[ManifestDestiny]

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

$1:

"The poor of Venezuela are living much better lately and have increased their purchasing power..."

Chavez is a real bastard!
What kind of a scumbag would help the poor live better!
And helping them to increase their purchasing power so they can make their own financial decisions like adults? Outrageous!!!

MD, did you even bother to read the wiki article or do you just not understand the words?

Sorry, MD,I can't hang around waiting for your next post. I have to head down to the CBC to plan Canada's Marxist (not Leninist but slightly Trotskyite) revolution!

Here is the whole paragraph not a cropped piece that you can spin

$1:

The president of a private Venezuelan research firm which documented 55% real income growth among the poorest sectors of society said that, although his surveys showed rising incomes because of subsidies and grants, the number of people in the worst living conditions has grown. "The poor of Venezuela are living much better lately and have increased their purchasing power . . . without being able to improve their housing, education level, and social mobility," he said. "Rather than help [the poor] become stakeholders in the economic system, what [the government has] done is distribute as much oil wealth as possible in missions and social programs."[6]

I mean you even cut the sentence off what are you the minister Josef Goebbels.

I SIT AROUND FOR YOU? YEAH SURE SEEMS LIKE I AM THE ONE WHO GOT YOUR PANTIES IN A KNOT. Those are panties you like to wear?

[C.M. Burns]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

Here is the whole paragraph not a cropped piece that you can spin

$1:

The president of a private Venezuelan research firm which documented 55% real income growth among the poorest sectors of society said that, although his surveys showed rising incomes because of subsidies and grants, the number of people in the worst living conditions has grown. "The poor of Venezuela are living much better lately and have increased their purchasing power . . . without being able to improve their housing, education level, and social mobility," he said. "Rather than help [the poor] become stakeholders in the economic system, what [the government has] done is distribute as much oil wealth as possible in missions and social programs."[6]

I mean you even cut the sentence off what are you the minister Josef Goebbels.

That's it? That's the extent of your criticism?

"The president of a private Venezuelan research firm which documented 55% real income growth among the poorest sectors of society"

That's terrible!

"[The] number of people in the worst living conditions has grown."
That's really is terrible! But we don't know how what these living conditions are or by how much the number of people living in them have grown.

""Rather than help [the poor] become stakeholders in the economic system, what [the government has] done is distribute as much oil wealth as possible in missions and social programs."

And how do they become stakeholders? Well, literacy is the first step. Mark that one done. The second step would be education but setting up schools and universities for all these people is going to take decades! Venezuela has about 28 million people (close to Canada) but per capita GDP [$12,800] is a little more than 1/4 Canada's per capita GDP [$42,738]

What Chavez has done is use the existing infrastructure (missions and social programs) to help the people at a local level. In a country where 83% of the population belongs to the Roman Catholic Church your damn right you use missions and social programs.

What a prick!

So, basically, after generations of poverty and oppression and illteracy you expect Chavez to magically make these poor, uneducated people capable of improving their housing, education level, and social mobility in 10 years?

How long has it taken America to do that in the South? The job isn't half done and you've been at it for decades!!!

Nothing to say about the rest of my post? No witty repartee? No pithy comebacks? No umm... what are they called again... facts to back up your claims?

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

I mean you even cut the sentence off what are you the minister Josef Goebbels.

Josef Goebbels?

Wikipedia Wikipedia:

After the Nazis gained power in 1933, he was appointed propaganda minister. One of his first acts was to order the burning of books by Jewish or anti-Nazi authors at Bebelplatz and he proceeded to gain full control of every outlet of information in Germany. Following his appointment, his attacks on German Jews became ever fiercer and culminated in the Kristallnacht in 1938, the first open and unrestrained pogrom unleashed by the Nazis.
In his final hours Goebbels allowed his wife, Magda, to kill their six young children. Shortly after, Goebbels and his wife both committed suicide.

I posted a sentence without it's neighbours and I'm Josef Goebbels? I think it's time you took another librium, MD.

