In which we discuss Madurismo

[ReindeerThistle]

Cheezy, you are correct. SICAD amd SICAD2 were/ are aimed at linking currency value to labor. It's very hard when the 1% in the BRV are clinging to their money.

Again, Chávez' successors (the system of the BRV government) are not Chávez... we shall see.

 

[Agent327]

Oh no, not our precious monies!

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." - Lenin

The only failure that results from inflation is if they fail afterwards to replace the obsolete money-based markets with a needs-based distribution system. Curiously, the specificities of the Bolivarian structure may be closer to the ability to perform this than others who have faced this challenge. On the other hand, though, it would require organization at the top, to destroy bourgeois power in the country completely, and repurpose the state toward obsolescing itself. But I doubt that's possible right now, or that the government in place is capable of it. Chavez could do it, but the real test of any leader is the leaders he leaves behind, I suppose.

If you'd been following event you might have known that the Chavex regime was only capable of instituting a 10% inflation. By that standard Maduro is doping much 'better'.

But it seems you are as little understanding of what what inflation actually entails as RT, I'm afraid. While under Chavez workers pay was sliced off for only 1/10ths worth, Maduro currently is doing much 'better'.

It's a pity proclaimed Communists seem to know so little about economy.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

It's a pity proclaimed Communists seem to know so little about [what passes for economics as spewed out in bourgeois economics textbooks] economy.

Edited for truth...

and a fact of which I am enormously proud...

Just one of our offices can get 6 people to the doctor free of charge every week, and follow-up treatment and meds, for less than the cost of a tank of gas... just saying.

 

[luiz]

Oh no, not our precious monies!

"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." - Lenin

The only failure that results from inflation is if they fail afterwards to replace the obsolete money-based markets with a needs-based distribution system. Curiously, the specificities of the Bolivarian structure may be closer to the ability to perform this than others who have faced this challenge. On the other hand, though, it would require organization at the top, to destroy bourgeois power in the country completely, and repurpose the state toward obsolescing itself. But I doubt that's possible right now, or that the government in place is capable of it. Chavez could do it, but the real test of any leader is the leaders he leaves behind, I suppose.

And once again we see clearly why commies are bad for the poor...

Free lesson in economics: inflation acts as tax on those who can't get inflation-protected investments. Guess who they are? Yep, the poor, who keep most of their small savings in either in cash or in high liquidity (and thus unprotected) saving accounts.

A well-off, investment savvy and net saver type like me actually thrives with high inflation, because real interst rates tend to go up and there are always heaps of highly profitable speculative options. Of course, the whole economy goes to hell. Bit unlike the poor I have more than enough resources to relocate anywhere I want, and there will always be plenty of high paying jobs for me.

So no, comrade, when I decry high inflation it's not me being greedy or self-centered, but rather me caring about the bigger picture and also other human beings (we non-communists are concerned with actual human beings, as opposed to the abstract concept of humanity).

 

[Lone Wolf]

To be fair to luiz, I'm pretty sure that the Venezuelan government doesn't deliberately cultivate inflation in order to make its currency worthless.

And Lenin probably never said that. It was Keyes reporting it as hearsay.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Paraphrasing and heresay are not the same thing.

And no, they don't. I'm just pointing out that it's not a failure, and that there are opportunities at hand if they see them and can act on them.

If they don't, and completely blow it, then things could wind up very unpleasant.

Although it's worth considering that, if inflation is so good for the rich and their precious investment opportunities, then it remains to be asked that why wouldn't they want it or cause it to happen?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Incidentally, things are kinda business-as-usual in the BRV, according to my FB news feeds. So much for mass movements.

 

[luiz]

Yes yes, we're aware of how great you are. You have the ability to do everything yourself, AND care about the poor. Because you're a free man. Aren't you so wonderful.

You care about the poor only because if you didn't, they would lop your head off so fast. Bill Gates cares about the poor as well, and Mirabeau and Disraeli, they cared about the poor too, why, look at all the rhetoric they poured upon it! And yet it seems that whenever it comes to those poor actually getting power for themselves, and negotiating with the ruling class on equal terms, you wonderful people are always first in line to denounce them as murderous savages and the enemies of mankind.

The very act of a market exchange is an unequal one which steals wealth away from the buyer through extortion. As if capitalists didn't already get enough of a cut of a man's labour when they paid out the wages, they have to take even more by selling back to him what he already made! No, inflation is good in this case, because it'll destroy the financial power of the bourgeoisie, and necessitate the push away from a market-based economy.

