[Potemkin]

The Nazis could never do as much damage as the commies themselves. Just look how the economy tanked after they took over:



Of course Stalin corrected that by sending them all to the Gulag.

What that graph shows is how the Russian economy tanked as a result of the First World War and the Civil War, neither of which were caused by the Bolsheviks (it was Kornilov who declared the start of the Civil War, not Lenin). During the 1920s and 30s, the Russian economy recovered. And it's noteworthy that the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s led to a bigger economic hit than the Nazi invasion. Lol.

[Rugoz]

What that graph shows is how the Russian economy tanked as a result of the First World War and the Civil War, neither of which were caused by the Bolsheviks (it was Kornilov who declared the start of the Civil War, not Lenin).

The October revolution caused the civil war.

[Tainari88]

@blackjack21 wrote:

Much of the underclass are not exploited. This is not the 19th Century. In many cases, underclass people have no work. It's not that they have too much work and horrible pay.

Come on now BJ. You know very well, that the way the workers work in Bolivia and in Latin America they get paid very low wages and are exploited. They also are threatened with unemployment that is horrible in nations with zero safety nets like unemployment insurance and food stamps. In fact, having a large pool of the perpetually unemployed keeps them hungry for low paid work and who is benefited by that? These mining companies and so on....please.

Get a grip BJ, the reality is that if you take a tour of South American slums there is a lot of unemployed people who not only have to take odd jobs and informal employment? They also don't pay taxes to the state and the state can't really build itself up and has to rely even more heavily on private companies and outside investors...it is very close to chattel slavery.

If you don't understand it you should read some good socioeconomic analyzers.

[QatzelOk]

Bolivia's shiny new Jeanita Guaido president - Jeanine Anez - seems like quite the Andrew Jackson fan.



May her giant cartoon bible give her many paper cuts.

[skinster]

[JohnRawls]

Where do you get your politics from JohnRawls? Disney world?

Lol. No, John, if you want a whole run down on South American fights for power with the corporations stick around this thread and I will summarize it for you? Are you up for that challenge?

I think @Heisenberg the man from Wales has a better idea of what is going on in South America than you do. Really.

May be. That's a good analogy for my views. They are indeed Disney Worldish because I do not think that they will be achieved durring our livetimes but I will not stop presenting them or speaking about them.

I understand the South American fight against corporatism and imperialism or whatever you want to label it but going full hard left with full top to bottom planning approach doesn't work in the long run. The more authoritarian the country becomes and the more top to bottom approach it uses, the more the people start distrusting the country. Sure you can cover it for some time with propaganda and nice speaches but eventually the situation explodes. Even if the leadership uses its autheritarian power for doing something good.

For better or for worse, socialism and capitalism need to learn to coexist in one democratic system for all of the people to have a decent life. Northern Europeans have the right idea but it is very hard for most countries to achieve this.

It seems the new proclaimed leader of Bolivia is up to no good. We will see what happens and if an election is held.

[skinster]

We will see what happens and if an election is held.

Morales would win again, obviously.

You are honestly Alex Jones by now. Just instead of crazy conspiracy theories you proclaim CIA/US coups everywhere.

also, I want to take back what I said about regime-changer cockroaches, don't want to offend any actual cockroaches out there.

[Tainari88]

May be. That's a good analogy for my views. They are indeed Disney Worldish because I do not think that they will be achieved durring our livetimes but I will not stop presenting them or speaking about them.

I understand the South American fight against corporatism and imperialism or whatever you want to label it but going full hard left with full top to bottom planning approach doesn't work in the long run. The more authoritarian the country becomes and the more top to bottom approach it uses, the more the people start distrusting the country. Sure you can cover it for some time with propaganda and nice speaches but eventually the situation explodes. Even if the leadership uses its autheritarian power for doing something good.

For better or for worse, socialism and capitalism need to learn to coexist in one democratic system for all of the people to have a decent life. Northern Europeans have the right idea but it is very hard for most countries to achieve this.

It seems the new proclaimed leader of Bolivia is up to no good. We will see what happens and if an election is held.

