OT: Ray, how's your Bitcoin investment going?

[93legendti]

Originally Posted by slidey

I agree that Venezuela has had its own share of issues - but for all its faults there are two things that are a certainty:

1. The Venezuelan election system is widely regarded as incorrigible, even by its detractors.

2. Chavez brought oil under govt control, and with the revenues he actually did social good - set up schools, govt run hospitals, housing for the poor, etc.

A major criticism of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela has been #2 above, that he generated huge revenues from oil and put very little back into it. Although if you refer to the cornerstones of Bolivarianism there is more similarities in there with pragamatic capitalism, than differences with the only exception being South American economic and political sovereignty, since the means to achieve this was cutting out access to oil to oil co's of foreign nations.

Why then in the US is there such a poor view of Chavez despite him being democratically elected thrice? Is it due to the sour taste left in the mouth of american legislators by the indirect US-aided coup attempt in 2002 (See Q5), during which the people protested to bring Chavez back to power hence giving unprecedented legitimacy to Chavez's policies even outside of the ballot box? Is it due to the fact that Venezuela's natural resources are nationalised, hence making it impossible for foreign oil co's to exploit? Or is it due to the proximity of Chavez to Castro? Is it due to the fact that for a long time Bolivarian economics was actually performing well, hence posing a threat to the overtly capitalistic intentions of Wall St and their lobbied puppets? All these are valid questions, and being unbiased by virtue of not belonging to any of the contested nationalities/interests herein I've found it rather easy to at least partially laud the Bolivarian economics.

At the present, yes there definitely is a crisis in terms of inflation in the country. Let's see where Maduro can lead the country.

By the way, this video is quite an unbiased, in my view, discussion of the Venezuelan economics.

Yeah, Venezula is the second coming of the Garden of Eden. I hear the citizens are thrilled:

"The anti-government demonstrations are the biggest threat President Nicolas Maduro has faced since his election last year. And inside and outside the South American country's borders, there's a major question many are asking: Could this be the beginning of the end for Venezuela's socialist
The situation doesn't look pretty. Inflation topped 56% last year. Crime rates are high. Goods shortages have left store shelves bare."

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/22/world/...ism/index.html