Venezuelan Cash Worth Less Than WoW Gold

[Derah]

I'm confused why someone would convert for 12,000+ to 1 when you can simply go through legal means through the government for 10 to 1? seems like a no brainer to me.

Speaking as an actual venezuelan, I can answer that.

There's 3 (yes, THREE) exchange rates in my country.

The "official" one, of 10 bolivars per dollar. That one is not available to you. Its not available to me. Unless you're a high ranking member of the government, a diplomatic official, and/or sucking maduro's dick, you can't access this exchange rate. No ifs, no buts. End of story.

Then there's the "restricted" one, currently sitting at 2870 bolivars per dollar. There was a time, once, where this one was available to the general population in a VERY LIMITED capacity. You had to justify why you wanted dollars, the only options being "Online Purchases" and "Travel". If you select "Online Purchases", you could only exchange 300 dollars PER YEAR, and you had to spend them all before the fiscal year ended, or they'd be taken away from you (even though you paid for them already). IF you selected "Travel", you could exchange 5000 dollars per year (later brought down to 700 per year, lol, as if anyone could afford a vacation in a broom closet for such a pitiful sum) but you had to prove that you were prepared to travel, including plane tickets, travel doccuments, hotel reservations etc. And you had to prove to the government that you WERE outside the country and came back, including receipts, etc, or else, they'd deny you travel dollars the next time you ask. And no, you couldn't choose both. It was either one or the other.

But that was before. Now, much like the above option: Unless you're a high-ranking member of the communist party, or sucking the dick of a high-ranking member of the communist party, this exchange rate is not available for you.

Then there's the black market exchange rate. This one is unofficial and illegal, and uses a floating point based on supply/demand, whose values are calculated based on a number of factors. Much like the wow token. Because this one is illegal, its not beholden to any laws, and thus is freely available to everyone, but of course, its extraordinarily expensive. Its currently sitting at 17,000 bolivars per dollar (For reference: I make about 100,000 bolivars a month. So I make about 5 dollars a month, give or take a few cents)

Ohh and to anyone defending socialism/communism: Kindly go fuck yourself. With a rusty gangrenous spork.

[CKaleb]

I'd love to discuss this matter, seeing as I'm actually Kaleb, the guy whose tweet was quoted by Fortune in the article posted by OP; but some commie mod keeps deleting my posts, so yeah.

[Ethris]

Socialism/communism does not take human nature into account. Which is why it always fails.

I wish every single middle school social studies teacher quashed this retarded argument with the draconian measures it deserves. Socialism fails because it is unsustainable over time and requires the infinite exploitation of finite resources. Entropy is a physical reality of the world, and it applies in economics too. Market incentives drive national economies, and if you want people to continue producing all the conveniences and contrivances of modern life, you need to provide incentives which outweigh the costs of achieving those goals.

For instance: the costs of becoming a doctor
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt.
Rigorous study for 7+ years.
Arduous accreditation process and even when you get your degree you're still basically an intern until boards.
80+ hour work weeks for the rest of your career.
Always being on-call.

Now what could possibly incentivize someone to go through all that? Because after all, there's a tremendous demand for good doctors, and a short supply of people willing and able to go through that process. Oh right, we pay them a shit ton of money, and treat them as if their degrees were printed on gold leaf. If the benefits of this situation didn't outweigh (or at least weren't comparable) to the cost, nobody would go through it.

Now, consider under a socialist system where the government decided that those decadent bourgeois doctors are simply being paid too much, so they impose an income tax on specifically doctors. Or better yet, lets socialize the healthcare system so that doctors are now government employees and we can decide exactly how much money they should make.

So after all that, being a doctor doesn't really look so good anymore. Why would I be a doctor and go through all that trouble when I could just become a plumber and make comparable money, with less education, and better quality of life? What happens when the government decides that plumbers are making too much money and decides to crack down on them next?

Soon you have a situation where there are no incentives to do anything, so the government has to use force as an incentive. Things tend to reach a tipping point when the use of force no longer incentivizes people, because the quality of life gets so bad that death would be preferable. This is the inevitable breakdown of socialism, and it has characteristically run this course every time it has been tried.

