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In Venezuela, 'Cutting-Edge' Cryptocurrency is Nowhere To Be Found (reuters.com)
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has made ambitious claims that the nation's petro cryptocurrency is backed by 5 billion barrels of petroleum reserves. But when reporters of Reuters conducted a months-long investigation, they found that petro is getting little to no traction in the nation or elsewhere. Reuters: Located in an isolated savanna in the center of the country, Atapirire is the only town in an area the government says is brimming with 5 billion barrels of petroleum. Venezuela has pledged those reserves as backing for a digital currency dubbed the "petro," which Maduro launched in February. This month he vowed it would be the cornerstone of a recovery plan for the crisis-stricken nation. But Atapirire residents say they have seen no efforts by the government to tap those reserves. And they have little confidence that their struggling village has a front-row seat to a revolution in finance. "There is no sign of that petro here," said homemaker Igdalia Diaz. She launched into a diatribe about her town's crumbling school, pitted roads, frequent blackouts and perpetually hungry citizens.
It turns out that Venezuela's petro is hard to spot almost anywhere. Over a period of four months, Reuters spoke with a dozen experts on cryptocurrencies and oil-field valuation, traveled to the site of the pledged oil reserves and scoured the coin's digital transaction records in an effort to learn more. The hunt turned up little evidence of a thriving petro trade. The coin is not sold on any major cryptocurrency exchange. No shops are known to accept it.
It turns out that Venezuela's petro is hard to spot almost anywhere. Over a period of four months, Reuters spoke with a dozen experts on cryptocurrencies and oil-field valuation, traveled to the site of the pledged oil reserves and scoured the coin's digital transaction records in an effort to learn more. The hunt turned up little evidence of a thriving petro trade. The coin is not sold on any major cryptocurrency exchange. No shops are known to accept it.
Venezuela has run out of other people's money.
Scandinavia is doing just fine.
full communism sure is great
Sweden == capitalism
Sweden didn't nationalize companies/ other peoples equipment, try to force farmers to produce under the cost of production, heavily regulate internal prices outside of market value, centrally govern production/distribution.
A lack of economic diversity is hardly limited to socialist states. Whatever the ideology, the temptation to assume that a boom in any commodity will last forever is a feature of many different kinds of governments. And because economic diversification is very hard, requiring voters to accept some bitter pills, politicians of all stripes don't have the nerve to actually do anything significant to wean their jurisdictions off of that particular commodity or industry. They'll also play into the "monorail" sales pitch (a reference to probably the most instructive Simpsons episode ever made), entering a race to the bottom with other jurisdictions to attract industries, which almost inevitably means the taxpayer pays for the industry to come in, without generating the commiserate level of economic activity to justify the significant investment. Every time I see a politician with a hard hat on, I shiver in fear.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
In 1950, Venezuela had the 4th highest per-capita income on Earth.
Venezuela has the largest known oil reserves on the planet.
It takes a special kind of stupid to fuck that up.
I give you socialism.
And yet "failing late-stage capitalist" countries are absolutely booming.
We're drowning in prosperity, with our most poor dying from obesity more than any other cause, and with everyone employed who wants to be... Yet socialists spouting idiocy abound.
Bernie Sanders has three homes and made $3.6 million dollars last year, but whines about how awful everything is.
Leftists and socialists violently riot, demand our destruction, and claim that we're the worst hell hole on earth... Yet people are literally dying to get in, and we're supposed to ignore all that.
This definition means that all of the democratic socialist spouters are wrong and that no European country is actually socialist in any form. They may be capitalist with high taxes and large social welfare programs, but until they start declaring all private property public, they're capitalists.
Of course this means that the R's are right to decry the use of socialism as essentially communism, unlike what the D's would have you believe.
Norway basically nationalized its oil industry ...
Norway did nothing of the sort.
In May 1963, the Norwegian Government proclaimed sovereignty over the Norwegian continental shelf. ...
... Norway also established the principle that the state was to have a 50 per cent ownership interest in every production licence. [in other words, if you want to drill Norway's oil and gas - which is already owned by the state - Norway gets half ownership in the license to do so - hardly nationalizing anything]
In spring 2001, the Storting decided that 21.5 % of the value of the SDFI portfolio could be sold; 15 % was sold to Equinor and 6.5 % to other licensees. The sale of part of the SDFI portfolio to Equinor was seen as an important element in the successful part-privatisation of the company. Equinor was listed on the stock exchange in June the same year, and now operates in the same way as any other commercial actor on the Norwegian continental shelf. The state-owned enterprise Petoro was established in May 2001 to manage the SDFI on behalf of the state. In 2007, Equinor merged with Norsk Hydro’s oil and gas division.
Heck, it seems like Norway even privatized at least parts of the state's ownership stake in the actual oil/gas in the ground.
There's nothing socialist about a sovereign nation deciding to manage its oil and gas assets that way. In fact, it's quite non-socialist in its lack of direct government control and apparent privatization of portions of that control.
....Bernie Sanders has three homes and made $3.6 million dollars last year....Leftists and socialists violently riot....
Bernie Sanders never said people shouldn't own their own homes or be able to make money. He's for "medicare for all" because he believes that health care is a human right and that the role of government is to guarantee some basic human rights. If you're politically opposed to the idea of health care as a basic human right, make an intelligent intellectual argument as to why healthcare is not a right and why the government shouldn't provide medical insurance, but don't just attack the man and try to paint him as a hypocrite for owning three homes or having a job. He's not against individual property ownership or private enterprise.
It wasn't leftists who rioted in Charlottesville last year and ran over a counter protestor. It wasn't a leftist President who regularly and openly encourages violence at his political rallies, then promises to pay the legal bills if his supporters beat someone. It wasn't a leftist who committed the most deadly domestic terrorist attack in our nations history. You're trying to frame the debate in your own terms.