Have you studied Jose Mujica's presidency from Uruguay? You should.

Everything you just wrote has no resemblance to the political history of South American nations John. The truth is the topic of South America's troubles with neoliberal models from Colombia to Tierra del Fuego Argentina is a study in the failings of interventionist US policies and politics, the power of popular democracy among the poor in South America, the clashes between the ruling classes and the indigenous, African descent South Americans and the ruling elites who have used some of the most horrific tactics known to humankind to hold on to power.

You think the model that works for some developed nation without the problems that exist in South America is going to work for their circumstances? It won't. You need to read Gandhi's take on trying to make an Indian economy imitate some model from the UK that has nothing to do with Indian realities.

South America is not a monolithic group John. Bolivia is not Chile, Chile is not Argentina, Peru is not Paraguay, Uruguay is not Suriname, Brazil is not Venezuela. Each nation is distinct. I wish people would stop opining about entire cultures, peoples, histories and political histories and political events about which they know almost nothing about except cheap propaganda not from even a source that speaks that nation's language. But no.....

John, you might think you understand that continent. You don't. Evo Morales'Bolivia was in fact the nation with the most changes and instability of presidencies and governments in South America. It is land locked. It is incredibly rich in mineral wealth and it has a lot of internal fights for power....the elite in Bolivia is incredibly racist and anti Indian. In fact, not a single president ever was an Indian descent person til Evo Morales. Why? When Bolivia is heavily Indian?

That is the first question you should be asking. Not if like you implied, that the poor white Spanish descent Bolivians are being discriminated against. No, John, those white Spanish descent people have never respected Indigenous cultures, languages, land, mineral rights, property rights or any kind of rights. It has been a study in skewed oppressive racist policy for centuries. Evo broke the cycle.

But I happen to think 13 years is long enough to build up a foundation for power for the Indian people. He should have let others within his party take up the mantle and go and fight it out with the smaller elitist racist assholes who wanted the old oppressive system back.

If they can't win against the old regimers? Got to find out why. Trying to hold on to power with changing constitutional term limits gives those unjust people an excuse to do a coup on him. Got to know who the enemy is and make a strategy to check mate them from the beginning. If you can't do that? You have no business in politics in the first place. I imagine he faced the reality that all of them have to face. That the opposition is getting help from outside forces and interferences that favor corporations wanting rights to all the resources. A yes man for them. So as good old John Perkins in Confessions of an Economic Hitman wrote, you go in first to bribe the local gov't. That doesn't work? Usually it is the far leftists that are hard to bribe. Because they come from some POV and platform that is not pro business....you then use the force and military or you use violence to remove them. Assassination or death threats. That happened to Evo. Evo's mistake was not giving them a single excuse to justify the violence. He gave it to them with the term limit change. That is a perfect excuse. Again, he should have got another member of the party to do the candidacy. Got to let go of power. Have to do it.

If the opposition is into fraud? You go for some real fight to the death. But only when that happens. If they win a legit election? Got to let them experiment. And then go for another bid. But that is in an ideal world John. Many times Latin America is being suffocated and denied even that freedom because the outside forces have the budgets that are many times larger than that nation's entire GDP for at least 20 years.

I know how that is. I come from a very little small place and small nation. The idea of fighting tremendously powerful forces and knowing it means a blood bath and most certain defeat as well? Can paralyze any will to fight. But you must. Regardless. Because that is the purpose of struggle and life. If you don't fight? You don't gain real progress.

I wish people would stop living in these bubbles of what they think is the reality of places. Accept that the nations doing the problems are usually the ones with a lot better circumstances. They should be the ones helping. But they usually are making things much, much worse for the Latin Americans.

[Rugoz]

https://twitter.com/evagolinger/status/1194694249507360774?s=20

Well too bad she herself resigned from her position, making the vice president of the Senate Anez the official interim president.

Morales would win again, obviously.

Only after rigging the elections a second time.

[Tainari88]

Well too bad she herself resigned from her position, making the vice president of the Senate Anez the official interim president.



Only after rigging the elections a second time.

Have you studied how the ones before Evo Morales would win elections in Bolivia? And how they treated the regions filled with the Indian Bolivians? Yes or no?

