Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain

Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain

Looks like the Venezuelan military took over some electronics stores and "discounted" prices and let people buy like crazy !!

Some think this was a ploy to get votes in the upcoming elections there.

WOW.

What a way to get voters' attention eh ?

CARACAS — Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country's equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military "occupation" of the company's five stores as he continues the government's crackdown on an "economic war" it says is being waged against the country, with the help of Washington.

Members of Venezuela's National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.

Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain

reply to post by xuenchen

I hope Obama isn't watching the news.
He might get ideas.

xuenchen
Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain

Looks like the Venezuelan military took over some electronics stores and "discounted" prices and let people buy like crazy !!

Some think this was a ploy to get votes in the upcoming elections there.

WOW.

What a way to get voters' attention eh ?

CARACAS — Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country's equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military "occupation" of the company's five stores as he continues the government's crackdown on an "economic war" it says is being waged against the country, with the help of Washington.

Members of Venezuela's National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.

Venezuelan military seizes major retail chain

Someone tried to charge me $2.80 for a single pack of gum yesterday I think it was the first time I have ever been offended by the price of something.

This is just crazy what they are doing in Venezuela.

oh come on, it's for the people, you know, the greater good.

kind of like their healthcare system. which has all but collapsed.

The country's 1999 constitution guarantees free universal health care to Venezuelans, who sit on the world's largest proven oil reserves. President Nicolas Maduro's government insists it's complying. Yet of the country's 100 fully functioning public hospitals, nine in 10 have just 7 percent of the supplies they need, Natera said.

The other nearly 200 public hospitals that existed when Chavez took office were largely replaced by a system of walk-in clinics run by Cuban doctors that have won praise for delivering preventative care to the neediest but do not treat serious illnesses.

The woes are not restricted to the public system.

Venezuela's 400 private hospitals and clinics are overburdened and strapped for supplies, 95 percent of which must be imported, said Dr. Carlos Rosales, president of the association that represents them.

The private system has just 8,000 of the country's more than 50,000 hospital beds but treats 53 percent of the country's patients, including the 10 million public employees with health insurance. Rosales said insurers, many state-owned, are four to six months behind in payments and it is nearly impossible to meet payrolls and pay suppliers.

huffingtonpuffingtonpost

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

Winston Churchill

Venezuela is just the latest example of why socialism doesn't work, but somehow no one seems to ever pay attention. I guess they just didn't find the right people to run it down there.

reply to post by SasquatchHunter


it's called socialism. when their plans start to collapse, they start seizing industry.
but the planners keep planning. they can't help it, they think they are smarter than everyone else.
even though their brilliance is what sowed the problem in the first place.

Venezuela's leftist government said Saturday it temporarily seized a major toilet paper factory hoping that it can end troublesome shortages of the staple personal care item.

"The temporary occupation of Manpa (Manufactora de Papel) is aimed at verifying that toilet paper industry production, marketing and distribution" are all in line with state policies, Vice President Jorge Arreaza said on Twitter, without indicating how long the takeover would last.

He said the decision had been taken by an economic panel sworn in last week by President Nicolas Maduro, a close ally of Communist-ruled Cuba.



Read more: www.businessinsider.com...

link

reply to post by bjax9er


I agree to a certain point. I don't think you can blame socialism entirely, the ideology seems to work just fine in some places, Sweden, Finland, Denmark.... I don't think its possible to debate why it works in some places and other places it doesn't without being labeled a racist.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by bjax9er

 

I agree to a certain point. I don't think you can blame socialism entirely, the ideology seems to work just fine in some places, Sweden, Finland, Denmark.... I don't think its possible to debate why it works in some places and other places it doesn't without being labeled a racist.

give it a few years, they will collapse just the same.

central planning doesn't work, never has, never will.

after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

Don't know why this isn't acceptable ? ....unless you like a bit of profiteering.

reply to post by ken10


It all depends on what you think is "fair."