So please spare us that tired nonsense of "Oh, socialism is just too perfect for us flawed horrible people. If only we could be worthy of such a perfect wonderful system."

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Speaking as an actual venezuelan, I can answer that.

There's 3 (yes, THREE) exchange rates in my country.

The "official" one, of 10 bolivars per dollar. That one is not available to you. Its not available to me. Unless you're a high ranking member of the government, a diplomatic official, and/or sucking maduro's dick, you can't access this exchange rate. No ifs, no buts. End of story.

Then there's the "restricted" one, currently sitting at 2870 bolivars per dollar. There was a time, once, where this one was available to the general population in a VERY LIMITED capacity. You had to justify why you wanted dollars, the only options being "Online Purchases" and "Travel". If you select "Online Purchases", you could only exchange 300 dollars PER YEAR, and you had to spend them all before the fiscal year ended, or they'd be taken away from you (even though you paid for them already). IF you selected "Travel", you could exchange 5000 dollars per year (later brought down to 700 per year, lol, as if anyone could afford a vacation in a broom closet for such a pitiful sum) but you had to prove that you were prepared to travel, including plane tickets, travel doccuments, hotel reservations etc. And you had to prove to the government that you WERE outside the country and came back, including receipts, etc, or else, they'd deny you travel dollars the next time you ask. And no, you couldn't choose both. It was either one or the other.

But that was before. Now, much like the above option: Unless you're a high-ranking member of the communist party, or sucking the dick of a high-ranking member of the communist party, this exchange rate is not available for you.

Then there's the black market exchange rate. This one is unofficial and illegal, and uses a floating point based on supply/demand, whose values are calculated based on a number of factors. Much like the wow token. Because this one is illegal, its not beholden to any laws, and thus is freely available to everyone, but of course, its extraordinarily expensive. Its currently sitting at 17,000 bolivars per dollar (For reference: I make about 100,000 bolivars a month. So I make about 5 dollars a month, give or take a few cents)

Ohh and to anyone defending socialism/communism: Kindly go fuck yourself. With a rusty gangrenous spork.

I want every victim of socialism as eloquent as yourself to come teach in universities. Currently, to be a professor, the only requirement seems to be the uncanny ability to spout abject lies about utopian delusions while simultaneously fellating Marx. It a rather impressive use of a single orifice, really; but the novelty has run its course. My heart goes out to you, my friend.

[Forogil]

Pfft, even the prime minister of Denmark scoffed at the Bern when he said Denmark. Norway and Sweden are socialist states. But you would rather than refute, just tag whoever disagree with you. Hoping they will shut up :P
This does not work in the grown up world.

Correct, and to give another insight here are some actual socialists trying to answer a similar question a few years ago:
http://www.socialistworld.net/index....rticle&id=3752

Is Sweden Socialist?
"Sweden has always been a solid market economy", states the present right-wing government on its website. And that is certainly true. Sweden has never been a socialist society - based on public ownership of production, workers’ control and management, social equality and a democratic plan of production.

[Mittens]

Lets not pretend that all oil is the same quality n u can tap a pipe n start using it immediately..

It costs a fortune to convert it to something useful..this is Venezuela's big problem...





Add that US is punishing the country for trying to be independent of US domination, maybe you should go lighter on blaming Venezuela for everything? Or you like being fondled by creepy uncle Sam?

The US is punishing Venezuela? Dude, we are the ones buying their oil.

[Endus]

I'd love to discuss this matter, seeing as I'm actually Kaleb, the guy whose tweet was quoted by Fortune in the article posted by OP; but some commie mod keeps deleting my posts, so yeah.

For the record, nobody was "deleting your posts". The website has a spam filter, and it's more aggressive with new users with less than 10 posts; that creates some false-positives that are held back until a moderator can review then manually and approve/disapprove based on whether they're spam or not.

Yours weren't, and if you go back, you should see that those comments have been posted properly at this point, since I've just finished clearing the backlog from the last few hours.

[Daedius]

Think of all the paper forts they can make!

[Nadiru]

Well, some do - by abandoning socialism, including the basic idea of the state (or some other group) taking controls of the means of production, but holding on to similar values.

That is what we are seeing with social democrats - and that's why it is so disingenuous to claim that they are examples of socialists; especially as actual socialist have been praising Venezuela (most have stopped now - but not all).

