The United States has been working on a coup for Maduro, since its coup of Chavez hasn't worked out for it. This time it would really like to install Leonardo Lopez as he's willing to privatize Venezuelan oil to US companies. The US has been encouraging and organizing protests, gatherings and projecting anti-Maduro sentiment and news into the country. (https://wikileaks.org/gifiles/releasedate/2012-06-18-08-canv...)
It's possible that if their economy (amid new US sanctions) collapse that this could trigger the regime change we've been eyeing and the energy security we've been wanting to establish there.
We do have to be careful about CALEC and UNASUR, however. South American countries have been ever moving closer to isolating the US from its multilateral diplomatic plans and are regularly condemning the US for its interference, funding of death squads, war on drugs, and unilateral sanctions of various South American countries. If we take Venezuela we need to make sure that we don't isolate the rest of the continent.
I live in Venezuela and item's prices are raising horrible, let me tell you something I am electrical engineer and computer engineer, and my salary is only 10.3$/month, ridiculous, but his is how socialism works everyone are equalized but to poverty. To buy a car in Venezuela you need to save money for 50 years without buying food supplies, to buy a house it takes 200 years, to buy dollars you need to be a friend of Maduro, my most bright colleagues have left the country so I am.
According to the libertarian Cato Institute's Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth. The US is at place 20 and Venezuela at 144 out of 152.
Scandinavia has very free market open economies coupled with extensive welfare states financed by high taxes. You can call that socialism if you want, but it is a very different system than the criminal tragedy that is Venezuela.
Human Freedom Index, Sweden, Denmark and Finland are in the top 10 freest countries on earth.
I guess that metric is derived from formal, and institutional freedom or non-freedom promoting policies, but unfortunately, in some respects Sweden is looking increasingly out of place in such a high position on that list.
Anybody who points out that the country's immigration policies are close to destroying the country faces harsh backlash. Anybody just raising questions on the matter really.
Disturbingly, there has been some recent talk of actual formalized anti-freedom measures.
A couple weeks ago there was a stabbing and beheading attack at an IKEA store that killed a mother and son, and now some people in the govt are making noises about limiting freedom of the press because people are discussing it online.
I guess their main concern, according to them is that it is such a shocking, horrific, and in your face illustration of how insane the Swedish government's immigration policies are, that they are concerned people might exercise their democratic rights of guiding the government in what they see as a reasonable direction.
The Press Ombudsman Ola Sigvardsson is concerned that the Swedes are turning to sites run by political motives rather than journalistic ambitions.
Traditional journalism is characterized by a willingness to unconditional search for the truth and make it as good as possible. The other sites are characterized by having a political agenda, said Ola Sigvardsson.
So apparently, now that there is such glaring evidence of the need for political change Sigvardsson is interested in restricting any political discussion that are not inline with his own views.
Freedom of speech and freedom of the press is something that we can not take for granted. Politicians give us the right to print and give our opinion, but requires that we do so in a responsible manner. If we do not do it, maybe freedom curtailed, says Ola Sigvardsson.
It is utterly terrifying (in Europe), the right is edging on fascism here(bible thumping, xenohobic, spiteful), the left is so high on "Political Correctness" (you literally cannot adress real problems because that is "homophobic", "patriarchic", "antisemitic", etc)
What the hell is going on...
That's a fine point, it is basically a tautology though, and certainly doesn't mean we should ignore this kind of thing, lest the top free countries go the way of the less free.
What I find most disturbing about this guy's rhetorik is that he says "Politicians give us the right," when that is exactly opposite how things are understood to work in modern democracies. The people give their consent to politicians and by extension the government to govern.
All the countries in Scandinavia are capitalistic. There is welfare, yes, but you'll find less government involvement in the economy than in the US (example: the US government rescued GM, the Swedish government told SAAB Automobile to take a hike).
SAAB Automobile (not to be confused with the defense manufacturer) was bought from GM by Victor Mueller's Dutch company. When they ran into trouble and declared bankruptcy the government declined to do anything to save it and sacrificed some thousands of jobs in Trollhättan rather than to prop it up.
False analogy. You should say "Seems to work fine in Chile". Chile and Venezuela are similar countries; both have an abundant natural resource (copper vs oil).