To the poor person on the street, "fair" might be far less than what the store owner had to pay to bring the goods in wholesale. Forcing the store owner to sell those goods at "fair" prices then, might not only be forcing him to take less then the profit he expected, but it could be putting him out of business and ruining him entirely.

There is a reason why price controls don't work, and both Venezuela and Argentina are discovering this lesson the hard way. They're excellent real world laboratories It's basic economics 101. You should try it sometime.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by bjax9er

 

I agree to a certain point. I don't think you can blame socialism entirely, the ideology seems to work just fine in some places, Sweden, Finland, Denmark.... I don't think its possible to debate why it works in some places and other places it doesn't without being labeled a racist.

We keep hearing that about Socialism. I keep hearing it right here at ATS, where we should know better; I'm constantly seeing threads by someone or another proposing yet another form of Socialism. Except that no one wants to label it anything, especially not Socialism—"but I swear, my new idea, THIS idea, will work, this time!"

Let's take a look at Sweden:

Everyone around the world says... "Socialism WORKS!"

ranks far higher than the United States in most measurements:
The Swedish Institute of Trade reported in 2002 that "the median household income in Sweden at the end of the 1990s was the equivalent of $26,800, compared with a median of $39,400 for U.S. households". If Sweden were introduced to the U.S. as a new state, it would rank as the poorest according to these standards. This is in light of the fact that these numbers are gross values - before taxes - and Sweden has the highest taxes in the world. The same report also shows that Swedes fare lower than the lowest American socio-economic class, working-class black males.

the highest standard of living:
Sweden's most affront claim, that it has the world's highest standard of living, is often based on the measure of equality in wealth redistribution, and not on the status of the national economy, the buying power of the Swedish crown (Krona), the amount of people working for productive aims or creating innovations, nor it's Gross National Product. Claims based on these other properties of the Swedish economy, in support of their "highest standard of living" claim, are mysteriously non-existent.

55% income tax:
This income tax, 55% of the Gross National Product, the highest income tax in the world, is also coupled with sales taxes, property taxes, and other excise taxes and tariffs. The Swedish sales tax, a "value added tax", ranges to 22.5% of items sold, on various goods including most foods. The total ownership of public goods by the Swedish government is roughly 64%, closing in on 70%, once you include all these other forms of taxation. That is not including government-owned means of production, which control about a full quarter of Swedish productivity.

So whether it works I guess depends upon which side of the equation you're on: Big central government or poor working bastard....

ken10

after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

Don't know why this isn't acceptable ? ....unless you like a bit of profiteering.

because a month from now there won't be anything to buy.
venezuela imports everything.

why send your product to a country that won't pay you what you need to charge for it?

reply to post by Ex_CT2


Additionally, part of the Swedish equation that most people miss is that they have a relatively small, homogenous population compared to almost every other country out there. Add to that a culture that until recently had a cultural mindset and ethic that felt that everyone needed to work to put in so that they could get out. These two things reduced the number of freeloaders so that most of the people who were not putting into the system equal to what they were getting out were the people who truly could not do for themselves. This kept the system more or less running "in the black" so to speak.

However, this is falling apart in recent years. Not only has Sweden been getting more and more immigrants into its culture who are not integrating and do not feel that homogenous cultural desire to put in so they can get out, but younger generations of Swedes are also succumbing more and more to the freeloader mindset of working the system to get out much more than they will ever attempt to put in. This will eventually wreck the Swedish system.

reply to post by ketsuko


I was at a market just yesterday, While we was there the Trading Standards people raided a lot of stalls for selling "copy" items, mainly clothing.....So there were stalls selling complete tracksuits with nike/adidas etc labels for £15-£20 a set, whereas the "real" ones would have set you back £100 plus !

To me, that is the exact opposite to what is happening in Venezuela, where one government acts for the people and the other for the corporations.

bjax9er

ken10

after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers "fair" prices.