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

I SIT AROUND FOR YOU? YEAH SURE SEEMS LIKE I AM THE ONE WHO GOT YOUR PANTIES IN A KNOT.

MD, in the forum you should try to avoid screaming like a little girl.

[fifeboy]

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

MD, in the forum you should try to avoid screaming like a little girl.

[C.M. Burns]

Mentally_Deficient is really gonna take offense to that one!

[ManifestDestiny]

I am sorry you are not a marxist, you are a typical elitist liberal.

[C.M. Burns]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

I am sorry you are not a marxist, you are a typical elitist liberal.

Jesus fucking Christ! I wrote it down for you. All you had to do was copy and paste.
I'm a libertarian socialist!
That's nothing like an elitist liberal OR a liberal elitist.

I guess you needed some cover in order to avoid addressing my inconvenient facts.

[saturn_656]

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

I am sorry you are not a marxist, you are a typical elitist liberal.

Jesus fucking Christ! I wrote it down for you. All you had to do was copy and paste.
I'm a libertarian socialist!
That's nothing like an elitist liberal OR a liberal elitist.

I guess you needed some cover in order to avoid addressing my inconvenient facts.

Are you on crack Burns?

Libertarianism, by definition, seeks to reduce the size and role of the state.

Socialism, by definition, requires an overly large and intrusive state to function.

You are in contradiction.

[ManifestDestiny]

saturn_656 saturn_656:

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

I am sorry you are not a marxist, you are a typical elitist liberal.

Jesus fucking Christ! I wrote it down for you. All you had to do was copy and paste.
I'm a libertarian socialist!
That's nothing like an elitist liberal OR a liberal elitist.

I guess you needed some cover in order to avoid addressing my inconvenient facts.

Are you on crack Burns?

Libertarianism, by definition, seeks to reduce the size and role of the state.

Socialism, by definition, requires an overly large and intrusive state to function.

You are in contradiction.

BINGO!!!!!!!!

But some how in his messed up brain he is right!

[C.M. Burns]

ManifestDestiny ManifestDestiny:

saturn_656 saturn_656:

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

Jesus fucking Christ! I wrote it down for you. All you had to do was copy and paste.
I'm a libertarian socialist!
That's nothing like an elitist liberal OR a liberal elitist.

I guess you needed some cover in order to avoid addressing my inconvenient facts.

Are you on crack Burns?
Libertarianism, by definition, seeks to reduce the size and role of the state.
Socialism, by definition, requires an overly large and intrusive state to function.
You are in contradiction.

BINGO!!!!!!!!
But some how in his messed up brain he is right!

Right, 'cause I have a history of muddled thought.
!!!!!
You guys are hilarious! You might want to check your facts and your cognitive abilities before you post something so embarrassing.

Let's see how Mr Webster defines libertarian and socialist.

Libertarian:
1: an advocate of the doctrine of free will
2 a: a person who upholds the principles of individual liberty especially of thought and action

Maybe you don't like that definition. Let's see what wikipedia says about it:
"Libertarianism is a label used by a broad spectrum[1] of political philosophies which prioritize individual liberty and, or eliminate[2], the role of the state.[3][4] "

"The word stems from the French word libertaire (synonymous to "anarchist").[8]"

You see, I'm an anarchist in Libertarian clothing! Ha! fooled ya! (actually I have mentioned my anarcho-syndicalist leanings)

Socialism:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state

3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.

As I have previously stated, I am not a Marxist.
So, your definition of libertarian included an important element but missed out on the essence, the fundamental quality that marks libertarianism - freedom.

But "Socialism, by definition, requires an overly large and intrusive state to function."

Maybe in the minds of the CONservative party, but not in the minds of political scientists and certainly not in the minds of the editors of Websters fine dictionary.

Anyway... let's imagine that you think that my definitions are still in contradiction. I understand that you are unable to imagine a synthesis of the two seemingly contradictory philosophies, so let me put it all togeher for you in a nice, easy to understand package - I'll even see if I can find a bow!

