Venezuela: Cheap Television Sets For All! 702
solareagle writes "Venezuelan President Maduro has declared war on 'bourgeois parasites' by taking over Daka, an electronics retailer similar to Best Buy. USA Today reports, 'National guardsmen, some of whom had assault rifles, were positioned around outlets of [Daka] ... Maduro has ordered to lower prices or face prosecution. Thousands of people lined up at the Daka stores hoping for a bargain after the government forced the companies to charge "fair" prices. "I want a Sony plasma television for the house," said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator who waited seven hours outside a Caracas store ... "It's going to be so cheap!" "This is for the good of the nation," Maduro said, referring to the military's occupation of Daka. "Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses Let nothing remain in stock!" Maduro said his seizures are the 'tip of the iceberg' and that other stores would be next if they did not comply with his orders.'"
And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:4, Insightful)
People said that the characters in Atlas Shrugged were two-dimensional cardboard cutouts and that real life is totally not like that... I guess they never went to Venezuela.
They also said that Ayn Rand would leave us in some sort of post-apocalyptic world with no police, firemen, schools, or anything basic services. Who knew that the entire city government of Detroit for the last 40 years were all a bunch of secret Ayn Rand worshipers who have finally put her dreams into action!?!?!?!??
This was just a personal vendetta or vote fishing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good for them (Score:1, Insightful)
This would be a good start. Everything you have over 500 million? Gone. Belongs to the other 99% now.
Thanks for doing your part so well. You rich have truely served your purpose for the greater good.
But nah. never happen. instead it's going to get more and more unequal until people have to die.
We're pretty much past the point where that happened other times in history. So we're getting overdue.
It's gonna get nasty and violent. The wealth WILL be redistributed. And the longer it takes the worse it will be.
Should be entertaining at least. Hope i see it in my lifetime.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:5, Insightful)
People said that the characters in Atlas Shrugged were two-dimensional cardboard cutouts and that real life is totally not like that... I guess they never went to Venezuela.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure Venezuela is a parody of real life.
I also don't think Ayn Rand was talking about Venezuela, or that most of her detractors would support a government take over of Best Buy, but you know, shades of grey and all that.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
can you then tell are the "fair" prices high enough that they can restock or did venezuela just fuck up over-the-table electronics retailing for good in the country?
if the prices are't high enough then it's a short term robbery solution really..
I mean who the fuck would officially import ANYTHING to the country after this if they might e forced to sell the inventory at a lower price than what they paid for it...
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember all the morons on Slashdot who thought Chavez was the best thing since sliced bread and wanted the U.S. to follow in his footsteps.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The World Social Forum [venezuelanalysis.com] — yes, it is just what it sounds like, plenty of Ayn Rand detractors, to put it mildly — once declared Hugo Chavez a "guest of honor". Yeah, they would support just such a government. Of course, when the take-overs (a.k.a. confiscations) begin in earnest, the weaker among them will try to forget it and lament, how this particular attempt at Communism "was not done right either" and how the next one — the one they'll undertake — will finally show the whole glory of the new order.
Re:Get some facts first, or wait til dust settles (Score:4, Insightful)
I read the article, which claimed that this was to set an example. Also, retailers are attempting to price their products based on the hyperinflation that the country is experiencing, and the government is attempting to force them to stop doing this.
Are you prepared to invest your money in a business venture to import consumer goods into Venezuela?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
What's really going to make this thing sting is that it is illegal to fire or lay people off in Venezuela. I guarantee you that this is going to cause their profits to dry up really fast. What happens when there's no money to pay the workers? The management gets sent to jail? Executed? I'm sure that will work out real nice.
Entrepreneurism is well known to be what drives economies. What's going to happen when people realize that starting a business in Venezuela is a bad idea? (Hell, they probably already do at this point; Venezuela will probably see foreign investment dry up very fast as a result of this, assuming it hasn't already.)
Re:Get it now (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, they will... Take it from a USSR survivor, there will be two groups of importers: official and otherwise.
The officially-imported electronics will be available in the government-run stores — for Sean Penn and other supporters of Socialism to see. No, ordinary people would not be able to buy anything there — you'd either need to have a special pass to enter the store, or have hard-currency (or some sort of government-issued coupons). Though the prices will be denominated in Bolivars, you'll have to exchange your foreign currency right there — at the official rate...
