Democratic Socialism In Venezuela

And you had offered them as an economic juggernaut? It wouldn't have been an expression of surprise.

Instead of predictions, here's an observation: if in 25 years they are reduced to the level of the US now, they will have had fifty years of prosperity the US has not had, and be no worse off in consequence.

 

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25 years from now (2041) Swedish women can celebrate more than 300 years of having the right to vote. Initially that right was limited like it was in US even for men (property owners, etc.).

 

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This is in no way related to "Democratic Socialism" you idiot.

 

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Here is a list of Products from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Sweden
most with global marketing, that "Democratic Socialism" in Sweden has produced in less than 100 years, with few natural resources and a population less than that of the NYC's commuting area.

60 different consumer goods:

• AarhusKarlshamn (AAK), vegetable oils, fats
• Abba Seafood, seafood
• ABU Garcia, fishing reels, now part of Jarden corporation
• Acne Studios, fashion
• Arla Foods, dairy
• Ballograf, ballpoint pens and pencils
• Björn Borg, fashion
• Brio, toys
• Cheap Monday, clothing
• Cloetta, chocolate
• Electrolux, appliances
• Elfa International, shelving
• Ellos, e-commerce
• Esselte, office products, now a part of J.W. Childs Associates
• Filippa K, clothing
• Findus, frozen food, now owned by Lion Capital LLP
• Fjällräven, outdoor clothing
• Galvin Green, golf clothing
• GB Glace, ice cream, now owned by Unilever
• Haglöfs, outdoor equipment
• Hagström, musical instruments
• Hasselblad, cameras
• Hestra, gloves
• Husaberg AB, motorcycles
• IsaDora, cosmetics
• J.Lindeberg (JL), clothing
• Jens of Sweden, defunct media players
• Jofa, defunct sport equipment, now part of Reebok
• Koenigsegg, automotive
• Kopparbergs Brewery, brewery
• Krönleins, brewery
• Kungsörnen, food
• Lantmännen, agriculture cooperative
• Luxor, defunct home electronics, acquired by Nokia
• Marabou, acquired by Kraft Foods
• Monark, bicycle
• Mora of Sweden, knives
• Nobia, kitchen
• Nudie Jeans, clothing
• Odd Molly, clothing
• Oriflame, cosmetics
• Polarbröd, bread
• PostNord, mail, logistics
• Primus AB, portable cooking devices
• Pripps, brewery, now part of Carlsberg Group
• Pågen, bakery
• Saab Automobile, automotive, now owned by NEVS
• SIA Glace, ice cream
• Silva compass, navigation equipment
• Spendrups, brewery
• Stiga, garden mowers, now part of Global Garden Products S.p.A
• Swedish Match, tobacco
• Thule, automotive
• Urbanears, headphones
• V&S Group, beverages
• Volvo Cars, automotive, part of Geely Automobile
• VSM Group, now part of SVP Worldwide
• Wasabröd, bread, now part of Barilla Group
• Wayne's Coffee, coffeehouse chain
• WESC, clothing

The list at link also gives: 25 Finacials, 18 health care compainies, 70 industrials, 14 energy & media compinies, 22 retail and travel firms, 23 telecommunication firms, 45 technology firms, 16 basic materials firms and 7 utilities.

Some of the best known globally include:
Saab (cars and jet fighters)
AstraZeneca (medical drugs)
Electrolux (home applances, including refrigerators)
Ericsson (electronics > 100,000 employees world wide)
IKEA (Flat packed furniture. 325 stores in > 38 countries.)
Skype (makes free voice and video calls over the internet)
Spotify (lets users freely listen to, stream and share music tracks)
Volvo (pioneer of car safety)

The above is what Democratic Socialism is and can do, via well educated small population with few natural resources.

Did I mention free education and health care that gives several years greater life expectancy than Americans enjoy?

I guess your extreme ignorance about Democratic Socialism, excuses you for calling Venezuela that.