The one critical difference is property rights- such a thing does not exist in Venezuela. Say what you will about Pinochet...
I don't think that's so clear. But even if it's true, "works until it doesn't" is probably the best thing that can be said of any political/economic system to date. Free market capitalism has its own problems and its flagship country, the US, is increasingly considered to be in decline.
Yes, it is clear. When you have a system in place that is predicated on having enough productive citizens to support the non-productive ones and your birth rates have fallen off a cliff you're in for trouble.
> Free market capitalism has its own problems and its flagship country, the US, is increasingly considered to be in decline.
Never said the US doesn't have problems. Just pointing out that socialism also has its own problems. No economic system is perfect.
Quite to the contrary, when you have a system where "non-productive" citizens are not supported, you stifle innovation, because people don't (can't) take chances when one misstep will lead them into inescapable poverty.
Inefficiencies develop across the system because people can't afford to make a change. Firing people or shutting down a factory becomes a massive struggle of life and death, frequently with literal deaths. (If unemployment means your family's livelihood is at stake, you wouldn't just walk away, would you?)
> When you have a system in place that is predicated on having enough productive citizens to support the non-productive ones and your birth rates have fallen off a cliff you're in for trouble.
Every country with falling birth rates has that problem, regardless of the political/economic system. Barring extremist solutions like euthanasia, you need to support non-productive citizens and the resources for it need to come from productive citizens in some way, be it with government intervention or not.
> Barring extremist solutions like euthanasia, you need to support non-productive citizens and the resources for it need to come from productive citizens in some way, be it with government intervention or not.
Agreed with the first point. Ultimately though, if you can't generate enough revenue to support the social safety nets something has to give (the old Thatcher quote "socialism works until you run out of other people's money to spend" applies here). The problem with incredibly generous (read: expensive) social programs like Scandinavian countries offer is that the day of reckoning will come much sooner.
Finland is probably worse off because their immigration policy is much more restrictive. I think some of the thinking goes that the immigration policy should mitigate the aging concerns. As for socialist policies, at least we get a hell of a lot for our the money here. In the US, it seems to just go down the drain in war spending and everything else the US gov touches is FUBAR; e.g. education, healthcare etc.
Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years.
That time is already here, let's hope a change of course can be made soon.
Sweden's irresponsibility and malfeasance should really be of concern to the whole world, as in some ways the country has become like Afghanistan under Taliban rule, in the providing of a safe-haven for and cultivation of terrorists. (yes, that sounds crazy, and it is, but it is the conclusion one must draw unfortunately)
Sweden has a revolving door for terrorists. Literal terrorists are moving in and out of the country unchecked. It is absolutely insane.
An in addition to that, Sweden has become a hugely fertile breeding ground for ISIS fighters.
...we found links to terrorism or intelligence threats, which we judged that the person should not be granted asylum in Sweden. Then it is up to the Immigration Bureau to weigh that risk against the right to asylum. Many remain in the country,” Sjöö remarked.
Excuse me? Oh yes. In this country, even an internationally red-flagged terrorist can be granted asylum. By the bizarre Swedish logic, a person at risk of “inhumane” treatment or death sentence in his home country qualifies for protection.
And as for terrorists? Open doors and open hearts. Here’s an article from neighboring Denmark(http://www.dagens.dk/udland/mist%C3%A6nkte-terrorister-f%C3%...) where they, for good reason, express grave concern over the extreme naivitee of Swedish immigration policy. At least 20 internationally known terrorists were granted asylum in Sweden in 2014 alone, which is a problem for Denmark too considering its capital Copenhagen being only 20 minutes away from Malmö, one of the immigrant hotbeds.
The capital of European ISIS recruitment remains Gothenburg, however. Sweden’s second largest town produces more ISIS-fighters than the entire United States. This baffling statement sounds made up, but it it’s not.(http://swedenreport.org/2015/02/04/more-isis-fighters-from-o...)
“A pantry full of cannon fodder for ISIS”(http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article20427940.ab) is the headline of this remarkably frank (by Swedish standards) article about the muslim-dominated no-go zones around Gothenburg. The headline is an actual quote by one of the residents of the area. I encourage you to use the translate-feature in your browser and read the article in its entirety for a chilling insight into the total meltdown of societal control of these areas.