Which is fine, but then you've transitioned away from a socialist mode of production. Saying that you solved the problems inherent to socialist production models by completely abandoning the economic framework of socialism is a contradiction in terms; erroneously labeling something as socialism is as wrong-headed as refusing to label something as socialism.

[Forogil]

Which is fine, but then you've transitioned away from a socialist mode of production. Saying that you solved the problems inherent to socialist production models by completely abandoning the economic framework of socialism is a contradiction in terms; erroneously labeling something as socialism is as wrong-headed as refusing to label something as socialism.

Agreed. /10 char

[Baelic]

I'm not sure you can make the claim that Nordic systems are emulatable across the planet. Certainly, the global economy can stand to have a couple of economies the size of North Carolina make grandiose welfare states. Can the entire economy? If so, what would be lost to obtain it?

To be honest, I don't have an exact answer to those questions. Do I think it's certainly possible with enough care and attention to fine-tuning numbers? Sure. But I am no economist and what I do know of economics doesn't afford me the foresight to know 100% what would be lost.

I'm all for trying though, albeit slowly.

[Alvito]

This has been the case of many countries currency and WoW gold since vanilla. Oddly enough it is one of the reasons I started playing the game. I watched a documentary that talked about WoW and 2nd Life in game currencies being worth more then the currencies of many of the locations where players lived. With WoW now it is just much easier to come up with an apples to apples comparison for gold to dollars since the token changes.

[Derah]

I want every victim of socialism as eloquent as yourself to come teach in universities.

Thanks. I try. I teach English for a living, so I try to keep it as polished as I can, though I often stumble a bit with it. Funny thing is: I'm not even aiming that high. I've been trying to get a work visa to go to the US to work as a Chef/Line-Cook. Easier said than done =/

Currently, to be a professor, the only requirement seems to be the uncanny ability to spout abject lies about utopian delusions while simultaneously fellating Marx.

Ugh, you should see how bad is it here. Its like you cant tune to a single radio or TV station without someone at some point, spouting propaganda about how glorious it is to live under the values of Father Marx. While enjoying our single meal a day of stale bread and water. (That's on good weeks. A good week here is when you get to eat once a day. A bad week is when you eat about 4 times total in the entire week)

My heart goes out to you, my friend.

Thanks mate. Keep your fingers crossed for me, darker days are looming in the horizon for us. I'm currently depending on a miracle to be able to get out of here (Specifically, the US Diversity Visa lottery. With Travel visas indefinitely suspended for Venezuelans, and Work Visas being nigh impossible to obtain, that lotto is more or less the only means of escape for 99% of all venezuelans currently stuck in this Socialist Dystopia.)

[Nadiru]

To be honest, I don't have an exact answer to those questions. Do I think it's certainly possible with enough care and attention to fine-tuning numbers? Sure. But I am no economist and what I do know of economics doesn't afford me the foresight to know 100% what would be lost.

I'm all for trying though, albeit slowly.

It's neither possible nor a laudable goal at present. It's very difficult to produce new things without having some lump of capital sitting around to do new things with, and while the West goes far too far in the other direction regarding liquidity, socialism of any type effectively requires an inability to save to be fully effective. It's why one of the common workarounds for the problem of capital accumulation in socialist economies are ration tickets with an expiry date. These still get used as currency, but the lifecycle of the currency is so short that it ends up being a practical non-issue.

Ignoring the above problem, world GDP divided by world population only gives each person about 10,000 dollars. There simply hasn't been enough economic growth to make everybody rich as the West is.

[Deleted]

Ugh, you should see how bad is it here. Its like you cant tune to a single radio or TV station without someone at some point, spouting propaganda about how glorious it is to live under the values of Father Marx.

According to wikipedia 46% of the media in Venezuela is independent as of 2014.

That's a generous amount compared with the amount of progressive/socialist TV channels in the US and western europe relative to the actual electorate.

This type of deliberate deception makes me deeply suspicous of people like you complaining about Venezuela. You keep going on about how Maduro is a dictator and he obviously isn't. Here's what dictators do-they shut down all independent media and they suspend elections. It is obvious that isn't happening.