I

• seek to reduce the size and role of the state;
• uphold the principles of individual liberty, especially of thought and action;
• advocate collective but NOT governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods;
• seek a system of society or group living in which there is no private property (How can there be real freedom AND private property);
• recognize that people are not created with equal skills, talent, health, intelligence, opportunity, geographic fortune, etc.;
• believe that we have a moral obligation to help those who are less fortunate and that collective action is the best way to provide that help;

Anyone not wishing to provide that help is free to withdraw from the collective.

Not so contradictory now, is it?



Now, before you go posting your witty reply, did you actually read what I wrote? Did you understand it? I won't apologize that my political philosphy is a little more complicated than "Greed is good."

[saturn_656]

Ok so you are not in contradiction.

Your brain is simply out to lunch, and I'm not holding my breath for it to come back.

You speak of more rights and freedoms for individuals yet you then turn around and deny them the simple right to property and ownership? Socialist collective ownership always ends up being controlled by the GOVERNMENT.

Your fancy little libertarian socialist utopia is questionable in theory and impossible in reality.

[Toro]

C.M. Burns C.M. Burns:

Yes, the foreign affairs article...

Yes, let's look at the article.

$1:

I had high expectations for Chávez's government and was excited at the possibility of working in an administration that promised to focus on fighting poverty and inequality. But I quickly discovered how large the gap was between the government's rhetoric and the reality of its political priorities. ...

Views differ on how desirable the consequences of many of these reforms are, but a broad consensus appears to have emerged around the idea that they have at least brought about a significant redistribution of the country's wealth to its poor majority. The claim that Chávez has brought tangible benefits to the Venezuelan poor has indeed by now become commonplace, even among his critics. In a letter addressed to President George W. Bush on the eve of the 2006 Venezuelan presidential elections, Jesse Jackson, Cornel West, Dolores Huerta, and Tom Hayden wrote, "Since 1999, the citizens of Venezuela have repeatedly voted for a government that -- unlike others in the past -- would share their country's oil wealth with millions of poor Venezuelans." The Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz has noted, "Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez seems to have succeeded in bringing education and health services to the barrios of Caracas, which previously had seen little of the benefits of that country's rich endowment of oil." Even The Economist has written that "Chávez's brand of revolution has delivered some social gains."

One would expect such a consensus to be backed up by an impressive array of evidence. But in fact, there is remarkably little data supporting the claim that the Chávez administration has acted any differently from previous Venezuelan governments -- or, for that matter, from those of other developing and Latin American nations -- in redistributing the gains from economic growth to the poor. One oft-cited statistic is the decline in poverty from a peak of 54 percent at the height of the national strike in 2003 to 27.5 percent in the first half of 2007. Although this decline may appear impressive, it is also known that poverty reduction is strongly associated with economic growth and that Venezuela's per capita GDP grew by nearly 50 percent during the same time period -- thanks in great part to a tripling of oil prices. The real question is thus not whether poverty has fallen but whether the Chávez government has been particularly effective at converting this period of economic growth into poverty reduction. One way to evaluate this is by calculating the reduction in poverty for every percentage point increase in per capita income -- in economists' lingo, the income elasticity of poverty reduction. This calculation shows an average reduction of one percentage point in poverty for every percentage point in per capita GDP growth during this recovery, a ratio that compares unfavorably with those of many other developing countries, for which studies tend to put the figure at around two percentage points. Similarly, one would expect pro-poor growth to be accompanied by a marked decrease in income inequality. But according to the Venezuelan Central Bank, inequality has actually increased during the Chávez administration, with the Gini coefficient (a measure of economic inequality, with zero indicating perfect equality and one indicating perfect inequality) increasing from 0.44 to 0.48 between 2000 and 2005. ...

The percentage of underweight babies, for example, increased from 8.4 percent to 9.1 percent between 1999 and 2006. During the same period, the percentage of households without access to running water rose from 7.2 percent to 9.4 percent, and the percentage of families living in dwellings with earthen floors multiplied almost threefold, from 2.5 percent to 6.8 percent. In Venezuela, one can see the misiones everywhere: in government posters lining the streets of Caracas, in the ubiquitous red shirts issued to program participants and worn by government supporters at Chávez rallies, in the bloated government budget allocations. The only place where one will be hard-pressed to find them is in the human development statistics.