Bolivia is a damn nightmare of coup d'etat and assassinations. Why? Figure it out. I want to know if you can hazard a guess of why the political situation in Bolivia has always been so explosive?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_p ... of_Bolivia

there it is. The list of presidents and why Evo might have wanted some stability to deal with the pressures. Lol.

Really, Rugoz, you need to start analyzing why that region that used to be called upper Peru, is so volatile? Hint, hint. It has mineral wealth galore.

Who in this world is after mineral wealth currently? Who do you think that may be now?

Check out that list. No other South American country has that instability and volatile history. Not one. Bolivia is the worst in that respect. WHY? That is the question one must ask.

[QatzelOk]

Everything you just wrote has no resemblance to the political history of South American nations John. The truth is the topic of South America's troubles with neoliberal models from Colombia to Tierra del Fuego Argentina is a study in the failings of interventionist US policies and politics, the power of popular democracy among the poor in South America, the clashes between the ruling classes and the indigenous, African descent South Americans and the ruling elites who have used some of the most horrific tactics known to humankind to hold on to power.

You think the model that works for some developed nation without the problems that exist in South America is going to work for their circumstances? It won't.

I understand the South American fight against corporatism and imperialism or whatever you want to label it but going full hard left with full top to bottom planning approach doesn't work in the long run. The more authoritarian the country becomes and the more top to bottom approach it uses, the more the people start distrusting the country.

The "model" that JohnRawls likes is the democratic rich country model. You know, like Canada and the USA and France. White and very wealthy nations that, by coincidence, frequently find themselves bombing or sanctioning much less wealthy countries than themselves. (this is as morally bankrupt as stealing loose change from homeless people, by the way)

The problem with the current Rich Western Model is that it is entirely dependent on pillaging other countries and making them very, very poor. If Bolivia were to imitate the Canada and USA model, it would have to find invent something crappy about our current leaders (Justin Trudeau got a fraction of the popular vote that Morales got), and then pay terrorists to blow up our hospitals, schools, communtiy centers and power generation centers in order to socially destroy the population and then they would steal Canada's oil production or forestry, or to make it so that our dollar is worth one Bolivian penny.

The Western model can only work for a tiny percent of the world's people, and it is guaranteed to make everyone else poor, sick, scared and eventually, it will force humanity into extinction because it's not in our nature to be slaves or garbage cans for other pillaging peoples.

This is the model that JohnRawls stands behind. This model requires racist views be generalized across the entire elite.

I hope this model will soon be destroyed internally.

[Sivad]

I didn't know Morales lost popular support, the last I heard he had a wide majority. I haven't really followed Bolivian politics that closely in the last few years but just going by the polls it looks like he's still got the support of 45% of the electorate. Which is pretty impressive given how long he's been in power. It's too bad that he didn't just find a good successor, when they start trying to make themselves el presidente for life it's time to get rid of them no matter who they are or what they have accomplished.

[Tainari88]

The "model" that JohnRawls likes is the democratic rich country model. You know, like Canada and the USA and France. White and very wealthy nations that, by coincidence, frequently find themselves bombing or sanctioning much less wealthy countries than themselves. (this is as morally bankrupt as stealing loose change from homeless people, by the way)

The problem with the current Rich Western Model is that it is entirely dependent on pillaging other countries and making them very, very poor. If Bolivia were to imitate the Canada and USA model, it would have to find invent something crappy about our current leaders (Justin Trudeau got a fraction of the popular vote that Morales got), and then pay terrorists to blow up our hospitals, schools, communtiy centers and power generation centers in order to socially destroy the population and then they would steal Canada's oil production or forestry, or to make it so that our dollar is worth one Bolivian penny.

The Western model can only work for a tiny percent of the world's people, and it is guaranteed to make everyone else poor, sick, scared and eventually, it will force humanity into extinction because it's not in our nature to be slaves or garbage cans for other pillaging peoples.

This is the model that JohnRawls stands behind. This model requires racist views be generalized across the entire elite.

I hope this model will soon be destroyed internally.