It seems just don't like him and are sore Chavez and now Maduro keep winning elections. Every time I check up on this you people are engaging in some kind of deliberate deception about how bad the regime is. It is very counter-productive.

Oh and please don't give me that "I'm a Venezuelan" stuff. That's the problem. Time after time I hear Venezuelan critics of Chavez and Maduro attempting to deceive us as if we don't have access to basic information on the internet.

There seems to be issues with Maduro's competence-focus on that. Or anything where it doesn't take thirty seconds to google it and work out you are full of crap.

[THE Bigzoman]

As I've stated before, I'm all for a mixed system.

That said, what I know of the Venezuelan crisis, the problem really is a lack of competence and/or corruption in the government. There are clear examples were socialism (or more socialist-leaning Countries than Canada) is working. You mainly need to look at the Nordic Countries.

I'd also be willing to talk about possible ways to fix socialism that don't involve "SOCIALISM SUCKS! CAPITALISM RULES!"

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I could just mention how the US is slowing falling into obscurity under its version of Capitalism, but I imagine you'd be really triggered by that notion.
I could also mention how Capitalism in Japan has basically rendered its populace into Narcissistic and Nihilistic working drones who literally don't know how to socialize with the opposite sex and need to hire "hosts" or "professional cuddlers" rather than actually talk to each other. Meanwhile the dropping birth rate has created a massive off-balance of old vs young.

But now I've gone and said some toxic shit, so I'll just leave it at that.

"Makes assey analogy"

Bruh, your analogy is ass.

"Makes two out of scope, baseless claims without a shred of evidence."

Are you sure that you need to worry about me getting triggered here? Haha.

[Derah]

According to wikipedia 46% of the media in Venezuela is independent as of 2014.

Wikipedia is wrong. You do realize that's a site anyone can edit, right?

You keep going on about how Maduro is a dictator and he obviously isn't.

Right. That's why he disbanded congress when they would't bow down to him.

That's why he's been using our supreme court as a secondary legislative to legitimize his laws.
That's why when the attorney general Luisa Ortega began to oppose him, and to work with the opposition, his first reaction was to have her removed, and attempt to appoint another one that will obey him in every regard.
That's why he's been ruling by decree basically since his presidency began.
That's why he's arrested almost every political leader that opposes him, on zero charges.
That's why he orders suppressions of every sign of protest against him.
That's why he declared it illegal to voice opinions against his government on ANY public office.
That's why he has a paramilitary militia of ultra-nationalist zealots known as the Tupamaro Colectivos, who act as Thought Police and Lynch, rape, kill, rob, and maim anyone who says anything against the government, and intentionally bring violence to any form of opposition protest.
That's why if you vote for any opposition candidate on any election, and you form part of the army, police, national guard, air force, or navy, your career is over, and you're fired without benefits whatsoever. You talk shit about Chavez and you work for any branch of the public system? You're fired right then and there. These are all OBVIOUSLY not the signs of a dictator. Nope.

(Hint: That was sarcasm)

Here's what dictators do-they shut down all independent media and they suspend elections.

He has, and he did. RCTV (Radio Caracas Television) was the biggest opposition channel in the country. They shut them down. When they attempted to bring the signal back on cable, they shut that down too. And that's the MAJOR TV station. They've shut down dozens of smaller channels, dozens of radio shows, and hundreds of minor news papers. Here, if you don't play ball, the government shuts you down.

If you try to report on what's going on here, and you're not based inside Venezuela, they simply block you off, which is what they did with news sites like Maduradas (Which can no longer be directly seen inside the country unless you go through certain tricks) and Dolartoday (Ditto) and outsider news channels like Noticias RN24.

As for the elections, the communists lost the elections for congress on December 2015. For the first time in 20 years, they lost elections, and what was their response? Shut down all other elections.

We were supposed to have elections for a recall referendum against maduro on 2016 (as is written on our constitution. When a president has served 50% of their term, if the majority of the people want him out, they can call for a referendum to kick him out). And he suspended it. We were supposed to have elections for majors and governors on December 2016. As of this day, those elections are still not taking place.

