Venezuala - Famine ?

Venezuela used to be the richest country in South America.Now, its an absolute mess.I met a Venezuelan couple working in Lima a few months ago.They had to leave as many, many others have.In the 90´s it would have been unthinkable for a Venezuelan to leave to find work in a place like Peru.

They were Chavez voters and said that in the beginning good things were done but that quickly changed and he became a corrupt dictator.Maduro is even worse, a total idiot.

I´ve been to Caracas, it's a scary, scary place.Far as i know Venezuela now has the highest murder rate in the world, and that's just taking the "official" figures.Venezuelans are good people, its a real shame to see what their country has become....

People like Owen Jones are curiously silent on the situation there.When he wrote this it was already clear what a disaster the country was facing...

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10430

the rich elite want the country back in their hands.

Zorro, go to Caracas sometime it will be a real eye opener.Meet some ordinary Venezuelans, rich and poor, the majority are sick of Chavismo and want Maduro gone.

Chavez daughter is one of the richest women in Venezuela...shockingly corrupt regime
http://vzladigital.com/hija-de-chavez-aparece-en-la-revista-forbes/

The poor are being murdered in their thousands in areas like Petare.Maduro couldn't care less

Chavez quote... "To be rich is terrible, to be rich is inhumane"

Chavez daughter https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NMa9kzOmssM/hqdefault.jpg

Some of the luxeries of Chavez.$2,000 shoes, $20,000 watch, $5,000 suit.No to mention the numerous mansions, i could go on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXbIfTKUMUU

Agreed. Caracas is ridiculously dangerous even by South American standards. Chávez's regime has been an utter failure and it is quite incredible that some people, such as Jeremy Corbyn, still support it.

I'd say they'd made a Dogs Breakfast of their economy, but a "Patra the Cat's Breakfast" is the benchmark of messed up

They are your sort of socialists who idealogically don't believe in the private sector or industry so when the oil collapsed there is pretty much nothing else to support their entire economy. Bunch of tools, shower of Corbyns.

maybe a country at the very least should grow food for the people?

Ha! It was a magnificent breakfast.

"Bunch of tools, shower of Corbyns" is accurate, though.

Was on a cruise 2008, We were docked in Aruba and could see massive amounts of oil tankers heading towards Venezuala . How times have changed ...

Apparently their oil is really heavy so needs mixed with thinner oil. They need to buy it in from abroad and I read they are so broke they are struggling to pay for the oil they need in order to sell their own oil.

if u look at global violent crime stats, central and south american countries totally dominate.

Article I read said 95% of their external trade is oil, they have done pretty much no diversification when the price was at a nice level, if anything the opposite, it was one huge gamble that it would always remain high - If they even considered the possibility it would collapse.

zorrostrikes;

All past famines in the past are caused by financial manipulations.
Controlling the food controls the population.

even by the simplistic childish standards of this forum you are prodigiously unintelligent. your asinine, baby politics and total ignorance are so startling that i am wasting 2 minutes replying to a an uber idiot like you.

the famine started by lenin(min 3 million dead) was caused by a bolshevik dictator imposing his deranged political ideology on peasants, who tried to protest, and were murdered for it. only when the ussr was on the brink of a second civil war did lenin relent, allowing a very limited amount of personal autonomy. this almost certainly saved the ussr from implosion(sadly). stalin witnessed this, and bided his time, making sure his power was absolute. collectivisation and socialism would be forced on the peasants, and it was. livestock were murdered in their millions, rather hand them over the the bolsheviks. approx. 6 million people starved to death because the soviet govt. stole all their grain, and killed or exiled those that complained. amazing to think this terror-famine occured in a country with fabulous resources, and the most fertile farmland in the world. any dissent was to be suppressed mercilessly. and it was. whole populations were exiled to siberia.

but, amazingly, this is not the most egregious example. the famine created in china by mao killed a minimum of 30m. people died as a result of maos belief in marxism, despite china being a 95% agrarian society, and totally unsuited to the bearded looneys discredited creed about the 'lumpen proletariat'. peasants (again) died in their millions because mao decided that 'building socialism' was more important than the lives of the people he purported to represent, i.e the labouring poor. he killed em by the boatload. all food was state property, and 'hoarders' were subject to vile punishment, and their families labeled 'right deviationists' or 'capitalist-roaders' which meant unrelenting persecution by 'the party'.

the left is in denial about the these appalling crimes, frequently using the 'moral equivalent' defence, that the 'right' did bad things too, a disgustingly intellectually dishonest evasion that ignores the fact that almost nobody defends 'fascism' where many socialists defended the ussr/china. the most damning thing about these horrible crimes against humanity is that they happened during PEACETIME. tens of millions died, not fighting wars, but at the hands of their own revolutionary socialist govts.