Q, that is the issue. They think that what works for these rich nations with generations of investments in public education, and so on is comparable to people who have had to fight for survival from day one. Evo Morales had to sell ice cream as a child in Argentina with his father, attended spotily a Spanish speaking school. Spoke Aymara as his first language....and he went up the ranks representing Coca farmers. American Coke wars in the 1980's affected the Coca growing regions of South America. Do any of these people criticizing Morales ever even understand what is happening in these nations?

No one in Bolivia can go and say that they will be able to end extreme poverty overnight. But if they can invest in infrastructure, clean the water and have access to clean and sustainable water....Evo Morales led the fight to not have the water privatized in the Cochamamba water fights...it is fascinating.


Look it up. It is a study in privatizing rain. Or trying to charge people for collecting rain water in barrels. Because if you can privatize it? You can privatize coca leaves and eventually Monsanto and move in and make money on the natural lands and people who lived in those regions forever....

This is a battle for the right to shape your society without the interferences of the people whom Q up there has signaled have interfered.

It is about that. It really is.

[Sivad]

Morales is no Maduro. He's not an inept buffoon who horribly mismanaged the country and routinely violates the democratic process because he's only got 20% of the electorate behind him. He was a good leader who kept the people behind him by staying on the side of the people, it's a real shame that his run ended this way.

[blackjack21]

The problem is that you don't believe in equality. And as such you don't care about the ones without anything.

There are more than two views in the world Tainari88--yours and the bad people who don't agree with you. Presuming inequality does not infer a lack of empathy. Seeing the world as it is and not how you would like it to be is probably a bit too sobering for you. That doesn't imply a lack of concern for others, though.

It means you will promote a system of exclusion and exploitation.

Trying to see the entire world through legal or political abstractions leaves you incapable of seeing the world as it is. It leaves you making inferences based on ideology rather than on empirical observation. Exploitation and inequality do not go hand in hand. Babies are not equal to adults, but we don't exploit them. Yet, we don't allow them to vote. That's inequality, but it's not evil.

And you will impede prosperity for the many. Just like a hoarder who thinks by getting rid of the excess shit somehow they lose what is valuable. It is the opposite. But tell that to the possessive hoarders. They scream. Their whole lives is about hanging on to shit that if they let it go and put it to circulating and producing instead of a system of exclusive possession and petty power over objects and so on?

People who lived in areas that have no growing or hunting season in the winter had to store an excess of food to survive. They developed this compulsive behavior, and it helped them to survive. That may cause them lots of problem in advanced societies without actual scarcity. However, you can only reason with who someone is, but not what someone is. Try telling an addict they need to stop doing drugs. You might find it surprising that they ignore you. Understanding addiction means understanding the difference between the frontal cortex (reason, language, etc) and pre-frontal cortex and limbic system.

Capitalism is built around the middle class if the middle class is the minority than it need to be expanded and not reduced because if you distribute everything equally you will make everyone poor thats how it was in the soviet union

If you shrink the middle class, you get a less democratic system of government.

Come on now BJ. You know very well, that the way the workers work in Bolivia and in Latin America they get paid very low wages and are exploited.

There's not much capitalism in Bolivia. It's not like Bolivians are making iPhones at rock bottom wages. It's a fairly primitive agricultural and resource economy. Evo Morales did little to change that. If you want to bring people out of poverty, you need physical capital, automation, education, etc. Wealth redistribution in a poor economy just makes everyone equally poor. China figured out that abandoning communism was the only way it could compete, and it went from a backwater to the second largest economy in the world in 30 years.

Get a grip BJ, the reality is that if you take a tour of South American slums there is a lot of unemployed people who not only have to take odd jobs and informal employment? They also don't pay taxes to the state and the state can't really build itself up and has to rely even more heavily on private companies and outside investors...it is very close to chattel slavery.

Indeed. However, if outside companies have to pay taxes and the state does invest in education and enforces private property rights and creates solid trade incentives, then it employment increases along with wages. Redistribution, however, doesn't attract long term foreign direct investment.

We're starting to face a similar problem in the US as illegal aliens don't pay taxes to the state, but are a strain on social services.

