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This whole situation is so sad, because it is 100% human caused. This is not a natural disaster! Socialism does not work and it is not moral. Hundreds of mill

This whole situation is so sad, because it is 100% human caused. This is not a natural disaster! Socialism does not work and it is not moral. Hundreds of millions of people have died and suffered under this economic and governmental system, and many more will die in Venezuela to re-learn this lesson. And yet, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, the appeal of socialism still somehow permeates to otherwise succesful countries. Sure, the lines between Social Security+Medicare vs Denmark vs Venezuela aren't so black+white, but it's clear to me that the desire to destroy capitalism continues to be strong. It is quite scary to me that people can be so delusional even with the overwhelming evidence of the success of capitalism for the poor and the absolute failure of socialism for everybody. "Thanks Hugo Chavez for showing that the poor matter and wealth can be shared. He made massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world." -Leader of the Labour party in the UK[1] "These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today" -Bernie Sanders[2] [1] -https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992 https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992 [2] - https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-gaps-disparities-that-threaten-america https://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/must-read/close-the-...

cdancette 9y ago
So you think that the huge inequalities we have today in developed countries are a "huge success"? When the richest man in the world has 100B$, and yet 12% of Americans live under the poverty line?
- mmirate 9y ago
  Yes. The richest people have produced orders of magnitude more value than those under the poverty line. And yes I'm talking about value for their customers. You know, the people who paid for their products and thereby made them rich.
  - pistoriusp 9y ago
    "value" at the cost of the environment isn't value. It's debt.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      Ah, true, the EPA has been rather incompetent in fully charging the proprietors of certain industrial processes for their pollution of the environment. But I don't see why that problem can only be fixed by socialism. (Indeed my prior expectation is that this problem is easier to fix it with a societal structure that places greater importance on private property rather than abolishing it.)
  - foldr 9y ago
    Then Venezuela is a success too, by your definition. Its poor are not "producing value", and hence are poor.
    - mmirate 9y ago
      That's only half of it; are the rich producing value? or stealing it instead?
      - foldr 9y ago
        Regardless, their poverty is not the problem, from your point of view.
        mmirate 9y ago
        Correct.
        foldr 9y ago
        So in fact the problem with 'socialism' in Venezuela has nothing directly to do with the living conditions described in the article, but is just that the rich in Venezuela are not sufficiently rich, or are rich for the wrong reasons.
- krona 9y ago
  The poverty rate as a percentage hasn't really changed since the mid 1960's, so I'm not sure what your point is. I'd much rather be in poverty in 2017 than in 1960.
  - rtpg 9y ago
    in the 60 years since 1960 we have somehow been unable to bring everyone out of poverty despite the massive increase in productivity we've seen? Meanwhile the gap between the richest and poorest person has grown immensely, and real wages have stagnated for 30 years. Sure, everyone has an iPhone, but there's a universe where everyone has an iPhone and almost nobody is underwater. And we actively choose to not be in it every time we subscribe to "our billionaire benefactor" theories.
    - Mary-Jane 9y ago
      Our legal definition of poverty is floating and generally translates to "the bottom 30 percent", so of course we haven't seen a drop! This definition is problematic, not just because it makes the people pointing it out look like in-compassionate jerks, it obscures the real problems many people in poverty have and makes their causes harder to understand and address. It also gives many an excuse to dismiss the poor because, "the government is giving iPhones to them; they're problems can't be that bad."
  - coldtea 9y ago
    >I'd much rather be in poverty in 2017 than in 1960. You'd be surprised. In 1960 it was easy to find occasional job gigs and make some money. Plus, in the fifties even a simple month's salary got a long way.
- matte_black 9y ago
  There will always be a poverty line, so that percentage can never be 0.
  - cdancette 9y ago
    That makes no sense. What if everyone is above the poverty line ? If everyone can live a normal life without being afraid of lacking food or shelter, then the percentage is 0 IMO.
    - gaius 9y ago
