange rate in determining macro equlibrium; and of course how they simply did not take future expectations into account in anyway, assuming that all agents would always not only be taken by surprise by all government actions but also continue to take the government's word at face value. On Allende's very first year the public sector deficit expanded from 3% of GDP to 11%, the monetary base expanded by over 100%, imports jumped by 40% and foreign reserves fell by 50%. All the marks of the incoming collapse were there from the start, plain for everyone with half a brain to see. And all this before any drop whatsoever in copper prices; in fact these things happened as result of Allende's policies that triggered a short-lived, and unsustainable, economic boom.

In short, Allende's plan was stupid, and it takes stupid to believe in it. But there's no lack of stupid, neither in the 1970's nor today. See the aforementioned Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and co.

 

[luiz]

Corruption never comes without company, and I doubt the situation in Brazil is at all different.
Your position would be overall much easier to believe if you weren't a rabid anti-socialist in every other aspect.

This position is the Workers' Party position and it's frankly disgusting. "Yeah we are crooks and thieves but so is everybody else! Vote for us; we will steal billions for ourselves but will also throw you some loafs of bread!"

That's nonsense. The international media is full of articles detailing the Workers' Party corruption, including the one I posted on the OP, and they explicitly say this is the biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history. Which is full of corruption scandals of course, but they were never this big, nor this frequent. Every week, or even more often, another of the Workers' Party thieving schemes is uncovered. They can't help themselves! They're thieves, that's who they are and their whole raison d'être. A lot of parties may have politicians who are also thieves; the Workers' Party has thieves who are also politicians.

If you (or Ajidica) feels like you're an expert on Brazilian politics, by all means substantiate the claim that all other parties and previous administrations are / were just as corrupt.

 

[Ajidica]

Read the damn paper and see for yourself all the multiple ways in which Allende's administration screw up. How their whole theory was based on the flawed assumption that real wages could be drastically increased without triggering inflation as long as there was idle capacity and price controls were enacted; how they completely ignored the role of the real exchange rate in determining macro equlibrium; and of course how they simply did not take future expectations into account in anyway, assuming that all agents would always not only be taken by surprise by all government actions but also continue to take the government's word at face value. On Allende's very first year the public sector deficit expanded from 3% of GDP to 11%, the monetary base expanded by over 100%, imports jumped by 40% and foreign reserves fell by 50%. All the marks of the incoming collapse were there from the start, plain for everyone with half a brain to see. And all this before any drop whatsoever in copper prices; in fact these things happened as result of Allende's policies that triggered a short-lived, and unsustainable, economic boom.

In short, Allende's plan was stupid, and it takes stupid to believe in it. But there's no lack of stupid, neither in the 1970's nor today. See the aforementioned Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and co.

Stupid or not, there is no getting around the impact the collapse of copper export prices had on the Chilean government's budget. It is like talking about Thatcherite Britain. Had the discovery and exploitation of North Sea oil not turned the pound into a petrodollar, there is quite a bit of uncertainty over whether Thatcher's liberalizing policies would have been successful due to the absolutely abysmal state of the UK economy and its monetary reserves.

This position is the Workers' Party position and it's frankly disgusting. "Yeah we are crooks and thieves but so is everybody else! Vote for us; we will steal billions for ourselves but will also throw you some loafs of bread!"

That's nonsense. The international media is full of articles detailing the Workers' Party corruption, including the one I posted on the OP, and they explicitly say this is the biggest corruption scandal in Brazilian history. Which is full of corruption scandals of course, but they were never this big, nor this frequent. Every week, or even more often, another of the Workers' Party thieving schemes is uncovered. They can't help themselves! They're thieves, that's who they are and their whole raison d'être. A lot of parties may have politicians who are also thieves; the Workers' Party has thieves who are also politicians.

If you (or Ajidica) feels like you're an expert on Brazilian politics, by all means substantiate the claim that all other parties and previous administrations are / were just as corrupt.

I never said I was an expert on Brazilian politics. Rather, I said that I haven't seen anything indicating things would have been much different had another political party been in charge.
I freely admit most of my knowledge on Brazil comes from when I watched the World Cup over the summer and what I've picked up on South America's flirtation with military dictatorships. If there is something inherently special to the Workers Party that makes it more likely to engage in corruption, surely you could direct me to it.

 

[luiz]

Stupid or not, there is no getting around the impact the collapse of copper export prices had on the Chilean government's budget. It is like talking about Thatcherite Britain. Had the discovery and exploitation of North Sea oil not turned the pound into a petrodollar, there is quite a bit of uncertainty over whether Thatcher's liberalizing policies would have been successful due to the absolutely abysmal state of the UK economy and its monetary reserves.