A needs-based economy, that's one that's fair. That's one that doesn't fleece the poor for all it can for the benefit of the top 1% and a few of their middle-class cronies, because exchanges are equal and the poor are put in charge of their own labour and production. Take your "concern for the poor" and put it back where it came from:

I don't think I'm great. I don't fancy myself as a great revolutionary changing the course of history, rescuing mankind from its evil oppressors. I don't suffer from such delusions of grandeur, and rather pity those who do. I just choose to spend my time actually doing productive stuff that helps me and indirectly others, as opposed to waste my life on pathetic megalomaniac dreams. And I do consider myself a free man, you're right about that. I feel no allegiance to 19th Century death-cults. I don't think all truth about the Universe was revealed by a frustrated middle-class German.

The rest of your post is equally sad. The thing is, it was the liberal politicians and theoreticians that you decry that actually helped build extremely prosperous societies where everyone, including the poor, live a dignified and materially abundant life. The followers of your death-cult only produced misery, and sent the poor to their deaths by the millions, be it on the GULAG or starving to death in the fields of China as a result of ******** and brutal economic policies. We liberals treat people as humans, you cultists treat them as objects on a grand experiment, expendable and replaceable.

I don't think you and your ilk care about the poor at all. You are deluded cultists with overly inflated egos.You don't want to liberate anyone from the "ruling classes", you want to be a member of the Politburo and boss others around. You want power over life and death. Your ideology has been defeated, and unmasked, and is rejected by the working class it is supposed to free. Once the whole world was terrified of the psychopathic members of the cult, now it's just sad and pathetic.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Yes, we have overly inflated egos, and suffer delusions of grandeur... while we advocate for the equality of man and the destruction of all systems of oppression and hierarchy.

No communist thinks they are a saint, or suffers from the ridiculous assumption that as an individual they matter. You know who does that? Who thinks the individual is so blessed important, so individually sovereign, that he has the right to destroy the freedom of others in the exercising of his own freedom? Who has remade, and continually remakes, all of society in the form which benefits himself at the top? The capitalist. It is the capitalist, who is not content with simply being happy and having enough for himself, and is driven by greed and personal ego to maximize his own livelihood while enslaving his fellow men. He must own everything. The factories and land which make wealth. The money which physically embodies that wealth. The government which protects that wealth. And indeed, even the wealth itself. 67 people own more wealth than the bottom 3.5 billion. Do you comprehend these numbers? This is egoism, self-worship, and grandeur delusions at their finest. And yet sycophants like you can do nothing but worship them, praise them for being the saviors of mankind, repeating all the same lies they spew in order to legitimize their rule.

Talk about projection. You're the one who comes in here constantly beating your chest about how great you are. It's strange that you have to get your kicks and your man-freedom-liberty-strong validation by beating down the people who are already the most vulnerable in society, and the people who humbly dedicate their lives to helping to improve their miserable lot. I don't pretend to be offended, because I have no ego to bruise. I am not the person that you say I am, I know that I am no better than the least among me. But I also know that I am no worse.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Again... BRV citizens must be back to normal... most of my telesur news is about Turkey and Ukraine.

 

[luiz]

Yes, we have overly inflated egos, and suffer delusions of grandeur... while we advocate for the equality of man and the destruction of all systems of oppression and hierarchy.

No communist thinks they are a saint, or suffers from the ridiculous assumption that as an individual they matter. You know who does that? Who thinks the individual is so blessed important, so individually sovereign, that he has the right to destroy the freedom of others in the exercising of his own freedom? Who has remade, and continually remakes, all of society in the form which benefits himself at the top? The capitalist. It is the capitalist, who is not content with simply being happy and having enough for himself, and is driven by greed and personal ego to maximize his own livelihood while enslaving his fellow men. He must own everything. The factories and land which make wealth. The money which physically embodies that wealth. The government which protects that wealth. And indeed, even the wealth itself. 67 people own more wealth than the bottom 3.5 billion. Do you comprehend these numbers? This is egoism, self-worship, and grandeur delusions at their finest. And yet sycophants like you can do nothing but worship them, praise them for being the saviors of mankind, repeating all the same lies they spew in order to legitimize their rule.

Talk about projection. You're the one who comes in here constantly beating your chest about how great you are. It's strange that you have to get your kicks and your man-freedom-liberty-strong validation by beating down the people who are already the most vulnerable in society, and the people who humbly dedicate their lives to helping to improve their miserable lot. I don't pretend to be offended, because I have no ego to bruise. I am not the person that you say I am, I know that I am no better than the least among me. But I also know that I am no worse.

That's right, liberals and capitalists care about individuals. You said it yourself you don't believe individuals matter; they are just pieces on a board. No, I believe individuals are all that matter. I'm not willing to sacrifice anyone to enact my own vision of paradise. I don't want to force my own vision of paradise down anyone's throat, and I don't think we can build a better society over the corpses of millions.