      Organizations such as the Joseph Rowntree foundation define poverty as being in the lowest third of income. Then periodically issue angry press releases that one third of children are below the poverty line...
    - yorwba 9y ago
      Usually the poverty line is defined in some way relative to the income distribution. So if everyone gets richer by the same factor, the percentage below the poverty line does not change. I think that's a mistake. The poverty line should track how many people can't afford enough food to supply the recommended amount of nutrients, how many are not reliably protected from freezing to death, how many can't see a doctor when they have an infection, and so on. In short, the poverty line should track how many people are physically suffering because they don't have enough money.
- tuna-piano 9y ago
  Poverty is the problem to me, not inequality. I like the hypothetical of "If 1% of people had 100 yachts, and 99% of people had 1 yacht each, would that be a problem?" And the type of poverty we have in the developed world is very different than the type of poverty they have in Socialist countries. Poor in the USA have enough to eat, TVs, etc. Of course life is tough, but of course there's not the kind of suffering you see in Venezuela. Poor people choose with their feet, and they choose more capitalism! The opposite way is almost absurd to think about. -How many of the 12% in poverty in Flordia flee to Cuba for free Cuban healthcare? -How many of the poor in West Berlin fled to East Berlin? -How many of the poor in Hong Kong fled to Communist China? -How many poor in Colombia are fleeing to Venezuela? We can have the reasonable discussions on whether Medicaid spending should be increased, but the praise of Chavez and true socialism (which I see in a new Netflix Documentary, lots of Michael Moore stuff, Bernie Sanders rhetoric, Antifa, etc) is disconcerting to me.
  - foldr 9y ago
    > Poor in the USA have enough to eat This is a surprisingly persistent myth. A quick google search will show you that this is not the case. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hu...
- Mary-Jane 9y ago
  Serious comment. Help me understand the problem with economic inequality. If I can afford two cars, a nice house, plenty of food for my family, and all the other things we've become comfortably accustomed to in the first world, why should it matter that my boss can afford twice as much, and that her boss can afford 30, 300, or even 30000000 times more than that? Don't take this to mean I am ignorant if the poverty problem in the US, but that's a separate concern. Comparatively, the US has a reasonable safety net (sure, it could be better, but again, separate issue). Given the choice, I'd rather be economically unequal and live in poverty in the US than economically equal and living in poverty in places like Venezuela.
  - cdancette 9y ago
    You're absolutely right. I think inequality is fine as long as it's not hurting the economy (which it is when the inequality is large enough) and thus making things worse for the poorest people. Moreover, someone that possess more resources than some countries in the world has a huge power over other individuals, sometimes more than governments. I think we want to avoid that if possible. Think of the majority of the press being possessed -in France at least, I'm not sure how it is in the US- by a few individuals. Do you like the idea that everything you see on TV or read on the news is decided by a few individuals ? So I'd say poverty is not the unique issue here. Avoiding concentration of too much wealth also avoids concentration of too much power.
coldtea 9y ago
>It is quite scary to me that people can be so delusional even with the overwhelming evidence of the success of capitalism for the poor and the absolute failure of socialism for everybody. That's more what you like to believe than what is out there. Most of the "overwhelming evidence of the success of capitalism for the poor" has been the success of colonialism and imperialism (western countries fucking the planet's 2/3rds and bringing the loot in, then using it to fuel their internal growth). Colonialism and imperialist has been a historical fact, most of the "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries today were owned by western powers up until the 50s. It would be interesting to see how those "free market" success stories would have fared without mass exploitation of external peoples. And socialist policies (which are different to totalitarian states like USSR and co) have worked just fine in Sweden, Denmark, France, and tons of other places, including unexpected ones like Singapore (where the state owns tons of businesses, the poor get public funded houses and so on). And of course for most of its own buildup and rise, US had strong tariffs and protections for its market. Heck, the most boost in the US (in the post WWII era) was tied to increased unionism and post-New Deal social policies -- closer to socialism to regulating everything and then gifting 1 trillion to Wall Street "too big to fail" scum.