The unofficially imported stuff will be sold on the black market, which the government will fight tooth and nail — thus providing law-enforcement with easy side-income (that is likely to exceed their official salary). The corruption will, well, corrupt the entire population — and the law-enforcement in particular — for generations to come. The actual businessmen bothering with such imports will be denounced as "speculators" — by contrasting their prices with those of the government stores (described above).
A grey area will be represented by people, who purchase their own stuff abroad. They would, probably, be allowed such items — perhaps, after paying some customs fee — and even permitted to sell them (used). As long, as of course, they don't attempt to profit from such sales...
Re:Next comes the blood. (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, I buy about as much music now as I did in the 70's and 80's. I just never rebuy it. I bought the "Days of future passed" album by the Moody Blues on LP, 8 track, LP again when the original got scratched, on cassette 3 times and CD twice. I ripped it to my computer and never bought it again. I never will buy it again. They can keep the fucking copyright for the next 3 Trillion Millennium if the greedy fuckers want to but I have it in perpetuity because it's digital. I don't have any problem with them making money but do they really need to make 30 million dollars off a CD where there may be one or two hits and the rest are mediocre filler? Give me a break.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:3, Insightful)
We already had a case of that in the US in the 70's when the government put price controls on fuel because the average Joe felt that it was so high that it was oppressive.
The resulting scarcity of fuel was much worse than the high prices. That is what I'm fairly certain is going to happen in Venezuela, and is also what I'm fairly sure going to happen with US health care post ObamaCare.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ms. Feinstein lives in a fairy land where fairness is King. I expect any day for her to try to repeal the law of gravity because it's not fair that some people are heavier than others.
Re:LOLWUT (Score:2, Insightful)
I never have been able to get a straight answer out of anyone. What is their "fair share?" 50%, 60% 80% or, as I suspect, Everything?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
bummer.
i've been to venezuela many times. it is a great place. the last time i was there the black market exchange was Bs.7 to $1. that was just 3 years ago. now it is Bs.60 to $1. a country with vast oil reserves should be investing not spending!
With this Maduro is killing the last vestiges of business. Nobody will start one because the government will just call them thieves and seize everything. Maduro is digging his own grave.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't worry, they still do. Socialists never let a little reality get in the way of their ideals.
Dictatorship, plain and simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it has been in a death spiral for a while now.
The country is spending money like crazy while keeping their money printing presses running around the clock. Read the line in the article, "Venezuela's central bank said the country's money supply grew 70% in the past year." The currency is collapsing due to stupidity and power-grabs in government.
Many countries have seen this sort of thing happen, and it is not pretty. Wheelbarrows of money to buy bread, only accepting payment in foreign currency, and financial collapse are common with this scenario that is playing right now.
Zimbabwe did this about a decade ago as the currency collapsed. Collectors picked up the trillion dollar notes that were printed at the end of the collapse and worth practically nothing. I hope it doesn't happen but part of me thinks it would be fun to collect a billion bolivar note from the country if/when the collapse happens.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Reading crap like Atlas Shrugged is like repeatedly having unprotected sex with somebody with AIDS and a dozen other STDs.
If your mind is so weak reading ANY book is the mental equivalent of getting AIDS, then perhaps you should be retiring yourself from all political discourse as your only function is to ape what others do or say (as was evidenced fully by the rest of your post).
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course the workers are getting screwed. That's the false promise of communism, that the workers benefit at the expense of the wealthy.
Re: Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That is what I'm fairly certain is going to happen in Venezuela, and is also what I'm fairly sure going to happen with US health care post ObamaCare.
Huh? What? We 'make' our own healthcare, it's not like we import hosptials much. If the ACA does what it's intended to do (unlikely), then it will fund the healthcare system somewhat better than before. If it doesn't do that, it's pretty much business as usual (slow downhill course in affordability). In neither situation is the availablity of healthcare going to change. Neither situation is likely to result in wholesale hospital closures or doctors shutting down their practices and heading to Belieze.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the definition of socialism changed over the years. First it was social ownership of everything with no private property. Then it was central planning of the industry with some made up price system that never worked like the various schemes Soviet Union came up with (usually followed by a famine). Then it was the "third way" of countries like Yugoslavia (at the time it was briefly prosperous before the collapse) with a mix of state owned industry and some small scale private enterprise. Now it's basically a capitalist economy like Sweden with a slightly higher taxes than in the US and more welfare spending. Pretty soon you guys will finally be driven all the way to the right and call laissez-faire capitalism "socialism".