Did you read the list of Allende's "spectacular achievements" on his very first year, which had nothing to do whatsoever with copper?

The disaster that was Allende can be totally explained by the policies that he chose. They were, for lack of a better word, stupid. They ignored what was common economic knowledge. There is absolutely no need to look at copper prices to explain Allende. His actions on his very first year are more than enough to predict all the chaos and suffering that he would bring to Chile, and ultimately bring about his own death.

I never said I was an expert on Brazilian politics. Rather, I said that I haven't seen anything indicating things would have been much different had another political party been in charge.
I freely admit most of my knowledge on Brazil comes from when I watched the World Cup over the summer and what I've picked up on South America's flirtation with military dictatorships. If there is something inherently special to the Workers Party that makes it more likely to engage in corruption, surely you could direct me to it.

Well if you never read anything about the country how would you find something to indicate how other parties can be different?

There was always corruption in Brazil, but not all administrations were the same. The Workers' Party administration has been extraordinarily corrupt, as demonstrated by the fact that the two biggest corruption scandals in Brazilian history were started by them.

Why are they more corrupt than most? Well there's no universally accepted answer; all we have are theories and the empirical fact that they have stolen more than their predecessors. One theory, which makes a lot of sense but IMO is also limited, is that their corruptions derives in part form their totalitarian origins. That is, they view The Party and The State as one and the same, and see no reason why the State apparatus can't be put to the use of The Party. Typically, all their corruption scandals (most notably the Mensalão, which before this one was Brazil's biggest) start not as a means of Party people to enrich themselves, but rather as a way to divert public funds to the Party to buy support and consolidate power. Somewhere along the way the Party members decide there's no reason why they can't pocket a few millions, or hundreds of millions, themselves as well. And that's usually when things start to unravel, since some of the thieves will inevitably turn on each other for bigger and bigger shares of the loot, and eventually one will go to the press or the police and blow the whole thing up - which is exactly what happened in 2005.

 

[Takhisis]

Well as Takhisis mentioned we Brazilians are obsessed with records.

Clearly we won the Corruption World Cup

O mais corrupto do mundo!

Anyway, have I ever heard of a bigger corruption scandal? Maybe. Guess it doesnt count since it isn't the "public sector."

Nooo, and let's shove it under the carpet together with the accusations of rape for the prince and all the cocaine people take at Buckingham and in Parliament.

They're still around, buying the State propaganda lies and deceits like "It's not our fault that toilet paper and food are missing, it's those greedy capitalist pigs super market owners that are hoarding the supplies to create chaos!, or "The greedy businessmen are sabotaging the Revolution on purpose!"

And meanwhile, FARC continue to export their deadly produce under Venezuela's military's sponsorship.

How convenient to ignore that the collapse of export prices of copper slashed Chile's budget by, if I remember right, around a third. Any government would have a hard time following through on even the most small-minded economic plans if they discovered that their budget was slashed by a third with similar levels projected for the next few years.

Stupid or not, there is no getting around the impact the collapse of copper export prices had on the Chilean government's budget. It is like talking about Thatcherite Britain. Had the discovery and exploitation of North Sea oil not turned the pound into a petrodollar, there is quite a bit of uncertainty over whether Thatcher's liberalizing policies would have been successful due to the absolutely abysmal state of the UK economy and its monetary reserves.

Leaving aside the fact that Thatcher's policies failed and the UK still hasn't recovered from them, Brazil and Argentina have both been living off exports, whenever international prices have slumped they've both suffered because of it.

I never said I was an expert on Brazilian politics. Rather, I said that I haven't seen anything indicating things would have been much different had another political party been in charge.
I freely admit most of my knowledge on Brazil comes from when I watched the World Cup over the summer and what I've picked up on South America's flirtation with military dictatorships. If there is something inherently special to the Workers Party that makes it more likely to engage in corruption, surely you could direct me to it.

The Workers' party are, indeed, a bunch of vilely corrupt kleptocrats. But there's… something about them that makes them insidious. They actually think they're saving the world and that they deserve a contribution for it. It's a form of doublethink that is far stronger in Argentina's current incarnation of the Peronist disease.

 

[aelf]

Leaving aside the fact that Thatcher's policies failed and the UK still hasn't recovered from them

But, but... the free market!

 

[luiz]

O mais corrupto do mundo!

Try to beat us in this game, Germany! Ha! Losers!

---------

And of course as expected Dilma finally fired the President of Petrobras. When this was announced earlier this week Petrobras' stocks gained more than 20% in two days, as everybody (including me) thought that the government would name some executive of renowned competence and no political ties to head the company. In fact government sources confirmed this.

BUT... Super Dilma never fails to surprise us, and always for the worst. Today she named another Workers' Party kleptocrat, one who was already implicated in two separate corruption scandals. Unsurprisingly the company's stocks are melting today.