cdancette 9y ago

So you think that the huge inequalities we have today in developed countries are a "huge success"? When the richest man in the world has 100B$, and yet 12% of Americans live under the poverty line?

mmirate 9y ago
Yes. The richest people have produced orders of magnitude more value than those under the poverty line. And yes I'm talking about value for their customers. You know, the people who paid for their products and thereby made them rich.
- pistoriusp 9y ago
  "value" at the cost of the environment isn't value. It's debt.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    Ah, true, the EPA has been rather incompetent in fully charging the proprietors of certain industrial processes for their pollution of the environment. But I don't see why that problem can only be fixed by socialism. (Indeed my prior expectation is that this problem is easier to fix it with a societal structure that places greater importance on private property rather than abolishing it.)
- foldr 9y ago
  Then Venezuela is a success too, by your definition. Its poor are not "producing value", and hence are poor.
  - mmirate 9y ago
    That's only half of it; are the rich producing value? or stealing it instead?
    - foldr 9y ago
      Regardless, their poverty is not the problem, from your point of view.
      - mmirate 9y ago
        Correct.
        foldr 9y ago
        So in fact the problem with 'socialism' in Venezuela has nothing directly to do with the living conditions described in the article, but is just that the rich in Venezuela are not sufficiently rich, or are rich for the wrong reasons.
krona 9y ago
The poverty rate as a percentage hasn't really changed since the mid 1960's, so I'm not sure what your point is. I'd much rather be in poverty in 2017 than in 1960.
- rtpg 9y ago
  in the 60 years since 1960 we have somehow been unable to bring everyone out of poverty despite the massive increase in productivity we've seen? Meanwhile the gap between the richest and poorest person has grown immensely, and real wages have stagnated for 30 years. Sure, everyone has an iPhone, but there's a universe where everyone has an iPhone and almost nobody is underwater. And we actively choose to not be in it every time we subscribe to "our billionaire benefactor" theories.
  - Mary-Jane 9y ago
    Our legal definition of poverty is floating and generally translates to "the bottom 30 percent", so of course we haven't seen a drop! This definition is problematic, not just because it makes the people pointing it out look like in-compassionate jerks, it obscures the real problems many people in poverty have and makes their causes harder to understand and address. It also gives many an excuse to dismiss the poor because, "the government is giving iPhones to them; they're problems can't be that bad."
- coldtea 9y ago
  >I'd much rather be in poverty in 2017 than in 1960. You'd be surprised. In 1960 it was easy to find occasional job gigs and make some money. Plus, in the fifties even a simple month's salary got a long way.
matte_black 9y ago
There will always be a poverty line, so that percentage can never be 0.
- cdancette 9y ago
  That makes no sense. What if everyone is above the poverty line ? If everyone can live a normal life without being afraid of lacking food or shelter, then the percentage is 0 IMO.
  - gaius 9y ago
    Organizations such as the Joseph Rowntree foundation define poverty as being in the lowest third of income. Then periodically issue angry press releases that one third of children are below the poverty line...
  - yorwba 9y ago
    Usually the poverty line is defined in some way relative to the income distribution. So if everyone gets richer by the same factor, the percentage below the poverty line does not change. I think that's a mistake. The poverty line should track how many people can't afford enough food to supply the recommended amount of nutrients, how many are not reliably protected from freezing to death, how many can't see a doctor when they have an infection, and so on. In short, the poverty line should track how many people are physically suffering because they don't have enough money.
tuna-piano 9y ago
Poverty is the problem to me, not inequality. I like the hypothetical of "If 1% of people had 100 yachts, and 99% of people had 1 yacht each, would that be a problem?" And the type of poverty we have in the developed world is very different than the type of poverty they have in Socialist countries. Poor in the USA have enough to eat, TVs, etc. Of course life is tough, but of course there's not the kind of suffering you see in Venezuela. Poor people choose with their feet, and they choose more capitalism! The opposite way is almost absurd to think about. -How many of the 12% in poverty in Flordia flee to Cuba for free Cuban healthcare? -How many of the poor in West Berlin fled to East Berlin? -How many of the poor in Hong Kong fled to Communist China? -How many poor in Colombia are fleeing to Venezuela? We can have the reasonable discussions on whether Medicaid spending should be increased, but the praise of Chavez and true socialism (which I see in a new Netflix Documentary, lots of Michael Moore stuff, Bernie Sanders rhetoric, Antifa, etc) is disconcerting to me.
- foldr 9y ago
  > Poor in the USA have enough to eat This is a surprisingly persistent myth. A quick google search will show you that this is not the case. http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hunger http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/impact-of-hu...
Mary-Jane 9y ago
Serious comment. Help me understand the problem with economic inequality. If I can afford two cars, a nice house, plenty of food for my family, and all the other things we've become comfortably accustomed to in the first world, why should it matter that my boss can afford twice as much, and that her boss can afford 30, 300, or even 30000000 times more than that? Don't take this to mean I am ignorant if the poverty problem in the US, but that's a separate concern. Comparatively, the US has a reasonable safety net (sure, it could be better, but again, separate issue). Given the choice, I'd rather be economically unequal and live in poverty in the US than economically equal and living in poverty in places like Venezuela.
- cdancette 9y ago
  You're absolutely right. I think inequality is fine as long as it's not hurting the economy (which it is when the inequality is large enough) and thus making things worse for the poorest people. Moreover, someone that possess more resources than some countries in the world has a huge power over other individuals, sometimes more than governments. I think we want to avoid that if possible. Think of the majority of the press being possessed -in France at least, I'm not sure how it is in the US- by a few individuals. Do you like the idea that everything you see on TV or read on the news is decided by a few individuals ? So I'd say poverty is not the unique issue here. Avoiding concentration of too much wealth also avoids concentration of too much power.

coldtea 9y ago

>It is quite scary to me that people can be so delusional even with the overwhelming evidence of the success of capitalism for the poor and the absolute failure of socialism for everybody. That's more what you like to believe than what is out there. Most of the "overwhelming evidence of the success of capitalism for the poor" has been the success of colonialism and imperialism (western countries fucking the planet's 2/3rds and bringing the loot in, then using it to fuel their internal growth). Colonialism and imperialist has been a historical fact, most of the "developing" and "underdeveloped" countries today were owned by western powers up until the 50s. It would be interesting to see how those "free market" success stories would have fared without mass exploitation of external peoples. And socialist policies (which are different to totalitarian states like USSR and co) have worked just fine in Sweden, Denmark, France, and tons of other places, including unexpected ones like Singapore (where the state owns tons of businesses, the poor get public funded houses and so on). And of course for most of its own buildup and rise, US had strong tariffs and protections for its market. Heck, the most boost in the US (in the post WWII era) was tied to increased unionism and post-New Deal social policies -- closer to socialism to regulating everything and then gifting 1 trillion to Wall Street "too big to fail" scum.