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Also looks like the Chavist party is busing running around, fingers in the ears and singing la-la-la in a futile effort to deny the actual situation (no, guys,

Also looks like the Chavist party is busing running around, fingers in the ears and singing la-la-la in a futile effort to deny the actual situation (no, guys, price controls didn't work in the past and they still don't work now). When your politicians try to unsee reality, you're in trouble.

aristus 11y ago
Oh yes, they are thoroughly fucked. But so are the people in general. The "curse" of oil is that it takes relatively few people to run the industry. Perhaps 100,000. The rest of the population is surplus to requirements. In theory you only need to pay off the oil folks, plus protection, to remain in power. In practice...
exelius 11y ago
That's because Venezuela is a de-facto narco state at this point. The politicians are denying reality because they make a lot of money by facilitating the global drug trade. Venezuela is the key link in the global narcotics supply chain: heroin comes in from central Asia and is then smuggled by Mexican cartels into the US, and cocaine comes in from Colombia and Peru to be shipped overseas and ultimately land in Europe. The Chavist politicians have an active interest in unseeing reality. Reality is that they are screwing over the population in order to stay in power at any cost so they can continue to line their pockets with drug money. That's not the narrative they want to tell, so they change it.
- sremani 11y ago
  Also the possibility of deportation and prosecution in US (for Narco trafficking), of many leaders in top including Cabello.
  - redblacktree 11y ago
    Have they broken US law, from Venezuela?
    - exelius 11y ago
      Yes; typically they go after traffickers like this with RICO cases. Their organizations break US law every day, and by being part of the conspiracy to commit those crimes, they are guilty under RICO. All the government has to do is prove that laws were broken, there was a conspiracy of many people to break those laws RICO laws were designed specifically to take down large, loosely connected criminal organizations like this.
- dtornabene 11y ago
  I'd love to see a link on this. Preferably one thats not from, say, Breitbart.
  - exelius 11y ago
    https://news.vice.com/article/no-one-in-venezuela-is-talking-about-maduros-relatives-who-were-busted-on-drug-charges https://news.vice.com/article/no-one-in-venezuela-is-talking... This is just the tip of the iceberg. Vice has a ton of stuff on the global drug problem, and Venezuela is the epicenter of trafficking right now because Caracas is the safest port in the world for traffickers. There's actually a good 30 minute video on Vice that explains the whole supply chain and its links to Boko Haram, ISIS and Islamist extremists in North Africa.
    - dtornabene 11y ago
      Word! Thanks for that. Forgive my skepticism.

aristus 11y ago

Oh yes, they are thoroughly fucked. But so are the people in general. The "curse" of oil is that it takes relatively few people to run the industry. Perhaps 100,000. The rest of the population is surplus to requirements. In theory you only need to pay off the oil folks, plus protection, to remain in power. In practice...

exelius 11y ago

That's because Venezuela is a de-facto narco state at this point. The politicians are denying reality because they make a lot of money by facilitating the global drug trade. Venezuela is the key link in the global narcotics supply chain: heroin comes in from central Asia and is then smuggled by Mexican cartels into the US, and cocaine comes in from Colombia and Peru to be shipped overseas and ultimately land in Europe. The Chavist politicians have an active interest in unseeing reality. Reality is that they are screwing over the population in order to stay in power at any cost so they can continue to line their pockets with drug money. That's not the narrative they want to tell, so they change it.

sremani 11y ago
Also the possibility of deportation and prosecution in US (for Narco trafficking), of many leaders in top including Cabello.
- redblacktree 11y ago
  Have they broken US law, from Venezuela?
  - exelius 11y ago
    Yes; typically they go after traffickers like this with RICO cases. Their organizations break US law every day, and by being part of the conspiracy to commit those crimes, they are guilty under RICO. All the government has to do is prove that laws were broken, there was a conspiracy of many people to break those laws RICO laws were designed specifically to take down large, loosely connected criminal organizations like this.
dtornabene 11y ago
I'd love to see a link on this. Preferably one thats not from, say, Breitbart.
- exelius 11y ago
  https://news.vice.com/article/no-one-in-venezuela-is-talking-about-maduros-relatives-who-were-busted-on-drug-charges https://news.vice.com/article/no-one-in-venezuela-is-talking... This is just the tip of the iceberg. Vice has a ton of stuff on the global drug problem, and Venezuela is the epicenter of trafficking right now because Caracas is the safest port in the world for traffickers. There's actually a good 30 minute video on Vice that explains the whole supply chain and its links to Boko Haram, ISIS and Islamist extremists in North Africa.
  - dtornabene 11y ago
    Word! Thanks for that. Forgive my skepticism.