Re: Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's to say that everything shouldn't be free?
I guess no one...
But what I can say is that if my hard work is now "free", then I won't work hard anymore.
If you don't compensate people for what they do, they'll stop doing it, unless you enslave them and use brute force. It works for awhile, until it doesn't.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:4, Insightful)
A politician who uses military power just to steal some TVs really is the sort of living, two-dimensional cardboard cutout that would fit nicely in an Rand tome.
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry for pissing on your righeous parade, but Sweden is a social democrat [wikipedia.org] state, and social democracies are still a form of socialism. In fact, it's further to the left than a textbook social democracy, because Sweden still forces some sectors of the economy to be centrally planned and managed, such as housing and licquor selling. In fact, the swedish government has a ministry dedicated to managing Sweden's housing and construction.
Where would you fit a ministry dedicated to housing and construction in your laissez-faire capitalism idea?
That's not exactly a policy which is to the right of Europe's typical social democracies, is it?
The slippery slope [wikipedia.org] nonsense is nonsense, and you're only showing off your ignorance.
Re:And people called Atlas Shrugged Fiction.... (Score:2, Insightful)
There seems to be some nonsensical snobbery that says I won't read it because it's a) nonsense and/or b) too simple. I don't understand why people who say that think it makes them look good. To me they look incredibly naive. The book is incredibly popular and influential, and has devotees within very influential parts of society. Why wouldn't you want to read it yourself so that you can both know what it really says and better understand what it is that people like about it.
I also entirely agree with your concise suggestion on retiring from political commentary if you just want to mimic other people's points without understanding them.
Re:Next comes the blood. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nationalization has been a major fiasco.
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. Something the USA is famous for. I'm thinking right now that some machiavellian elite of the USA are probably pretty happy with being able to drive a country to insanity and suffering the way it appears they are succeeding in driving Venezuela (or this is all some B.S. slashdot twisting of reality, but I come here for the philisophical debate that results). Sort of like that line in Hotel Rwanda explaining how some elites convinced two sets of natives to be racist against one another based on their nose shape or something. Divide and Conquer. Or the machiavellian move here- fuck with other countries leaders- not kill them mind you- but just keep on fucking with them in order to get their country to be weaker so that you can perpetually dominate them.
It's a jungle out there kids... Good Luck.
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Notice a pattern? The definition changes to fit whoever someone needs to have made a bogeyman out of.
Pretty soon you guys will finally be driven all the way to the right and call laissez-faire capitalism "socialism".
I think that line has already been crossed when simpkly the thought of everyone having health insurance has been called "socialism".
Re: Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Or if there is more than everybody could possibly consume, and nobody needed to produce it.
This is why I like robots.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone will be piss poor.
The saddest part is that is never quite what happens.
Private property is the most fundamental component of freedom and democracy. Strong private property rights both in the form of society won't allow a strong man to just smash and grab and society does not appropriate property at will are key. Add to that a currency and you get a form of democracy. One mans money is as good as the next and if you want more of it you'll have to get offer him something he will consider a fair trade for it.
What you get in the face of communism/socialism is political currency becomes a new sort of exchange. Politically important people still find a way to concentrate wealth in their hands. Even shortly after the Russian revolution while perhaps most people were hungry and being forced to share what had been single domiciles because nothing could get built or maintained, loyal party members got to eat tea-biscuits and watch the ballet. Sixty years later when it all comes a part a small group of people who'd managed to get into the right government roles managed to walk away with lots of formerly state property giving themselves quite the leg up in the new economy.
Marxism might be a nice ideal but it completely ignores human nature. Whenever anyone really tries to implement you don't get your Marxist workers paradise you instead get something that is a lot more tribal; an oligarchy where a few guys share power with their sons, nephews, and old army buddies who live very comfortably, a little more equal if you will, and everyone else who gets to support it.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)