 

From: The Sweden Myth

Recently, the so-called Swedish model — that is, the Swedish economic system with high taxes and a big welfare state — has been celebrated again in the press. The alleged recent success of the Swedish economy has allowed welfare statists both inside and outside of Sweden to argue that high taxes and an extensive welfare state are good for the economy. To fully understand this fallacy, we should review Sweden's economic history.

Until the second half of the 19th century, Sweden was fairly poor. But far-reaching free market reforms in the 1860s allowed Sweden to benefit from the spreading Industrial Revolution. And so, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Sweden saw its economy rapidly industrializing, driven by the many Swedish inventors and entrepreneurs.

During that time, Sweden produced extraordinarily many inventions, given its small population, including: dynamite, invented by Alfred Nobel (who established the Nobel Prize); the self-aligning ball bearing, invented by Sven Wingquist (who used this to create the SKF company); the sun-valve, invented by Gustav Dahlén (who used it to found industrial gas company AGA); the gas absorption refrigerator, invented by Baltzar von Platen (which was later used by Electrolux).

In addition, there were countless non-inventing entrepreneurs during that period: car manufacturers Volvo and Saab, and telecommunications company Ericsson. Indeed, with just a few exceptions, nearly all large Swedish companies were started during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which was not only a period of strong growth, but also the time when the foundation for later economic growth was laid.

Another factor which continued Swedish prosperity was the fact that Sweden was able to stay out of both World Wars, and indeed all other wars as well. Sweden is in fact the country with the longest consecutive period of peace, having fought no war since 1809, when Sweden was invaded by Russia, losing Finland to the invader.

Sweden has thus enjoyed 5 more years of peace than Switzerland, which participated in the Napoleonic wars in 1814. As a result of its free market policies, the resourcefulness of its people, and its successful avoidance of war, Sweden had the highest per-capita income growth in the world between 1870 and 1950, by which time Sweden had become one of the world's richest countries, behind only the United States and Switzerland, and Denmark (who have since also fallen behind because of high taxes).

But the foundation for future trouble had already been created. In 1932, the Social Democrats rose to power in the face of the Great Depression. And like FDR in America and Adolf Hitler in Germany, they started to expand government power over the economy. Until 1932, government spending had been kept below 10% of GDP in Sweden, but the Social Democrats, under their leader Per Albin Hansson, wanted to change this and remake Sweden into a "folkhem" ("people's home"), a term Swedish Social Democrats adopted from the Fascists in Italy.

Even in the early 1950s, Sweden was still one of the freest economies in the world, and government spending relative to GDP was in fact below the American level.

But between 1950 and 1976, Sweden experienced an expansion in government spending unprecedented during a period of peace, with government spending to GDP rising from about 20% in 1950 to more than 50% in 1975. Virtually every year, taxes were increased while the welfare state expanded relentlessly, both in the form of a sharp increase in the number of government employees and ever more transfer payment benefits.

During the first 20 years, this relentless government expansion took place seemingly without ill effect, as Sweden benefited from rapid global growth — although Sweden's growth had already started to slip in relative terms, from well above average to just average. This changed in the 1970s after Olof Palme, from the left wing of the Social Democratic party became Prime Minister. Palme stepped up the socialist transformation in Sweden, rapidly increasing anti-business regulations and sharply increased payroll taxes.

The payroll-tax increases, along with increasing wage demands from unions, made Swedish businesses highly uncompetitive on the global markets, something which Palme decided to solve by devaluing the Swedish krona. As a result, price inflation rose sharply, leading to repeated devaluations. Popular discontent from the economic woes created by the global economic downturn, the massive tax increases, the increased regulations, and the increasing inflation enabled the center right to come into power in 1976, breaking 44 years of uninterrupted Social Democratic rule.

But because the center-right parties were unwilling to push for more radical free-market reforms, the economic woes, including the inflation-devaluation cycle, continued. For this reason, and because the three coalition parties — the conservative Moderate Party, the Liberal Party, and the Center Party — were unable to get along, the Social Democrats returned to power in 1982.

They immediately implemented one "big bang" devaluation of 16%, which they claimed would be the last. They had claimed the same thing before all the previous devaluations, including the 10% devaluation that the center-right government had decided upon the year before. This time it appears that they actually meant it, but as with The Boy Who Cried Wolf, no one believed them.