It's a pity that hell doesn't exist, because everybody associated with this government, including everyone who voted for them, deserves eternal torment.

 

[Azale]

lawl just had a thought, this is about Petrobras, not the Argentine murder she wrote scandal. That's what I get for having half the posters in this thread on ignore like a sissy. My bad.

It is massive corruption only approached by a few others on a national basis and the Worker's Party should suffer (and probably the other parties who had their hands dug in Petrobras' pockets too), but I feel like more money gets shifted around shadily under conditions of legality in other places (like the US) when it is near just as corrupt.

 

[Takhisis]

Try to beat us in this game, Germany! Ha! Losers!

The occupation of Yugoslavia in the 90s springs to mind…

And of course as expected Dilma finally fired the President of Petrobras. When this was announced earlier this week Petrobras' stocks gained more than 20% in two days, as everybody (including me) thought that the government would name some executive of renowned competence and no political ties to head the company. In fact government sources confirmed this.

BUT... Super Dilma never fails to surprise us, and always for the worst. Today she named another Workers' Party kleptocrat, one who was already implicated in two separate corruption scandals. Unsurprisingly the company's stocks are melting today.

It's a pity that hell doesn't exist, because everybody associated with this government, including everyone who voted for them, deserves eternal torment.

Hell does exist, and people always deserve a chance for forgiveness, but, still, Rouseff and her cronies appear to be trying their damnedest to be like those corrupt capitalist oligarchic overlords whose errors they say they're trying to rectify.

It is massive corruption only approached by a few others on a national basis and the Worker's Party should suffer (and probably the other parties who had their hands dug in Petrobras' pockets too), but I feel like more money gets shifted around shadily under conditions of legality in other places (like the US) when it is near just as corrupt.

I hope that the following is enough of an answer.

But, but... the free market!

 

[Azale]

Well, the Worker's Party HAS been drifting from the One True Red Faith for some time now

More UNBELIEVABLE SCANDALOUS CORRUPTION: HSBC helps rich people dodge taxes, shocker of shockers. Which only scratches the surface of tax dodging corruption and the complicity between lawmakers and wealthy elites. Sounds like corruption to me.

I mean, if my politicians are going to be corrupt, I'd rather they ALSO spend gobs of money trying to improve living standards, reducing poverty, and bringing the po' into the sphere of the politically active.

Political systems arent responsive enough to immediately punish bad-doers, I think, in Latin America or elsewhere, and voters in Brazil might be reticent to punish the Worker's Party as harshly as they should if they see them as the only sane party concerned with their interests. I dunno.

 

[luiz]

That's their defense line. "Everybody is just as corrupt, but at least we throw you some crumbs!"

It's not true. The living standards of the Brazilian poor improved while commodities were booming and we were running huge trade surpluses. Now that the boom ended living standards have stagnates, and people realize the Workers' Party wasted the "golden decade" with useless handouts and massive corruption, and not really reforming the country or preparing it to harder times when commodities wouldn't be able to pay all bills.

 

[luiz]

And as for "The Economic Consequences of Ms. Rousseff", this year's Brazilian GDP is expected to not grow at all (0% growth was the exact forecast of the latest Central Bank bulletin) and inflation is expected to reach 7.15% (Brazil has an inflation target of 4.5%, with a 2 pp "tolerance band". So anything above 6.5% is officially breaking the target).

Stagnation and inflation - same as Argentina, same as Venezuela (well in Venezuela it's more like recession and hyperinflation). The eternal consequences of populism.

Now that the current crop of red-wearing clowns has been thoroughly discredited by the countless disgraces they have brought to their peoples, I wonder who will be the next "golden boys" of the international idiots. Maybe Tsipras?

 

[Takhisis]

Well, the Worker's Party HAS been drifting from the One True Red Faith for some time now

They make the poor poorer and stupider and the rich wealthier.

More UNBELIEVABLE SCANDALOUS CORRUPTION: HSBC helps rich people dodge taxes, shocker of shockers. Which only scratches the surface of tax dodging corruption and the complicity between lawmakers and wealthy elites. Sounds like corruption to me.

B-bu-bu-but, the free market?

I mean, if my politicians are going to be corrupt, I'd rather they ALSO spend gobs of money trying to improve living standards, reducing poverty, and bringing the po' into the sphere of the politically active.

Political systems arent responsive enough to immediately punish bad-doers, I think, in Latin America or elsewhere, and voters in Brazil might be reticent to punish the Worker's Party as harshly as they should if they see them as the only sane party concerned with their interests. I dunno.

I'd dispute both the points about the Brazilian Workers' Party's sanity and about their being concerned with workers' interests, but that's just cynical old me.