Don't know why this isn't acceptable ? ....unless you like a bit of profiteering.

because a month from now there won't be anything to buy.
venezuela imports everything.

why send your product to a country that won't pay you what you need to charge for it?

Maybe you're thinking of extremes, and I'm thinking those implementing such an act would know what would be a "fair" price to charge. ?

ken10
reply to post by ketsuko

 

I was at a market just yesterday, While we was there the Trading Standards people raided a lot of stalls for selling "copy" items, mainly clothing.....So there were stalls selling complete tracksuits with nike/adidas etc labels for £15-£20 a set, whereas the "real" ones would have set you back £100 plus !

To me, that is the exact opposite to what is happening in Venezuela, where one government acts for the people and the other for the corporations.

Yeah, they were likely cheap knock-offs being sold for more than they were worth because they had the name brand label on them.

So my question to you is why is the name worth so much to you? Does it matter that you have a label that says Nike or Adidas so much that you would buy a cheap track suit with that label on it and likely get charged a few dollars more for a ripped off label? Really?

reply to post by ken10


Government never knows what the fair price is. The economy is the only real determinant because it's more complex than any expert could ever model.

SasquatchHunter
reply to post by bjax9er

 

I agree to a certain point. I don't think you can blame socialism entirely, the ideology seems to work just fine in some places, Sweden, Finland, Denmark.... I don't think its possible to debate why it works in some places and other places it doesn't without being labeled a racist.

no it doesn't because first Sweden is more capitalist than we are and they have privatized sectors of their economy and government far more than the this country has(i'd call Sweden libertarian more than anything); Norway their country has been falling apart for years because their socialist policies and their debt is over 200 percent; Finland was never socialist and regards socialism the same way as Americans, maybe even with more disdain than we do; Denmark well if you think 70 percent taxes are fair or healthy for an economy then i guess it "works".

but i guess some people don't care about fairness, success, freedom or anything beyond being given free everything and being coddled and having their hands held all their lives and never facing hardship or being given a challenge. as long as people are happy, well fed, being taken care of and well protected, then whats right or wrong has little meaning in the end huh?

socialism is merely the beginning point of the descent towards communism and true slavery and subjugation of all mankind, so many fail to see past the lessons of history or their own ideologies that i know they won't come to understand until they live under it for a century with no escape, and it will happen as it has been planned but in the end the victory of socialism and communism will be temporary.
if i'm wrong and it remains strong far into the future then look forward to stagnation and eventual extinction as a species in two to three hundred years from now.

ketsuko

ken10
reply to post by ketsuko

 

I was at a market just yesterday, While we was there the Trading Standards people raided a lot of stalls for selling "copy" items, mainly clothing.....So there were stalls selling complete tracksuits with nike/adidas etc labels for £15-£20 a set, whereas the "real" ones would have set you back £100 plus !

To me, that is the exact opposite to what is happening in Venezuela, where one government acts for the people and the other for the corporations.

Yeah, they were likely cheap knock-offs being sold for more than they were worth because they had the name brand label on them.

So my question to you is why is the name worth so much to you? Does it matter that you have a label that says Nike or Adidas so much that you would buy a cheap track suit with that label on it and likely get charged a few dollars more for a ripped off label? Really?

I think you're missing the point......A £15 tracksuit shows what they can be made and sold for, regardless of the name on the label !

Anything else is profiteering.

reply to post by Ex_CT2


You can approach this from many angles and I believe me I bleed red, white, and blue. I know people who live in Sweden. They have great lives. You can get your PHD equivalent for free. There's a lot to say about taxes too we are taxed many times over in America. Just owning a car is an unrelenting in fees you end up paying. Paying a few hundred dollars every single year for registration is ridiculous, even if you believe that money is going to maintain roads. You are forced to pay that cost for the privelage of driving, even if you havent moved in 10yrs and no one has fixed the roads you drive on in just as long.
My income tax is extremely high already being single and claiming 0. Theres a never ending gauntlet of "fees" and "charges" for things I could have swore I already paid for.