Inflationary expectations and thus union wage demands remained very high. And in 1985, the government decided to deregulate bank lending. While this reform was necessary in order to improve capital allocation, it had disastrous side effects given the fact that at the time, real interest rates were way below zero after tax and inflation. This caused a massive credit expansion, which in turn helped further aggravate consumer price inflation while also creating a massive stock- and real estate bubble. As the exchange rate remained fixed, Swedish competitiveness was quickly undermined.

After Palme was killed by an unknown assassin in February 1986, pragmatist Ingvar Carlsson became prime minister. Worried that Swedish growth had trailed most other countries, Carlsson's government implemented a number of free-market reforms. Among these were the lifting of all currency controls in 1989 and a tax reform that dramatically reduced marginal tax rates (although they also reduced a number of deductions, including deductions for interest payments). Although these reforms have arguably contributed to improving the long-term economic performance of Sweden, they would contribute to precipitating the deep economic downturn in the early 1990s.

 

Meanwhile, as the economy started slowing significantly in 1990 after a series of tightening measures, consumer price inflation slowed. With the combination of continued high nominal interest rates, reduced capital gains taxation (and with that, reduced deductions for interest payments) and falling price inflation, real interest rates started rising significantly, helping to end the asset price bubbles. On top of all of this came the oil price shock following Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and an economic downturn in key trading partners such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Finland. The end result was that Sweden slipped into a recession in late 1990.

As Sweden fell into a recession and its highly cyclical government budget balance started to deteriorate rapidly, investor confidence in the Swedish fixed-exchange-rate scheme started to deteriorate rapidly.

And with currency controls abolished a few years ago, the krona was fair game for currency speculators. Unlike in the past, the government was determined not to devalue, and they deemed a return to strict currency controls as unthinkable, so they had no choice but to defend the currency by raising interest rates. But as the currency speculators knew that these interest rate levels could not be sustained, they renewed their attacks, knowing that their gain from a collapsed currency regime would be far greater than the interest rate levels the Riksbank could offer. The end result was that real after-tax interest rates were pushed up into double digit levels — after having been negative just a few years earlier. That in turn deepened the recession further.

In the end, though, the fixed-exchange-rate scheme collapsed in November 1992. The dramatic increase in interest rates and the deep recession had at the same time created a large amount of bad loans, making almost all major banks in effect bankrupt. (The exception was Handelsbanken, known for its more cautious lending practices.) Only after the Swedish government pledged they would bail out the banks with whatever money they needed was a widespread banking collapse averted.

All told, the recession became Sweden's deepest by far since the Great Depression, with GDP in 1993 being 5% lower than in 1990, with employment falling more than 10%, and the budget deficit rising to more than 10% of GDP. By then Sweden had fallen to between 15th and 20th place in international income comparisons, a decline from which it has never
since recovered.

After this deep downturn, Sweden has performed much better for a number of reasons. The 20% decline in the value of the krona in late 1992 gave a strong boost to exports and together with the dramatic lowering of interest rates, this helped kick-start a cyclical recovery in late 1993. Moreover, a number of free market reforms implemented during Ingvar Carlsson and conservative Carl Bildt (who was Prime Minister between 1991 and 1994) had helped raise the structural growth potential of the Swedish economy.

Apart from the already mentioned reforms of reduced marginal tax rates and abolished currency controls, deregulated bank lending and significantly lower inflation, this included privatizations of several state-owned companies and deregulation of several key sectors, including the retail sector, the telecommunications sector and the airline industry. Also, when the massive budget deficit was eliminated, even the Social Democrats realized the need for deep spending cuts, which together with the typical cyclical decline in the burden of spending during booms helped reduce the extremely bloated burden of government spending somewhat.

All of this has helped Sweden recover in relative terms from the stagnation of the 1970s and 1980s and the deep economic downturn in the early 1990s. It is this relative recovery that is now seized upon by the Social Democrats and their sympathizers inside and outside of Sweden when they claim that the Swedish model of high taxes and a big welfare state is successful.

