Comment Re:Old concept (Score 1) 110
Still done that way in Japan.
Then again, maybe the country with the world's highest teen suicide rate isn't the best example.
The objection was because state run shops were selling the same models for 1/5th the price or less.
Not even that part is true. Many state-run shops are (even now) selling at similar or even higher prices than Daka did. I've seen the pictures, they've spread like wildfire in social networks.
You are being disingenuous, or are merely ignorant of the wider context (IMHO). You can't debate this subject honestly without seriously discussing the CIA and USA's role in attempting a violent overthrow of Chavez, early in his widely accepted as legitimate democratic leadership.
Actually, this comment makes you look like the disingenuous or uniformed one.
- No evidence or even convincing theories of USA involvement in the attempted overthrow of 2002 have ever been produced.
- While Chavez had been legitimately elected in 1999, by 2002 he had managed to piss off a large fraction of the population by constantly overreaching and refusing to discuss or negotiate anything at all. The attempted overthrow came when this fraction of people thought that the radical measures that Chavez was taking (unprecedented concentration of power on his person) were a huge threat to the stability and well-being of the country. Seeing how Venezuela has gone to shit 10 years later, it would seem they were right. TL,DR: there was legitimate internal discontent. (No need to sow discord from the outside.)
- The events of 2002 could be hardly described as violent. There were far more dead and wounded in the Chavez-led 1992 failed coup.
- As for the 2002 dead, the government accused some cops of their murder but never even bothered to provide any evidence at all. Years later, the judge in charge of the trial fled the country and publicly admitted that it had been a sham trial. Even as one such cop, Ivan Simonovis, is dying in prison from multiple diseases (he has gone whole months without daylight, which is considered torture in civilized countries) the government refuses to grant him even an humanitarian measure.
And did Venezuela stop being able to import groceries after they seized El Exito? Was the country ruined?
Actually a lot of Venezuelans would answer "pretty much" to both questions. Major shortages of basic goods, like flour, sugar, cooking oil and toilet paper started around the time and continue to this day. The collapse of the economy and the skyrocketing crime make living in Venezuela very harsh now.
Hunger and poverty have gone down significantly since 1999. Even the anti-Chavez people accept this.
Chavez's only merit was to be lucky enough to rise to power just in time for the biggest boom in oil prices in the History of Venezuela. The governments of the 80s and 90s never had nearly as many resources as Chavez had. The governments of the 70s were close, and they were MUCH better at reducing poverty (without the violence and hate Chavez brought).
Chavez also seized the oil companies, and stopped Venezuela's biggest resource being a cash cow for foreign companies.
Plain false. Oil industry was nationalized in 1976, over 30 years before Chavez. If anything Chavez has led to Venezuela's biggest resource to be a huge cash cow for Cuba and China.
I've never been there. It's probably the country I most want to visit, and one of the main reasons is because it's so hard for a foreigner to know what the country is really like. I just read the Venezuelan newspapers and talk to Venezuelans sometimes here in Europe (mostly rich Venezuelans who don't like Chavez).
Please do. Venezuelan malandros eat naive, easily-deceived first-worldies like you for lunch.
But that should not be happening in a country with a highly marketable commodity (oil). The nationalization of the oil industry has not been able to maintain previous levels after US and Dutch oil techs were driven out of the country, and production has fallen off by a quarter, and exports fallen off by half since Chavez came to power.
Nationalization has been a major fiasco.
And those (nationalized) refineries aren't going to be fixed by Big Oil. Fool them once. They have a long memory.
Off by over 30 years, pal. The Venezuelan oil industry was nationalized in 1976, and it ran pretty well long after "US and Dutch oil techs were driven out of the country". The decline started in 2003, after Chavez fired en-masse those not loyal to his party. Chavez, not nationalization, ruined the oil industry.
Remember, UNIX spelled backwards is XINU. -- Mt.