And not happy enough about that, he just called for elections this July for a new congress. Yes, you heard that correctly. We already voted for a congress that was primarily made of opposition members and since he didn't get his way, he simply decided "they don't count, lets vote again", and appointed new candidates himself.

Mind you, on these new elections, less than 5 million people participated (Those who did, did so at gunpoint, as they were literally public employees threatened with being fired, as well as revoking what little aid they receive from the programs the government has), and the very company in charge of the machines used in the process is now calling foul on the alleged "8 million voters" that participated on those elections.

And this is not counting how in the elections of the REAL congress back in 2015, the supreme court decided that the results of 5 states in Venezuela were invalid, simply because they wanted to. No proof, NO trial, no investigation, no evidence, NOTHING. They simply said "these 5 states don't count, deal with it". All so the opposition couldnt have super-majority on the congress and disbar those bitches.

Not to mention that carrying a camera here, is the quickest way to get shot, and/or arrested. IF any soldier sees you filming the barbaric butchery they commit against the population, its your ass. I was shot on the head with a fucking water cannon less than a couple of weeks ago. My crime? attempting to cross a street. Wasn't even part of the protest, I was simply on my way to work, when they simply began shooting people in the head. With a fucking water cannon.

But no, please keep telling me how maduro isn't a dictator. You miserable ignorant fool-

It is obvious that isn't happening.

Yeah, obviously. That's why 80% of almost every country in the world (Minus the usual communist boot-licking countries) decided to cut diplomatic ties with venezuela and call this shit for what it is, a dictatorship.

It seems just don't like him and are sore Chavez and now Maduro keep winning elections.

It seems like you don't live here, all your information comes from second-hand sources which are HEAVILY biased towards the governemnt, and you try to pass your pseudo-wisdom as fact when the reality is unless you stay here for a couple of years and see the country and its people for yourself, you don't know jack shit.

Or anything where it doesn't take thirty seconds to google it and work out you are full of crap.

Right, because everything on google is true. Now please, enlighten me on how Obama is the antichrist. It is after all the number one result when you type in his name on google.

EDIT: Omg, what a wasted effort. Now I remember you. You're the same guy who cost me an infraction on that North Korea thread when you said you wished Chavez had murdered my entire family.

Sweet jesus, I seriously hope you reap what you've sowed one of these days, and watch as everything you love burns to ashes with you being powerless to stop it. Maybe then, MAYBE, you'll know what being a Venezuelan feels like. Feel free to answer (or not answer) to this post in whatever way suits you.

I butted heads with you on that North Korea thread before, I wont do it again here. Its clear you know nothing. And nothing anyone says will change that. In fact, I think I'm just gonna add you to ignore. Your behavior on the North Korea thread left it clear that you do this only for the sake of riling other people up (Successfully I may add) out of some sick desire to get a kick out of other people's misery. I don't need to hear the opinions of such individuals. And as such, welcome to my ignore list.

[corebit]

Always funny to see people who never lived in the actual fucking country and trying to argue with people who did.

And I lived in another country south of Venezuela (Ecuador) for about 10 years, and that country is also becoming another socialist hellhole, so I can relate to what Derah says.

[PosPosPos]

Oh, it's this thread again about bashing socialism because of Venezuela, ignoring heavy socialist-leaning nations like Scandinavia, Canada and the EU exist.

Likewise, here's a ridiculous assertion to mirror the equally ridiculous assertion made by paranoid indoctrinated McCarthyists - Democracy is a failure because of the state of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

[Deleted]

Oh, it's this thread again about bashing socialism because of Venezuela, ignoring heavy socialist-leaning nations like Scandinavia, Canada and the EU exist.

Likewise, here's a ridiculous assertion to mirror the equally ridiculous assertion made by paranoid indoctrinated McCarthyists - Democracy is a failure because of the state of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Actually, the marxist socialism as a stage towards communism really failed in the past. See east germany, the soviet union etc. etc.

But that doesnt mean that social market economy fails, which is a consequence of social democracy, which itself is part of the socialist definition.

It's just that socialism is a way too broad term to argue about it. I always had a problem with americans talking about "socialism" until i realized they include every single social politics into that term, while a european would use the term socialism only for the marxist definition.

[Jinpachi]

All the successes make that a silly idea, which is why they don't.

I don't think that word means what you think it means