Yet as should be clear, the relative improvement of performance is due not to high taxes (lower now than previously), but to free-market reforms.

The reason Sweden no longer trails the rest of Europe is that these reforms, which have not been implemented in most continental European countires, have made the Swedish economy relatively freer.

And even with these reforms, Sweden has not, in fact, performed better than the rest of Europe. While headline GDP growth has been slightly higher, this advantage disappears when taking into account that Sweden's terms of trade have deteriorated significantly.

And if we exclude heavy-weight laggards Germany and Italy, Sweden has in fact continued to fall behind the Continent, event with Europe's dismal performance compared to most other parts of the world.

If we look beneath the aggregate production figures, we can see deep structural problems. The number of people employed is now 6% lower than in 1990, a weaker development than in any other western economy. By contrast, even with the weak job growth in recent years (by American standards), employment in the United States is 20% higher than in 1990.

And the number of people employed in Sweden is actually lower than in 1980, too. You have to go back to the mid-1970s to find employment numbers lower than the current ones. While total employment has been roughly unchanged since 1975, it masks a significant decline in male employment. And if you look only at the private sector, employment is now at a level lower than in 1950.

 

Social Democrats still often claim that Sweden has a comparatively high employment rate, but this claim is based on deceptive employment statistics that count as employed many who have been on long-term sick leave or in some other way on the receiving end of transfer payment programs, even though they don't actually work.

Moreover, the "stay at home mom" is very rare in Sweden. Because of the incentives created by the feminist construction of the Swedish welfare system, mothers mostly leave their children at government day care centers. Even if you believe that mothers who stay home to take care of their children are the victims of patriarchical oppression, you cannot deny the childcare takes a lot of work, but only those who take care of other people's children count as employed. By shifting childcare from the home to the public sector, the government further exaggerates Swedish employment figures.

The headline unemployment rate in Sweden is only 5–5.5%, but this number is extremely misleading as it only includes a small number of the people who the government pays not to work. Many unemployed are sent to so-called "labor market political activities" — activities whose only purpose is to reduce the official unemployment rate.

If we ignore this ruse, unemployment is 8%. And if you also include the enormous number of early retirees and people who live off sickness benefits, the real unemployment rate is more like 25%. The number of early retirees is 540,000, more than double the number of officially unemployed. Among non-Western immigrants, the real unemployment rate is higher than 50%.

All of this is exactly what we should expect from transfer payment benefits to people who don't work, from massive payroll taxes, income taxes, and value-added taxes. This has greatly inhibited the growth of a labor-intensive private-service sector that could have provided jobs for many of the unemployed immigrants.

During the most recent year, however, growth has picked up significantly in Sweden. To some extent, this reflects the global cyclical upswing, but there is also a domestic Swedish factor at work here, which has helped push Swedish growth higher than in most European countries. After the painful fiasco of the fixed-exchange-rate regime in 1992, Sweden instead adopted inflation targeting.

This monetary policy regime seems so far to have been significantly more successful, but the policy is creating new problems. Because of deregulation and increased competition in a number of sectors in recent years, consumer price inflation has been fairly low, indeed below the 2% target most of the time. Food prices, for example, have been falling as fierce competition from low-price chains like Lidl, Netto, and Willys, have forced the major supermarket chains to cut prices in order to keep their customers.

Low prices are good for consumers, of course, but according to the inflation-targeting dogma, too low a rate of price inflation is itself a problem — a problem that must be counteracted with increased monetary inflation. Thus the Riksbank has been forced to push down interest rates dramatically in order to boost money supply enough to help achieve a 2% consumer price inflation rate.

As consumer price inflation is now starting to creep back up toward 2%, it appears that they will be successful, but this will have come at the cost of unleashing an asset price bubble and household debt levels similar to the levels experienced in the late 1980s.

Money supply rose 11.5% in Sweden in the year to May, even higher than the 8.9% seen in the Euro-zone. It is the dramatic acceleration of monetary inflation in 2005 which has temporarily boosted Swedish growth. The timing of this boom is, it should be noted, very convenient for the ruling Social Democrats and their parliamentary allies, the Green Party and the communist Left Party, given the fact that they face an election this year in September.