You worship murderers. You know that Lenin is responsible for the deaths of God-knows how many innocents. You're OK with the kidnapping and murdering family members of supposed enemies of the regime. Because after all individuals don't matter, only the realization of history does. To a normal person capable of empathy, Lenin was a monster, as are those who worship him.

Yes, capitalism has produced billionaires with obscene wealth. It has also lifted hundreds of millions of people from abject poverty just in the last decades, particularly in China and India, were failed and moronic socialist policies has led to mass starvation. Every country that adopts proper liberalism prospers, every country that embraces "socialism" goes to the crapper. East vs West Germany, North vs South Korea, Mainland China vs Taiwan... I see a pattern. Capitalism has produced societies where virtually 100% of the population lives in material abundance.

As for chest-thumping.. I'm not the one constantly praising my own work. I'm not the one claiming to be THE ONLY ONE ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN HELPING THE POOR. Nope, not me. Take a good hard look at this very thread and see who is doing that. I don't think of myself as anyone's savior, I don't think of myself as a member of the vanguard. I don't think I'm more "politically advanced" and thus entitled to lead. Got it?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

If you dropped all the communist names from that rant, it would apply identically to you. Your wonderful system has enslaved the world, is responsible for all the suffering, the malnutrition, the starvation, the deformed babies, the misogyny, the racism, the squalor, and the inequalities in the world. You created it, you defend it. Capitalism isn't the story of the burgeoning wealth of the world, it's the story of the merciless extraction of wealth from most of the world into a few tiny corners of it. If you look at it with a magnifying glass, it might look alright. Oh look, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Western Europe, the US, aren't they doing well! All that adds up to a tiny fraction of the world's population. Like I said before, there are 67 people who own more wealth than the poorest 3.5 billion on the planet. Let's put that in perspective. 67 people will fit in a cafe, or on a double-decker bus, or in a single rail car. 3.5 billion people is half of humanity.

Now stare deep into yourself, and truly say that a rail car's worth of people is more important than half of the human race. That they deserve to live the most extravagant, luxurious lives, while half, literally half of all humans alive, 3.5 billion of those precious individuals you say you love oh so very much, must rot in squalor, deprived of the dignity of the most basic of life's necessities. No education, they work starting when they are children. No sanitation, they are exposed to all the maladies of the jungle, all of the brutal sicknesses the First World has gotten rid of. They have no future, just an early death. Their society cannot provide for them, because the wealth of their world is syphoned away to another part of the globe, where 67 individuals and a few hundred million of their compatriots live in luxury, or something like it. And anyone who dares to question the divine logic of this system is suppressed with the utmost brutality.

This is your capitalism, your wonderful gem of human civilization. You are a hypocrite, as is anyone who condemns the crimes and misfortunes of communism while ignoring - or even praising! - the colossal crimes and continuing crimes of capitalism, which have claimed so many times the victims of even your most absurdly demagogic of estimates of suffering under communism.

Not that playing that stupid numbers game is anything more than a puerile exercise in the first place, but hey, if you wanna play a game you'll lose, I'm up for it.

As for chest-thumping.. I'm not the one constantly praising my own work. I'm not the one claiming to be THE ONLY ONE ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN HELPING THE POOR. Nope, not me. Take a good hard look at this very thread and see who is doing that. I don't think of myself as anyone's savior, I don't think of myself as a member of the vanguard. I don't think I'm more "politically advanced" and thus entitled to lead. Got it?

Defending oneself from bullying is not the same thing as worshiping oneself. You beat us down, and we remind you, and ourselves, that we are no less than equal because of who we are. We have no delusions about our importance, no messianism. We are not here to save anyone, to lead anyone. We are here to be part of a group, to lift other people up along with us, together, because we know that it can't be done alone, that it shouldn't be done alone.

A few words from Eugene Debs will suffice to explain:

"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself, but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was asked: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That question has never yet been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society." - Eugene V. Debs

 

[Hygro]

inflation acts as tax on those who can't get inflation-protected investments. Guess who they are? Yep, the poor, who keep most of their small savings in either in cash or in high liquidity (and thus unprotected) saving accounts.

Yes I heard this in a couple of my econ classes as well, and it's not true. It's a lesson in psychology that people keep repeating this despite not knowing why it's false. The poor get their money from income/labor. While supply side inflation is everyone getting poorer, demand side inflation, which is this conversation, comes from firms raising prices because everyone's got money to spend, which is another way of saying that higher wages are driving inflation.

So the first order of business is wages go up, then prices go up in response, and unless the economy is at full output, prices will go up less than wages go up with a largest net gain for the people who are most dependent on income, i.e. the poor.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

. I don't think of myself as anyone's savior, I don't think of myself as a member of the vanguard. I don't think I'm more "politically advanced" and thus entitled to lead. Got it?