I think a lot of Swedes feel divided on this subject. The vast majority of for instance Syrians and Iraqis that are seeking refuge here are escaping essentially islamofascism. Beheadings, bombings, kidnappings, sectarian violence and what have you..
Put yourself in that situation for a second. I really resent Islam as a religion because its at odds with our culture and values, but I'm willing to let go of that resentment in the hopes of helping some of these people. And hopefully the 2nd or 3rd generation of these immigrants will be completely absorbed and integrated into Swedish way of life. If you escape that kind of situation, at the ending of the day, a normal person would feel some gratitude to the country that took them in.
Either way, this policy is a stark contrast with what the utopian US "freedom" policy has done for that region, but of course, it not without its rough edges.
Sweden in particular? Like the rest of Europe, absolutely dismal birth rates and an aging population. Sweden is also particularly gung-ho about granting citizenship to any and everyone who shows up. That places additional strain on the system as the people showing up are a net drain on finances.
Sweden will have a particularly tough time in coming years.
Why?
Sweden is already in pretty bad shape due to immigration. But a large part of the govt, and dominant information channels are intent on concealing that fact as much as possible for some reason, hard for some people to admit they were wrong I guess.
Shockingly enough, Sweden leads the world in rape and school arson.
Last year the cost for fires in Sweden’s schools ended at about SEK one billion. 457 schools burned in 2009. About half of the fires were caused by arson. However, compared with 2008 fires in schools has decreased, that year 512 schools burned, also then half of them caused by arson.
(Saying in both years that only half of that already large number were caused by arson seems a little suspect, that seems like a high rate for schools to be combusting from other factors. Well, maybe they are counting chemistry lab mishaps and the like, and the bulk of the cost is coming from schools actually being burned down in arson attacks.)
“I don’t know why anybody would want to burn our school,” Ms. Bromster said. “I can’t understand it. Maybe they are not so happy with life.”
The riots are not unprecedented here. In 2008 and 2010, immigrants clashed with the police in the southern port city of Malmo. But the past week’s arson attacks in Stockholm, the capital, and the spectacle of teenagers hurling stones at firefighters have left many Swedes wondering what went wrong in a society that has invested so heavily in helping the underprivileged.
I am also from Venezuela. He is not lying. He calculated his salary using the black market price of a dollar: 630 bolivares. He earns close to 7000 bolivares, which is minimum wage.
"Working with some guys there" is not as reliable a source as a guy who actually lives and works in the country. You shouldn't have called him a lier.
Apparently, it's pretty rare for skilled workers to even earn 100% of minimum wage. The median income for Venezuela is approximately 60% below minimum wage. In black market exchange rates, that equates to approximately $2 USD per month.
The maximum surveyed income, according to SalaryExplorer, is 72,000 bolivars per month, which amounts to approximately 10x minimum wage, or around $100 a month.
Given the median though, one assumes that is an extreme outlier.
So, I'll freely concede that I'm ignorant on the issue, but Bonsanto made an extraordinary claim below (that government forbids buying non-Venezuelan currency) that despite my initial idea, turns out to appear truthful.
So, According to this somewhat recent article by Bloomberg[1], "A school teacher with 25 years of experience made 9,786 bolivars a month in 2014. That's about $35 a month at the current black market exchange rate, which won't even buy a used television."
It's hard to tell what the actual exchange rate of the bolivar is to the dollar, because apparently Venezuela fixes the exchange rate, so while it's been steady on paper, it appears that in practice, its actual exchange rate is approximately 100 times less than the official exchange rate. The official rate indicates that 1 bolivar == .16 US dollar, but other sources indicate that the effective, actual rate in Venezuela is more like 1 boliver == .0036 US dollars (or, because my simple math skills are horrible, 100 bolivar == 36 US cents.)
If that's the case, and I'm not missing something crazy, it doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all that an electrical engineer would be earning the American equivalent of $10.3 US dollars per month, depending on how you define the exchange rate.
The 10.3 u$s per month is possible. You have to remember that using the government exchange rate, food also is very cheap. Gas is almost free, IIRC about 5 or 6 bolivars to fill a tank (about 0.006 u$s I think).