Ultimately, this artificial boom will have to come to an end, and although the ensuing crisis will likely not be as deep as in the early 1990s, the seemingly impressive Swedish boom will certainly be revealed as a fraud — just as the whole story of the success of the Swedish economic model is a fraud.

 

--oo--
We'll see. Again, multicultural Sweden is already starting to look a lot like the USA. As for feminism, I feel sorry for Swedish boys. I had a conversation with a Swedish guy (about 25) the other day. While this is, obviously, anecdotal; he felt like dirt. Why? He's a White Male. Somehow, he has become convinced his being White and Male (two things he has absolutely no control over) made him a horrible human being. I have to say, if he wasn't so distraught I'd think he was having a go. What was his story? One of a very successful mother, a CEO, who didn't spend any time with her son and, because he was just average, told him this crap repeatedly. And, so did his teachers. So does the media. While I find it almost impossible I could be taught to think like this, it makes zero sense, obviously you're an individual not 'White Male' (LOL). Other's are indeed much more impressionable.

It was horrible when fathers taught their daughters to believe they were simple creatures of habit, unsuitable for professional life. And IMO many modern day feminists are equally as repugnant. Universities only have 40% males now, yet we need more scholarships to 'get girls into college'. WTF? There's been more girls at University since the 1980s. Worse still, boys are treated like broken girls because they don't fit well into Government schooling, particularly the sitting for 1 hour at a time. But, whatever, onwards and downwards.


So, let's see where wonderful Sweden ends up (and Germany) in 25 years.



As for Venezuela, they are democratic, they are very socialistic. They're an example of what happens when you mix, Democratic Socialism with Lots of Oil: Economic Stupidity. I mean, they import most of their food - that's stupid. They can't refine their own oil - that's stupid. Without a free market, they ended up with all the wrong people (many sociopaths) in all the powerful positions in society, not because they provided economic value, but because they crushed, lied, cheated, and scammed their way into power. A story as old as time.

 

The single most important economic reform of the 1860s was the establishment of a Central Bank controlled by the government of Sweden. That provided financing, and the concomitant lowering of tariffs and government negotiations of beneficial trade agreements worldwide provided markets. Industrialization was then rapid.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_National_Bank

A well-governed market capitalist economy is indeed a source of prosperity.

Except in Norway. Scotland. Places like that - that weren't colonized as banana republics in the first place.

Whereas tyranny, authoritarian theocracy, and fascism, mixes with lots of oil very well. That's been noticed before - oil companies, like other large corporations, get along much better with tyrants than they do with unruly mobs of citizens.

It wasn't for lack of trying. They lost, is all - they were beaten by foreign corporations and their military backing.

 

LOL

How'd Germany do with their Central Bank? Oh yeah, it led to their downfall. How about our Central Bank? Our Central Bankers expanded the money supply in order to help England re-establish the pound's peg to gold at the rate before WWI, this inadvertently led to the Roaring 20s, culminating in the Great Depression and WWII.

The last thing the Swedish needed was a Central Bank.

 

Yes, and the less State regulation is in place, the more private sustainable solutions are developed, all the better.

Right now, we could have completely transparent money. As in, every single cent spent, by those who voluntarily chose to use it, could be accounted for. We have the technology to do this - and have had, for years now. Imagine, when an idiot blows 1.5 million on a moronic peace of research equipment, that is never used - ever, not even once, instead of giving this person awards for 'curing cancer' (yeah, I know, completely crazy isn't it?) and access to hundred of millions of dollars (let me repeat that: 100s of MILLIONS MORE DOLLARS, you know, for 'curing cancer' - why just look at that big peace of equipment, that looks important), instead, with transparent money, resources would be diverted away from such bullshitters and into more productive means.

You do know how much waste our government generates? I don't think so. Because there's a ton of waste that's claimed as 'success'.