In a more insidious move, Democrats in California have raised the dollar amount for shoplifting and don't prosecute shoplifters. Guess what happens? The stores raise prices. Who gets hurt the worst? Poor people who are honest and don't steal. You see, Tainari88, I can recognize things like that because I am more than just some hard hearted idiot. It's the soft-hearted, soft-headed left leaning middle class idiots and their virtue signalling that implement this sort of thing. Who gets hurt the most? Honest poor people. That's fucked up.

The left in America thinks it is doing a good thing by letting criminals run rampant, giving needles to drug addicts, allowing people to defecate in public, and not enforcing shoplifting.

It bothers me, and I can give you two recent anecdotes:

I went to Macy's the other day to pick up a sport coat--ironically, they are unlocked. However, the popular Ralph Lauren polos are locked up. People can steal those polos, not get arrested and then turn around and sell them on Ebay. So what's the shopping experience like now? Anything that's popular is under lock and key. In California, for whatever reason, thieves don't steal suits.

During the drought a few years ago I got hooked on flavoring my water with Mio, because I could taste the river mud--I now also double filter my water habitually; first with Brita and then with ZeroWater. Anyway, Mio used to cost $2.98 a bottle at Winco. It's now $3.49. Why? To offset shrinkage.

When Rei Murasame used to post here, she would always note that it was Asians who ran the stores in ghettos and how they had to charge higher prices to deal with shoplifting. Now that's statewide in California.

I studied economics Tainari88, so I understand the concepts of positive and negative externalities. The idea of these policies of not prosecuting poor people for stealing is to be more compassionate. Yet, it's dewy-eyed rocks-for-brains stupidity from middle class leftists thinking they are better people than us hard hearted people on the right. However, the people who bear the brunt of it most are honest poor people. Who will they blame for this fiasco? The political right of course, because being a leftist means never having to acknowledge fucking up or having to apologize for it.

For me, I'm just starting to make the switch to shopping for groceries online so that I don't have to pay the de facto shoplifting tax that grocery stores are imposing--and shopping at members only outlets like Costco. I used to think shopping for groceries online was just the height of laziness, but now I can see a very practical reason for doing it. Sadly, poor people don't have credit cards, or if they do, they pay exorbitantly for them.

[Rugoz]

Really, Rugoz, you need to start analyzing why that region that used to be called upper Peru, is so volatile? Hint, hint. It has mineral wealth galore.

It is well known that natural resource wealth is more of a curse than blessing to developing countries. Reasons:

- Resources dominate exports and make domestic industry and services less competitive on the international market through exchange rate appreciation, hindering their development.
- It makes economy and government dependent on resource rents. Unfortunately commodity prices are volatile. It's managable if the government has enough foresight, otherwise the shit will hit the fan once commodity prices tank (e.g. Venezuela).
- It makes the government less dependent on tax income. Sounds nice in theory, but if you ask me it makes the government less accountable to its people.

See, no reason to put all the blame on big Satan.

[Beren]

And it's noteworthy that the collapse of Communism in the early 1990s led to a bigger economic hit than the Nazi invasion. Lol.

It was the collapse of the country itself, which the Nazi invasion couldn't achieve. However, I wonder if it would be less severe if capitalism collapsed.

[Potemkin]

It was the collapse of the country itself, which the Nazi invasion couldn't achieve. However, I wonder if it would be less severe if capitalism collapsed.

And those poor fools thought they would live like kings under capitalism, eating Big Macs and wearing new designer Levis....

[Beren]

And those poor fools thought they would live like kings under capitalism, eating Big Macs and wearing new designer Levis....

Well, I think they live better than ever now, it seems they only had to replace Yeltsin with Putin. However, even Putin can't make completely un-Russian miracles like overwhelming abundance.

[Potemkin]

Well, I think they live better than ever now, it seems they only had to replace Yeltsin with Putin. However, even Putin can't make completely un-Russian miracles like overwhelming abundance.

Even if the Russians, by some miracle, achieved overwhelming abundance, they would probably find some way to lose it all. That's just how they roll.