The thing is, you cannot buy anything imported because then the real exchange rate goes, and you actually can buy only u$s 10 worth of imported stuff. You are forced yo spend your salary in locally-produced stuff, that actually kinda work for countries like Argentina that produces a lot of stuff (except computers and high-tech products), but do not for Venezuela, that only produces oil.
Interestingly, what happens if you go with your US-savings, say, u$s 50000 to Venezuela? well then you are basically a king there. You could buy half a city with that money, thats why they had to put laws to prevent foreigners to do that kind of thing.
TLDR: You can be rich with u$s 10/month, as long as you dont leave the country and don't buy anything imported.
I admit that I'm pretty topic dumb -- the closest I can personalize this to is an Ameri-Cuban reality show that I watch, titled "Cuban Chrome"[1].
In it, the story apparently focuses on a couple of folks - a taxi driver, and members of a car club. Because of the trade embargoes (now lifted in theory) between Cuba and America, most of the "newer" cars in Cuba are 60s-era classics, for which finding parts is nearly impossible.
Apparently Cuba's embargo has left them trading with Russia, so, if you want/need a new carburetor for your American Chevrolet, you end up having to retrofit a diesel carburetor from a Russian schoolbus, at exorbitant prices, and only by trading labor with someone capable of making the retrofit work.
I know it's reality TV, which already makes it very unlike reality, but it's difficult to watch in spots, as I see people struggling with what would be, in America, a completely solved problem.
My guess is the poster is referring to the monthly wage of a professional in Venezuela in USD by the black market rate which probably is fairly indicative of the purchasing power.
And yes. Venezuela is a touchy subject since its nasty regime sadly is idolized by many left-winged intellectuals in the west.
The US is literally producing more oil domestically than it can refine, it's got more cheap domestic oil than it knows what to do with...
I don't discount American involvement but I'm not sure that oil is the great driving factor it may have been historically, the Americans are producing enough of their own.
The long term strategy of the US is to provide energy security to Europe between tar sands, crude, gas and oil. It has multilateral plans with Canada and Mexico to build North-South pipelines to achieve this.
Recently the conflict over oil off the shore of Guyana and the documents I linked to above (where it is STATED that the coup is motivated by oil) show recent actions by the US that contradict you.
And further it is not merely about TAKING the oil (though it is). Venezuela uses its energy economy to unilaterally fix political outcomes. Think their shipping of oil to Cuba despite US sanctions. The US wants control of that oil.
> If we take Venezuela we need to make sure that we don't isolate the rest of the continent.
So you don't see a problem with "you" "taking" Venezuela, as long as the consequences aren't too bad for "you"?
Nevermind that other countries are not supposed to be your colonies and nevermind that you, as in, ordinary citizens, won't even benefit from the US "taking" Venezuela.
"purging corruption" is often times a way of replacing people you don't like with people you like more(or who will owe you more). Corruption will remain, but the hand demanding it will be different.
Right but 'they reached too far during Windows 8' isn't an argument for reaching too far on Windows 10 (plus, Windows 8 really wasn't that long ago so it's still a pretty new policy).
The fact is that there is a greater East-West struggle going on right now. It was Saddam. Now it is Assad. Next it may be Rouhani.
The Middle East is caught between Eurasia and Europe: the East's plans to move Westward and the West's plans to move Eastward and the conflict in each of these regions to ensure their security into the future and their access to geostrategic assets.
Obama's deal gets a 10 year delay on nuclear forces. So while it may appear to be conventional now or nuclear tomorrow, it's conventional now or nuclear in 10 years.
> Isn't the right to bear arms an 'inalienable right'?
Not in any American sense of the term. The "unalienable" rights were to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as outlined in the Declaration of Independence. Selling guns to redcoats isn't on that list.
For better or worse, right now the right to bear arms only holds in your house, outside of the 7th Circuit (Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin), with litigation in the 9th Circuit (the west, specifically California and Hawaii) and D.C. Circuit in progress, and if there are adverse results in those Circuits we're almost positive the Supremes will continue to deny cert.
We in the US pro-gun camp consider self-defense to be an unalienable right (see e.g. the U.K. for a notorious counterexample), but how that applies to exploits is not to my eye simple.
Inalienable rights are human rights - which extend (at least in theory) to foreigners.
I read the story.
But anyway if the Supreme Court ruling holds from Zimmerman it would apply equally well to everything in the article. Of course the Zimmerman case was about foreign exports as well.