Lucky for central banks, for now we have a lot of oil to burn, idiocy to be funded, and can keep doing so, as long as we have Earth's ecosystems to buffer it all. But, once they're destroyed, together with our societies themselves, reality will rear it's ugly head and we'll see once and for all: Correlation is not Causation

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It's the first thing they did, the first and most significant reform of the Swedish economy.

In your unique ability to pick the exact wrong example for every argument you make, you chose the country, and the decade, and the arena of action - the entire example of a once poor country becoming prosperous via intelligent reform of its economic system. All I did was fill in the specifics - what they actually did, at the time you specified, in the field you specified, with the consequences you celebrated.

 

Write to the author of the article cited with your refutation of the 'magical central bank' argument and ask for a retraction of their thesis.

As for Central Banks, their currency is no different than any other currency - with one exception: They have the State to enforce /by fiat their use. Thus, morally innocent people are forced to use their paper as a form of currency to trade, or face the enforcement agencies of the State. See iceaura, IF central banks really did create a currency people actually wanted to use, then people would use it - there'd be no need to use the State, and thus no need for a Central Bank.

It's why gold and silver has been used for thousands of years and never had the need of a State. People just wanted to use those metals to conduct trade.

In the future, people will use other means to exchange, and if our Central Banks should fail (as history would suggest they will) then these private currencies will not require violence and maybe we'll be a little freer. Or not. We'll have to wait to see

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In the meantime, let's see how the magical Venezuelan Central Bank and Democratic Socialism works its magic to bring prosperity to the Citizens/property of Venezuela.

 

I have no interest in their thesis, whatever it is. I simply noted that the major economic reform of the 1860s in Sweden was the replacement of the poorly functioning private banks, that had been fulfilling central bank roles until then, with government establishment of a government-run Central Bank, something Sweden had not had in the decades of economic disorder and poverty prior to that reform. They have had that same Bank ever since, and have enjoyed increasing prosperity and a generally well-functioning economy over that entire time - about 150 years now.

You picked the country, the decade of interest, and the arena of action to be credited - which was a bit strange given your dislike of government controlled central banking, but I put it down to your customary obliviousness to fact

and also your once again uncanny ability to select - from all that time and all those events more or less equally unknown to you, in defiance of the laws of probability and common sense alike -

exactly the wrong historical example for supporting whatever claim you are making this time. Sweden's central bank is one of the oldest and best run in the world. Of the many dozens of countries you could have chosen as your example of whatever, only one or two would have as clearly conflicted with your claims about central government banks as Sweden. And you picked the exact decade of its establishment. What are the odds?

One of the very first functions of States was to establish and make possible the use of gold and silver as money, rather than simply commodities. Gold and silver mediated trade needs State organization more than almost anything else - its only rivals would be things like irrigation, or agriculturally supported war and defense.

 

LOL

From: Free Banking in Sweden 1830–1903: Experience and Debate (PDF)

See, the money for a Central Bank is stolen from the Private Banks. That's one of the reasons Central Banks need an Income Tax, so that they can begin the slow transfer of wealth (saving, generally in the form of gold and silver) into their monopolistic fiat currencies. Which, ultimately transition through Great Depressions (as is happening now) then World Wars (as will probably happen in the future) culminating in a total debasement of the currency (see Ancient Rome, Germany following WWI or modern day Venezuela) and complete social collapse - again, see thread title, or Detroit.

 

Yeah, that's what collapsed the Roman economy - central banking and income taxes. After 400 years of illusory prosperity, it was bound to catch up with them. You watch - another couple of hundred years, the US will be in the same pickle. And it won't have anything to do with the army, any more than in Rome.

And Germany after WWI - imagine all those silly Keynesians thinking that war destruction and reparations from the Treaty of Versailles had anything to do with their troubles.

And Venezuela, cursed by oil without a powerful military to protect it - the blame lies with some ideology or another held by troublemakers, obviously. What other choice could there be, for the economic woes of a country so blessed by close attention from the rich and powerful of countries that do have powerful militaries?