Remarkably, given Chávez's rhetoric and reputation, official figures show no significant change in the priority given to social spending during his administration. The average share of the budget devoted to health, education, and housing under Chávez in his first eight years in office was 25.12 percent, essentially identical to the average share (25.08 percent) in the previous eight years. And it is lower today than it was in 1992, the last year in office of the "neoliberal" administration of Carlos Andrés Pérez -- the leader whom Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel in the Venezuelan army, tried to overthrow in a coup, purportedly on behalf of Venezuela's neglected poor majority. ...

In a number of recent studies, I have worked with colleagues to look more systematically at the results of Chávez's health and education misiones. Our findings confirm that Chávez has in fact done little for the poor. For example, his government often claims that the influx of Cuban doctors under the Barrio Adentro health program is responsible for a decline in infant mortality in Venezuela. In fact, a careful analysis of trends in infant and neonatal mortality shows that the rate of decline is not significantly different from that of the pre-Chávez period, nor from the rate of decline in other Latin American countries. Since 1999, the infant mortality rate in Venezuela has declined at an annual rate of 3.4 percent, essentially identical to the 3.3 percent rate at which it had declined during the previous nine-year period and lower than the rates of decline for the same period in Argentina (5.5 percent), Chile (5.3 percent), and Mexico (5.2 percent).

Even more disappointing are the results of the government's Robinson literacy program. ...

But along with Daniel Ortega of Venezuela's IESA business school, I looked at trends in illiteracy rates based on responses to the Venezuelan National Institute of Statistics' household surveys. (A full presentation of our study will appear in the October 2008 issue of the journal Economic Development and Cultural Change.) In contrast to the government's claim, we found that there were more than one million illiterate Venezuelans by the end of 2005, barely down from the 1.1 million illiterate persons recorded in the first half of 2003, before the start of the Robinson program. Even this small reduction, moreover, is accounted for by demographic trends rather than the program itself. In a battery of statistical tests, we found little evidence that the program had had any statistically distinguishable effect on Venezuelan illiteracy. We also found numerous inconsistencies in the government's story. For example, it claims to have employed 210,410 trainers in the anti-illiteracy effort (approximately two percent of the Venezuelan labor force), but there is no evidence in the public employment data that these people were ever hired or evidence in the government budget statistics that they were ever paid. ...

A survey taken by the Venezuelan polling firm Alfredo Keller y Asociados in September 2007 showed that only 22 percent of Venezuelans think poverty has improved under Chávez, while 50 percent think it has worsened and 27 percent think it has stayed the same. ...

But by late 2007, Chávez's economic model had begun to unravel. For the first time since early 2004, a majority of voters claimed that both their personal situation and the country's situation had worsened during the preceding year. Scarcities in basic foodstuffs, such as milk, black beans, and sardines, were chronic, and the difference between the official and the black-market exchange rate reached 215 percent. When the Central Bank board received its November price report indicating that monthly inflation had risen to 4.4 percent (equivalent to an annual rate of 67.7 percent), it decided to delay publication of the report until after the vote on the constitutional reform was held.

This growing economic crisis is the predictable result of the gross mismanagement of the economy by Chávez's economic team. During the past five years, the Venezuelan government has pursued strongly expansionary fiscal and economic policies, increasing real spending by 137 percent and real liquidity by 218 percent. This splurge has outstripped even the expansion in oil revenues: the Chávez administration has managed the admirable feat of running a budget deficit in the midst of an oil boom. ...

the government has tried to deal with inflation by expanding the supply of foreign currency to domestic firms and consumers and increasing government subsidies. The result is a highly distorted economy in which the government effectively subsidizes two-thirds of the cost of imports and foreign travel for the wealthy while the poor cannot find basic food items on store shelves. The astounding growth of imports, which have nearly tripled since 2002 (imports of such luxury items as Hummers and 15-year-old Scotch have grown even more dramatically), is now threatening to erase the nation's current account surplus.

