Tag: socialist utopia

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Venezuela Reminds Us That Socialism Leads to Dictatorship

Nicolas Maduro’s Venezuela is one place where Friedrich Hayek’s most dire warnings remain relevant.

Marian Tupy | April 4, 2017

Manaure Quintero/NurPhoto/Sipa U/NewscomOn March 29, the Supreme Court of Venezuela dissolved the country’s elected legislature, allowing Venezuela’s top court to write future laws. The court is filled with allies of Venezuela’s socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, while the legislature is dominated by Maduro’s opponents, and the court’s ruling was seen as the latest step on Venezuela’s descent into a full-fledged dictatorship. But following international outcry—as well as the appearance of cracks within Maduro’s own party—the court reversed itself just a few days later, on April 1.

https://reason.com/archives/2017/04/04/from-socialism-to-dictatorship

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Socialist Utopia Argentina Declared in Default by S&P as Talks Fail

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Socialist Utopia Argentina Declared in Default by S&P as Talks Fail
By Camila Russo and Katia Porzecanski  Jul 30, 2014 10:10 PM ET

Standard & Poor’s declared Argentina in default after the government missed a deadline for paying interest on $13 billion of restructured bonds.

The South American country failed to get the $539 million payment to bondholders after a U.S. judge ruled that the money couldn’t be distributed unless a group of hedge funds holding defaulted debt also got paid. Argentina, in default for the second time in 13 years, has about $200 billion in foreign-currency debt, including $30 billion of restructured bonds, according to S&P.

Argentina and the hedge funds, led by billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp., failed to reach agreement in talks today in New York, according to the court-appointed mediator in the case, Daniel Pollack. In a press conference after the talks ended, Argentine Economy Minister Axel Kicillof described the group of creditors as “vulture funds” and said the country wouldn’t sign an accord under “extortion.”

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-07-30/argentina-defaults-according-to-s-p-as-debt-meetings-continue.html

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The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch

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The Game Changed in Venezuela Last Night – and the International Media Is Asleep At the Switch

Francisco Toro / 1 day ago

Dear International Editor:

Listen and understand. The game changed in Venezuela last night. What had been a slow-motion unravelling that had stretched out over many years went kinetic all of a sudden.

What we have this morning is no longer the Venezuela story you thought you understood.

Throughout last night, panicked people told their stories of state-sponsored paramilitaries on motorcycles roaming middle class neighborhoods, shooting at people and  storming into apartment buildings, shooting at anyone who seemed like he might be protesting.

People continue to be arrested merely for protesting, and a long established local Human Rights NGO makes an urgent plea for an investigation into widespread reports of torture of detainees. There are now dozens of serious human right abuses: National Guardsmen shooting tear gas canisters directly into residential buildings. We have videos of soldiers shooting civilians on the street.

And that’s just what came out in real time, over Twitter and YouTube, before any real investigation is carried out. Online media is next, a city of 645,000 inhabitants has been taken off the internet amid mounting repression, and this blog itself has been the object of a Facebook “block” campaign.

What we saw were not “street clashes”, what we saw is a state-hatched offensive to suppress and terrorize its opponents.

https://caracaschronicles.com/2014/02/20/the-game-changed/