 

Debasing the value of their currency by lowing the sliver content - done, yes, from a central authority. Likewise, China was the first 'nation' to make a fiat currency, one printed on silk. They're still recovering.

Oh, THAT's the reason why Venezuela never developed the capacity to refine their own oil. No, it wasn't investment, it was their lack of military. Kind of like Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc... I suppose not having a "strong" military was why they can't produce their own food, even though they have suitable land for cultivation. Yup, it's all that lack of a 'strong' military. Not their idiotic centrally planned economy. No no no, not "Democratic" Socialism. THAT can't be the answer. Maybe that's why our Centrally Planned Government-run "Welfare" Ghettos look like shit, are dangerous drug dens where no one in their right mind would ever want to raise a family there. It's our lack of a "strong" military. That's why our Government-run schools shit out functionally illiterate graduates at a rate of 1 in 5. Our hyper-government-regulated medical rent-seeking and death by medial error (not to mention now OD by pain pill prescription) is all due to our lack of a strong central authoritarian government. We just need one more regulation, just a little bit more tax, just a few more laws and some police - combined with the NSA, THEN and only then can our "Democratic" Socialistic Bernie-Ville Paradise come into fruition.

Source: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security
Venezuela - Military expenditure
Military expenditure (current LCU)

The value for Military expenditure (current LCU) in Venezuela was 32,136,000,000 as of 2013. As the graph below shows, over the past 22 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 32,136,000,000 in 2013 and a minimum value of 55,900,000 in 1991.

 

Reflections on Venezuela’s "Economic Miracle"

 

Want to know when a person doesn't want something? It's when violence must be employed against morally innocent people 'for their own damn good'. If central banking is so good, then why the need for the initiation of violence against innocent 'citizens'? Just offer the produce, in this case a currency, and allow free people to freely choose to use it. You know, that whole 'democracy' and personal liberty thing? It's really not that hard. The fact is, Sweden had a very prosperous free-banking system. And, at times some of those banks failed. At other times they greatly prospered, and so did society with them. Private banks precede Central Banks. The same could be said of GM, at one time GM just about went bankrupt, then it reformed and was a pretty decent company for decades. How do we know? Because people WANTED their cars and trucks. GM grew to large. They also grew inefficient, made low quality products, ended up with UAW Baby's for a workforce and eventually no one want their crappy cars and trucks - they went bankrupt. There's no 'need' to now centralize automotive industry - it's normal for companies to go bust. That's a good thing. It allows others to compete and grow and start the cycle again. It also stands as a lesson in what not to do.

Private banks are no different. In a normal economy, some should be going bust.

Central Banks on the other hand, literally have a licence to steal. Which is what they do. As a matter of fact, it's the ONLY way your "Democratic" Socialists can implement any of their so-called "policies". They require State violence, exemplified in numerous centralized violent authoritarian institutions: central banks, fiat currencies, police state, spy separatist, a prison industrial complex, and because they're so inefficient they also require something like oil to remain viable (see Title of thread) or they create a massive military industrial complex to steal from everyone around them as well as their own citizens.

 

Socialism is, given it's reliance on State violence, in reality: anti-Social. Democratic or otherwise. It's as if, to the socialist, they cannot imagine a world where good comes from voluntary interaction. IMO they magic think. The Government is like a God to them. It fills the same psychological need.

In the real world, there's a very real Pope and his Bishops. For the State this is a very real POTUS and our Senators. Just look at "The People" rioting and looting and burning (both here and in Venezuela). They funny/sad thing is, for most, when you talk to them, on a one to one level - it's about them. Not society. Not what's good for society. Certainly not what's good for the future society (their kids). No, they're worried about #1. They're worried they'll lose their State benefits, or they'll lose their job or this or that.

No, it's not about: "The Good of Society". It's about the individual person and their individual personal insecurity. Which is what it's always been. And why we absolutely need to LIMIT State violence and maximize personal liberty. We'll have the same needs, which will be met, but not by initiating violence against innocent citizens. We'll have to work with one another - on an individual by individual bases.

Anyway, don't be surprised if or when the God-head status is transferred from People to The State and finally to a Dictator of The State.