What is most distressing is how predictable all of this was. Indeed, Cháveznomics is far from unprecedented: the gross contours of this story follow the disastrous experiences of many Latin American countries during the 1970s and 1980s. The economists Rudiger Dornbusch and Sebastian Edwards have characterized such policies as "the macroeconomics of populism." Drawing on the economic experiences of administrations as politically diverse as Juan Perón's in Argentina, Salvador Allende's in Chile, and Alan García's in Peru, they found stark similarities in economic policies and in the resulting economic evolution. Populist macroeconomics is invariably characterized by the use of expansionary fiscal and economic policies and an overvalued currency with the intention of accelerating growth and redistribution. These policies are commonly implemented in the context of a disregard for fiscal and foreign exchange constraints and are accompanied by attempts to control inflationary pressures through price and exchange controls. The result is by now well known to Latin American economists: the emergence of production bottlenecks, the accumulation of severe fiscal and balance-of-payments problems, galloping inflation, and plummeting real wages.

Chávez's behavior is typical of such populist economic experiments. The initial successes tend to embolden policymakers, who increasingly believe that they were right in dismissing the recommendations of most economists. Rational policy formulation becomes increasingly difficult, as leaders become convinced that conventional economic constraints do not apply to them. Corrective measures only start to be taken when the economy has veered out of control. But by then it is far too late.

The takeover of PDVSA by Chávez loyalists and the subordination of the firm's decisions to the government's political imperatives have resulted in a dramatic decline in Venezuela's oil-production capacity. Production has been steadily declining since the government consolidated its control of the industry in late 2004. According to OPEC statistics, Venezuela currently produces only three-quarters of its quota of 3.3 million barrels a day. Chávez's government has thus not only squandered Venezuela's largest oil boom since the 1970s; it has also killed the goose that lays the golden egg. Despite rising oil prices, PDVSA is increasingly strained by the combination of rising production costs, caused by the loss of technical capacity and the demands of a growing web of political patronage, and the need to finance numerous projects for the rest of the region, ranging from the rebuilding of Cuban refineries to the provision of cheap fuel to Sandinista-controlled mayoralties in Nicaragua. As a result, the capacity of oil revenues to ease the government's fiscal constraints is becoming more and more limited.

Marx said that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

Given that what Chavez is doing has been done before in Latin America over the past five decades with catastrophic consequences, a farce is playing out in Venezuela now.

Rampant inflation, food shortages, large deficits, capital flight, nationalizations, exchange controls, and caudillos who think the laws of supply and demand don't apply to them. Its like a bad B-movie that just repeats itself over and over.

[Donny_Brasco]

LOL, right. Propaganda at it's best. That what they say about Cuba all the time..yet if you go t ocuba people are happy - ya some people want to be greedy and live the igh life...but I've never met a cuban who would rather be a SOL American then a regulsr cuban.

A) because in Cuba (and uner hugo) if you get sick you are taken care of.

If you are sick in America - then you are fucked. too bad for you.

[RUEZ]

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

...but I've never met a cuban who would rather be a SOL American then a regulsr cuban.

Apparently there is over 2 million of them.

[Toro]

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

LOL, right. Propaganda at it's best. That what they say about Cuba all the time..yet if you go t ocuba people are happy - ya some people want to be greedy and live the igh life...but I've never met a cuban who would rather be a SOL American then a regulsr cuban.

A) because in Cuba (and uner hugo) if you get sick you are taken care of.

If you are sick in America - then you are fucked. too bad for you.

Yes, those million American ex-pats living in Havana agree with you.

Oh, wait...

[ManifestDestiny]

RUEZ RUEZ:

Donny_Brasco Donny_Brasco:

...but I've never met a cuban who would rather be a SOL American then a regulsr cuban.

Apparently there is over 2 million of them.

I dont think Donny has ever been to Maimi.