Well they are trying to destabilize the regime - I didn't provide data on that. (Would you like some?)
The anthrax thing is reporting facts. I didn't say that the US IS organizing this. I didn't say NK was RIGHT about their worries. What I did say about anthrax is quite true.
Giving your data to a third party is a very difficult thing to do. Either their policies and heuristics are not perfect (like this article), they go under and you lose your data and service (probably not the case now with Apple) or they will be compelled by law to share your data with law enforcement.
Device Registration (name, address, email address, and telephone numbe, iCloud Apple ID)
Customer Service Records
iTunes (name, physical address, email address, and telephone number, purchase/download transactions and connections, update/re-download connections, and iTunes Match connections, iTunes subscriber information and connection logs with IP addresses, specific content purchased or downloaded).
Apple Retail Store Transactions (cash, credit/debit card, or gift card transactions, type of card, name of the purchaser, email address, date/time of the transaction, amount of the transaction, and store location, receipt number)
Apple Online Store Purchases (name, shipping address, telephone number, email address, product purchased, purchase amount)
iTunes Gift Cards (sixteen-digit alphanumeric code, nineteen-digit code, any purchases, name of the store, location, date, and time, user account
iCloud (music, photos, documents, iCloud email, encryption keys, Subscriber Information, iCloud feature connections, connection logs with IP addresses, Mail Logs, records of incoming and outgoing communications such as time, date, sender email addresses, and recipient email addresses, Email Content, Other iCloud Content, Photo Stream, Docs, Contacts, Calendars, Bookmarks, iOS Device Backups, stored photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks and iOS device backups, photos and videos in the users’ camera roll, device settings, app data, iMessage, SMS, and MMS messages and voicemail)
Find My iPhone (including connection logs
Other Available Device Information (MAC Address for Bluetooth, Ethernet, WiFi, or FireWire)
Requests for Apple Retail Store Surveillance Videos
Game Center (Connection logs with IP addresses, specific game(s) played)
iOS Device Activation (including upgrades the software, IP addresses, ICCID numbers, and other device identifiers)
Sign-on Logs (iTunes, iCloud, My Apple ID, and Apple Discussions, Connection logs with IP addresses, Sign-on transactional records)
My Apple ID and iForgot Logs (password reset actions, Connection logs with IP addresses)
FaceTime (logs when a FaceTime call invitation is initiated, content protected by 15 bits of entropy if secure enclave baked key is obtained from manufacturer)
According to Apple: "Extracting Data from Passcode Locked iOS Devices For all devices running iOS 8.0 and later versions, Apple will not perform iOS data extractions as data extraction tools are no longer effective. The files to be extracted are protected by an encryption key that is tied to the user’s passcode, which Apple does not possess. For iOS devices running iOS versions earlier than iOS 8.0, upon receipt of a valid search warrant issued upon a showing of probable cause, Apple can extract certain categories of active data from passcode locked iOS devices. Specifically, the user generated active files on an iOS device that are contained in Apple’s native apps and for which the data is not encrypted using the passcode (“user generated active files”), can be extracted and provided to law enforcement on external media. Apple can perform this data extraction process on iOS devices running iOS 4 through iOS 7. Please note the only categories of user generated active files that can be provided to law enforcement, pursuant to a valid search warrant, are: SMS, iMessage, MMS, photos, videos, contacts, audio recording, and call history."
But this blurb fails to mention that the user provided passcode can only be about 15 bits of user supplied entropy - the rest is provided by a hardware manufacturer that is also obligated by law to respond to legal request.
How difficult is it to configure this? Users should definitely choose passphrases of sufficient length and sufficient types to be secure. This is unfortunately an infamously tricky area of security to get right - and the password ought not be reused or used for the Apple Id login or anywhere else.
It's possible that if their economy (amid new US sanctions) collapse that this could trigger the regime change we've been eyeing and the energy security we've been wanting to establish there.
We do have to be careful about CALEC and UNASUR, however. South American countries have been ever moving closer to isolating the US from its multilateral diplomatic plans and are regularly condemning the US for its interference, funding of death squads, war on drugs, and unilateral sanctions of various South American countries. If we take Venezuela we need to make sure that we don't isolate the rest of the continent.