there are plenty of others, like north korea, where it has become normalised( note that the only fat nkorean is yoo-know-who). cambodia, a charnel house the left has buried, and mengistus famine in ethiopia that resulted in something worse; bob geldof. the biggest canute in the world, until bono turned up.

there are other examples, but the point is clear. it is the fanatical imposition of left-wing political ideas that has resulted in the greatest calamity of the age, mass starvation and murder. and aided by left-wing wanchors like livingstone, corbyn, et al who scream about right-wing 'fascists', but love the deadly left-wing version.

you just proved my point - there's plenty of food, political and financial manipulations are what causes famines.

people are starving in parts of Africa today because rice in now $4 a bag. most people earn a dollar a day.

i can go to morrisons and buy savers rice for 50p

i was saying famines are caused by man - not a lack of food.

bollox you moron. you said all famines are caused by financial manipulation. they are not. the most terrible famines were created in the 20th century by imposition of barmy left-wing ideology. i want you to dispute that. you wont of course, because you cannot. oh, and because you are a moron.

africans are spectacularly useless at everything, aside from murder. it is a gigantic continent, many times the size of europe, yet they cannot even dig a hole in the ground, or educate the people. we are constantly enjoined to donate a pound or 2 so a child can have a pencil, or be freed from slave labour for an hour or so to try and learn to write. slavery is rife in africa. now. millions of children are sold into servitude. polygyny is everywhere, not unusual(the president of s.a. has many wives, and dozens of children. inconceivable elsewhere). fgm is normal. thats right, normal. what sort of canutes are these people?

someone has to manipulate the prices. they don't change the prices by themselves.

someone sets the prices.

Africa is screwed because of corruption. above all that the western countries have been controlling minerals in that region for hundreds of years. trading slaves. by getting one tribe to betray another. same thing today but with minerals

Bit off topic but the Arabs had a major, major part in the slave trade too.The Arabs would castrate the slaves, that's why there are not many black skinned people in places like Saudi Arabia.Saudi didn't outlaw slavery until 1962!There were around 300,000 slaves in the country at that time.

I'm not British, but to be fair to them they really lead the way in the abolition of slavery.Some of those involved were truely heroic in ending a practice which had existed since the dawn of time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blockade_of_Africa

dreaming if you think slavery ended.

some slave owners realized it was easier to pay them token wages. charge rents etc.

Qatar is refusing people the right to leave the country until the building of world cup stadiums are finished. People dying in extreme heat.

Same thing happened when they built the Hoover Dam. poor people tried forming unions. beat them to death. blacklisted them. extreme heat in tunnels killed many.

low wage slaves.

I think he means legally stopped but it still went on obviously

Minimum wage is still slavery imo

africans are spectacularly useless at everything, aside from murder. it is a gigantic continent, many times the size of europe, yet they cannot even dig a hole in the ground, or educate the people. we are constantly enjoined to donate a pound or 2 so a child can have a pencil, or be freed from slave labour for an hour or so to try and learn to write. slavery is rife in africa. now. millions of children are sold into servitude. polygyny is everywhere, not unusual(the president of s.a. has many wives, and dozens of children. inconceivable elsewhere). fgm is normal. thats right, normal. what sort of canutes are these people?

Quite.

And how long will it be before they manage to learn to use a condom, or realise what has caused the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Oh I forgot, it's against the 'cultural tradition' to change their sexual behaviour.

20 million in danger of famine - greatest humanitarian crisis this century so far - the UN trying to address problem.

3.5 billion needed to address famine in four nations in Africa?
where will they get that much?

1,810 billionaires worldwide with an average 3.5 billion each? that's a nice fit.

so just grab one greedy bastich's wealth and save 20 million people's lives.

"Late last month, famine was declared in two counties of the civil-war torn East African country of South Sudan. With 100,000 people at risk for dying of starvation in that area alone and millions more on the brink of crisis-level food shortages throughout the country, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir promised “unimpeded access” to humanitarian aid organizations working there.

A few days later the South Sudanese government hiked the fee for work permits for foreign aid workers from $100 to $10,000."

Mmm, I think I see trouble ahead here.

Famine is usually caused by political upheaval.

alun2005 22 Jun 16 14:13 
africans are spectacularly useless at everything, aside from murder. it is a gigantic continent, many times the size of europe, yet they cannot even dig a hole in the ground, or educate the people. we are constantly enjoined to donate a pound or 2 so a child can have a pencil, or be freed from slave labour for an hour or so to try and learn to write. slavery is rife in africa. now. millions of children are sold into servitude. polygyny is everywhere, not unusual(the president of s.a. has many wives, and dozens of children. inconceivable elsewhere). fgm is normal. thats right, normal. what sort of canutes are these people?