Luiz tips his hand.

Venezuela Slams US for Threatening Sanctions

Venezuela Slams US for Threatening Sanctions
Ryan Mallett-Outtrim (VA):The Venezuelan government has condemned the United States for threatening to impose sanctions, and accused Washington of encouraging “extremist sectors”.
In a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Maduro government accused the US of “meddling in…internal affairs” and “ignoring our democratic process”.

 

[Takhisis]

Yes I heard this in a couple of my econ classes as well, and it's not true. It's a lesson in psychology that people keep repeating this despite not knowing why it's false. The poor get their money from income/labor. While supply side inflation is everyone getting poorer, demand side inflation, which is this conversation, comes from firms raising prices because everyone's got money to spend, which is another way of saying that higher wages are driving inflation.

So the first order of business is wages go up, then prices go up in response, and unless the economy is at full output, prices will go up less than wages go up with a largest net gain for the people who are most dependent on income, i.e. the poor.

Yes, but that's theory. I live in neighbouring Argentina and high inflation (35-50% depending on whose estimate it is for this year) definitely works in favour of the ones with more money.

 

[Hygro]

Yes, but that's theory. I live in neighbouring Argentina and high inflation (35-50% depending on whose estimate it is for this year) definitely works in favour of the ones with more money.

Perhaps. I'd like to know more.

 

[luiz]

Yes I heard this in a couple of my econ classes as well, and it's not true. It's a lesson in psychology that people keep repeating this despite not knowing why it's false. The poor get their money from income/labor. While supply side inflation is everyone getting poorer, demand side inflation, which is this conversation, comes from firms raising prices because everyone's got money to spend, which is another way of saying that higher wages are driving inflation.

So the first order of business is wages go up, then prices go up in response, and unless the economy is at full output, prices will go up less than wages go up with a largest net gain for the people who are most dependent on income, i.e. the poor.

You are completely and utterly wrong and should pay more attention to your professors, there's a reason why they're teaching and not you

No, the inflation in Venezuela, much like it was in Brazil in the early 90's, is a result of the government not being able to pay it's bills through normal means, that is normal taxation and bonds. So they print money, making money lose value because wealth is not created from thin air, and so in fact what they do is create a covert tax on liquidity. People with liquid assets will lose money, and the people who only have liquid assets (as opposed to real estate or inflation protected securities, or hard currency denominated investment) are the poor. So the poor get screwed far more, as they don't have access to the financial markets wher people can protect themselves from inflation, nor have they much property whose value is largely unaffected.

So I suggest a little more humility. Try learning stuff, your knowledge of economics is quite limited from all I've read here.

 

[Agent327]

Perhaps. I'd like to know more.

Simple arithmetic: if you have 100 g, say 10% inflation will leave you with 90 g. However, if you have 10 g, you need to worry where to get that lost 1 g.

Your wonderful system has enslaved the world, is responsible for all the suffering, the malnutrition, the starvation, the deformed babies, the misogyny, the racism, the squalor, and the inequalities in the world.

Source missing.

Edited for truth...

and a fact of which I am enormously proud...

I wouldn't be to proud of having a poor understanding about economics - Marx didn't make that mistake.

 

[Hygro]

You are completely and utterly wrong and should pay more attention to your professors, there's a reason why they're teaching and not you

No, the inflation in Venezuela, much like it was in Brazil in the early 90's, is a result of the government not being able to pay it's bills through normal means, that is normal taxation and bonds. So they print money, making money lose value because wealth is not created from thin air, and so in fact what they do is create a covert tax on liquidity. People with liquid assets will lose money, and the people who only have liquid assets (as opposed to real estate or inflation protected securities, or hard currency denominated investment) are the poor. So the poor get screwed far more, as they don't have access to the financial markets wher people can protect themselves from inflation, nor have they much property whose value is largely unaffected.

So I suggest a little more humility. Try learning stuff, your knowledge of economics is quite limited from all I've read here.

Oh they print the money so it loses value?

I never ever thought about that.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Simple arithmetic: if you have 100 g, say 10% inflation will leave you with 90 g. However, if you have 10 g, you need to worry where to get that lost 1 g.

Not... Inflation is not loss of money, it's loss of monetary value.

10% annual inflation means the thing that cost 100 guilders last year cost 110 this year... but guilders are worthless anyway, because you use the €, n'est pas?

It doesn't mean prices go up across the board...

Food, housing, education and health care are all still available... and subsidized... btw... and those Maidanist Opposition hooligans have destroyed 11 free medical centers and trashed state-run grocery stores... so, there goes the neighborhood.

And... it's the price of your flatscreen that's really affected, you know.

I wouldn't be to proud of having a poor understanding about economics - Marx didn't make that mistake.

Jeelen tips his hand.