Venezuela

[Numero Veinticinco]

6 hours ago, TK421 said:

He lost me at "Borg".

Borg off. 

[SasaS]

Back to Venezuela and the topic of sanctions and pressure.

 

Bank of England allegedly declines Venezuela's request to withdraw $1.2 billion worth of gold. Interesting thing is that everyone involved, including Venezuela, declined to comment.

 

"The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela’s overseas assets to Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank. The whereabouts of the rest of them is largely unknown. Turkey, though, has emerged recently as a destination for freshly mined Venezuelan gold.

The U.S. is leading an international effort to persuade Turkey -- a key Maduro backer, along with Russia and China -- to stop being a conduit for these gold shipments. Europe’s shift of position clarifies the international battles lines over Venezuela and aligns key powers such as Germany, France and Spain more closely with the Trump administration."

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/u-k-said-to-deny-maduro-s-bid-to-pull-1-2-billion-of-gold

[aRdja]

29 minutes ago, SasaS said:

Back to Venezuela and the topic of sanctions and pressure.

 

Bank of England allegedly declines Venezuela's request to withdraw $1.2 billion worth of gold. Interesting thing is that everyone involved, including Venezuela, declined to comment.

 

"The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela’s overseas assets to Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank. The whereabouts of the rest of them is largely unknown. Turkey, though, has emerged recently as a destination for freshly mined Venezuelan gold.

The U.S. is leading an international effort to persuade Turkey -- a key Maduro backer, along with Russia and China -- to stop being a conduit for these gold shipments. Europe’s shift of position clarifies the international battles lines over Venezuela and aligns key powers such as Germany, France and Spain more closely with the Trump administration."

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-25/u-k-said-to-deny-maduro-s-bid-to-pull-1-2-billion-of-gold

Ridic isn’t it? Happy to take the cash, now too moral to return it.

[SasaS]

25 minutes ago, aRdja said:

Ridic isn’t it? Happy to take the cash, now too moral to return it.

 

It's actually gold. It's indestructable.

 

I guess they are keeping it for the new guy.

[TheHowieLama]

I think the Venezuelan Congress asked for foreign banks to freeze accounts

[SasaS]

Russia has sold $11 billion worth of arms to Venezuela in recent years, along with investments in the country, almost $20 billion worth of business. Reuters reported earlier that Wagner guys are already there to make sure Maduro doesn't slip and fall in the bathroom. It's not gonna be Syria all over again, is it?

https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xwbx8j/this-is-where-we-stand-with-the-political-crisis-in-venezuela

[moof]

A nice piece in the guardian today 

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/28/venezuela-coup-trump-juan-guaido

[Captain Turdseye]

Not a coup. 

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

Venezuela’s Congress on Tuesday also approved a measure asking dozens of foreign governments to freeze bank accounts controlled by Maduro’s government. The measure calls on the United States, European Union and several Latin American governments to instruct regulatory agencies to “prohibit any movement of liquid assets by the Venezuelan state in local bank accounts.”

 

 

 

That was two weeks ago

[SasaS]

1 hour ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Not a coup. 

 

 

More like a counter-coup, or a coup 2.0. The previous coup was apparently when Maduro lost the parliamentary elections and then asked the Supreme Court which he controls to strip the parliament of its powers. He then replaced it with another, newly established parliament filled with representatives elected in an election the opposition boycotted. This previous, outlawed parliament has now proclaimed the interim president and denies Maduro's legitimacy ater yet another disputed (this time presidential) elections.   
 

[TheHowieLama]

All they do is coup

[Red Phoenix]

 

And for the laughs :

 

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

BOOTS!!

[SasaS]

This Boots Riley gentlman, as I learned recently in the films thread, is somewhat of an expert on the coup issue.

[Red Phoenix]

 

[Red Phoenix]

[Anubis]

10 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

All they do is coup

 

I hope it’s not TLW’s Coop. I’d be very disappointed in him.

[Anubis]

So, here we are again. All about the oil. When do we invade...  ...sorry, liberate? Coalition of the oil needy.

[Numero Veinticinco]

5 minutes ago, Anubis said:

So, here we are again. All about the oil. When do we invade...  ...sorry, liberate? Coalition of the oil needy.

It’d be well easier just to give decision makers shares in renewable energy companies and electric car makers. 

[Section_31]

On 1/27/2019 at 1:17 PM, TheHowieLama said:

This is your chance to chime in on how socialism has improved every single country in the world.

It certainly saved the States. The new deal was about as socialist as you can get. The wealthy paid 90% tax under Eisenhower, who was considered a right wing President. 

 

Socialism isn't a catch all, blanket phrase, aspects of it have worked in the West very well, and continue to do so.

[TheHowieLama]

46 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

It certainly saved the States. The new deal was about as socialist as you can get. The wealthy paid 90% tax under Eisenhower, who was considered a right wing President. 

 

Socialism isn't a catch all, blanket phrase, aspects of it have worked in the West very well, and continue to do so.

Well the second New Deal certainly had significant social programs, specifically the union empowerment and Social Security. You could say that Obama bailing out car companies after the crash in 08 was similar. Not sure either happens the same way if it weren't for the financial crises in both of those instances.

Farmers have had subsidies for decades at different times - I guess those would count too then.

Ending Prohibition - good on ya.

 

The 90% is a Bernie Sanders quote -- it has been proven incorrect. 

 

 

TBH I think "socialism" is a catch all at this point - which is why western politicians are terrified of having that label attached to them. Not sure that social programs in a Democracy are really the same thing but point taken.

[Scooby Dudek]

20 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Well the second New Deal certainly had significant social programs, specifically the union empowerment and Social Security. You could say that Obama bailing out car companies after the crash in 08 was similar. Not sure either happens the same way if it weren't for the financial crises in both of those instances.

Farmers have had subsidies for decades at different times - I guess those would count too then.

Ending Prohibition - good on ya.

 

The 90% is a Bernie Sanders quote -- it has been proven incorrect. 

 

 

TBH I think "socialism" is a catch all at this point - which is why western politicians are terrified of having that label attached to them. Not sure that social programs in a Democracy are really the same thing but point taken.

The 90% was something his opponents claimed Sanders said/wanted but he never did.

 

The was however a 90% marginal tax rate in the 1950s.

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

6 minutes ago, Scooby Dudek said:

The 90% was something his opponents claimed Sanders said/wanted but he never did.

 

The was however a 90% marginal tax rate in the 1950s.

 

 

Sanders certainly referenced it directly when he was asked how high he was willing to take taxes.

 

Yes - that rate was on the books (it was also on the books under FDR) -- it has been proven that the effective tax rates paid were less than half of that -- in fact only a few more points than todays effective tax rates.

[SasaS]

We should really first define what we mean by socialism, you could equally make the case that market-oriented economy is capitalist and then list how capitalism helped socialist economies, from NEP in the Soviet Union, when they briefly introduced liberal reforms to avoid famine, to China which saw unprecedented growth since it let in market forces. And for that matter, is China a socialist economy and if it is, how is what we now have in the EU capitalism?

[Jairzinho]

1 hour ago, SasaS said:

We should really first define what we mean by socialism, you could equally make the case that market-oriented economy is capitalist and then list how capitalism helped socialist economies, from NEP in the Soviet Union, when they briefly introduced liberal reforms to avoid famine, to China which saw unprecedented growth since it let in market forces. And for that matter, is China a socialist economy and if it is, how is what we now have in the EU capitalism?

 

You'd also have to flesh out exactly what this means. Because, surely, the reality is that the vast majority of economies are a bit/some/a lot/etc.