Quite.

And how long will it be before they manage to learn to use a condom, or realise what has caused the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Oh I forgot, it's against the 'cultural tradition' to change their sexual behaviour.

i'll think you'll find those cultural traditions are largely the ones taught by the catholic church: an institution which positively delights in seeking out the least educated members of the world so that it can get away with imposing the sort of sh1t no-one with even half an education would dream of believing.

Thatcher nailed socialism when she said it had no interest in bettering peoples lives. It was more interested in sharing its idea of poorness amongst everyone. It would happily see more people poorer and die as long as rich people were less rich.

I believe a lot of African nations are still under the thumb of the west in part. There are factions vying for power within independent states. But they get their financing for weapons from the west a lot of the time. Looking for minerals in return. China is moving into africa and throwing money in their direction to get minerals for laptops and phones. Africa is just up for grabs. The deal makers are the new kings.

DStyle 12 Mar 17 18:55 
alun2005 22 Jun 16 14:13

And how long will it be before they manage to learn to use a condom, or realise what has caused the HIV/AIDS pandemic?

Oh I forgot, it's against the 'cultural tradition' to change their sexual behaviour.

i'll think you'll find those cultural traditions are largely the ones taught by the catholic church: an institution which positively delights in seeking out the least educated members of the world so that it can get away with imposing the sort of sh1t no-one with even half an education would dream of believing.


Take a look at the African countries with the highest percentage of HIV/AIDS. They are the areas where most of the population identifies as Protestant. As you move down the list to "safer" areas, you find the populations tend to identufy as Catholic. The safest areas of all are very much Muslim.

Free condoms don't appear to help much when the people are extremely promiscuous.

The Catholic areas fare better because fornication can mean eternal damnation, so don't do it. If you must do it, then hell won't be hotter if you wear a condom, so wear one. Besides, it's using a condom for contraception that's sinful, using it to prevent disease is not. (The obvious example would be two men. The condom is the least of their worries.)

Then we have the Muslim regions. Yes, fornication will be punished in the afterlife but guess what? It's going to be punished in this life too. Now, kneel down and bend your head while I get my sword lined up. Is everybody watching? WHOOSH! Right, next please.

Whatever you think of public execution, it certainly has some health benefits for those who see it.

Of course, perhaps you've never actually been to Africa and met the people. You do appear religious. Maybe you can explain the difference between Lutheranism and Calvinism and why never the twain shall meet? Are British Protestants mostly Lutheran or mostly Calvinist?

zorrostrikes 21 Jun 16 04:59 

All past famines in the past are caused by financial manipulations.


I can't speak for all past famines in the future but the ones in the past weren't caused by financial manipulation.

Famine is the default position for all creatures. If you don't get killed or ill, you starve to death. It's inescapable. Just when you think you've escaped, you get old, which means ill, and then you starve to death.

Mankind is the only creature to solve the problem. Feed the hungry. However, that means more work, so men continually look for easier ways of getting food. That's where ignorance bumps into stupidity and they have a family. We'll call them Politicians.

In the mid-1800s, millions of Irish starved because Politicians in England wanted grain for rich men's racehorses. Only rich men could vote, so it was perfectly understandable. The same thing happened in Northern Scotland but because fewer than two million died there (most of their ancestors had been Cleared in the previous century) it hardly made the papers.

The Soviet famines have been very well documented but they boiled down to one thing: Tell the commissars that you had grown the wheat and they wouldn't shoot you. When the trains came to collect the wheat you hadn't grown, you loaded what little you had and then starved. It's the default position.

A fellow called Mousey Dung took over China because he promised to stop famines. Mousey knew nothing about farming or fishing but he loved a good folk story. He heard the one about the farmer who mistakenly bought a bull and a sow and, out of desperation, bred them. Well, he got the biggest pigging cattle in the whole of China. He had butter to fry his bacon butties, made a fortune and went to America.

Mr. Dung was then told that rice was being planted five fingers apart and the crops were thin. So he had the peasants cut off their little fingers. This had the advantages of making them grow the rice plants tighter and also of feeding the sows who seemed disinclined to get pregnant with the bulls.

It nearly worked but it didn't. Mousey made enquiries and was told that rice could be grown so tightly that a man could walk across a paddy field without getting his feet wet. There's an Irish connection in there somewhere but I can't easily put my finger on it. The Chinese peasants couldn't easily put their fingers on it either because they lost more fingers (both hands, no waiting) to teach them to plant the rice even tighter.

With the loss of so many fingers under Mousey Dung, very little was being manipulated and especially not money. So they assumed the default position. Famine.