Trump - Making Pigs Fly

[Starlight]

Venezuela's 1,000,000% inflation is the USA's fault?

Not solely, but the US has certainly contributed substantially with its economic attacks on the country. The US's attacks on any central or south american countries that go at all left wing have been pretty vicious over the past century, and unfortunately haven't altogether let up. Apart from the ongoing limitations on Cuba, and the economic attacks on Venezuela, it's come out this week that the US DoJ played a major role in the ongoing trumped-up charges against and imprisonment of the democratically elected and wildly-popular President of Brazil (the way things are currently going he might have to win the next election from a prison cell, and we should all hope he does because the main alternative to him are pretty much literal neo-Nazis).

That's your socialist paradise, Starlight.

It's not socialist and not a paradise. As I pointed out to Seer, 70% of the economy was privately owned and run. No different to any capitalist OECD nation in terms of how much was private industry and how much was government owned and run. That party was all-talk about how they were totally socialist, but the actual country was capitalist, and depended almost entirely on oil exports which made them rich when the price of oil was high and then their economy collapsed when the price dropped (and when US interference damaged their export market).

[Leonhard]

Which is why the Economy is at a 4.1% growth rate..

It doesn't average 4.1%, its averaged 2.46% during Trump's presidency. The 4.1% is the for the current quarter only, though its a nice spike. Though I hate to break it but Obama had 4.6% in Q4 of 2011, and again in Q4 of 2014, 5.2% in Q1 of 2015. I wouldn't be quick to judge Trump's presidency by one or two spikes.

Obama averaged a GDP growth rate of 2.1%.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...gdp-in-the-us/

[Starlight]

He did go on to say they need to fix things "with or without blockades" which was odd since nobody is blockading Venezuela.

Well Venezuela seems to think differently...

US Imposes Oil Blockade to Force Venezuela into Default:

While continuing the commercial and financial embargo and the systematic attack on PDVSA [Venezuela's state-owned oil company], it was revealed at the start of November that imports of Venezuelan oil to the United States this year have declined to 56 percent compared to last year...

This [is part of a] multi-pronged attack that this state industry is facing as the main foreign exchange earner of the country...

In recent months America's banks, under pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department, have restricted credit notes that U.S. refineries need to pay for Venezuelan oil. The result is that imports and dividends in dollars have been reduced by half in comparison to 2016.

Trump did not dare take the measure of prohibiting imports from Venezuela, given the many interests of U.S. companies involved, but this multi-pronged attack is making any explicit prohibition unnecessary. The measures taken have managed to make a dent in exports of oil to that country. All this is with the objective of continuing to strangle the Venezuela's economy and force the nation into a debt default by restricting purchases by U.S. refineries.

America really doesn't like it whenever anyone in the world dares think the oil under their own soil might belong to their own country rather than to the private multi-national oil companies that control the US politicians. When Iran dared declare the oil in their ground was theirs rather than the private oil companies, those oil companies got the US to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953, leading to religious-crazies gaining power in the Iran we know and love today. Venezuela is likewise not allowed to dare to think they might own their own oil, and so their state-owned oil company must be quashed, even if it means collapsing the Venezuelan government and economy and making the people there suffer.

[rogue06]

Well Venezuela seems to think differently...

US Imposes Oil Blockade to Force Venezuela into Default:

While continuing the commercial and financial embargo and the systematic attack on PDVSA [Venezuela's state-owned oil company], it was revealed at the start of November that imports of Venezuelan oil to the United States this year have declined to 56 percent compared to last year...

This [is part of a] multi-pronged attack that this state industry is facing as the main foreign exchange earner of the country...

In recent months America's banks, under pressure from the U.S. Treasury Department, have restricted credit notes that U.S. refineries need to pay for Venezuelan oil. The result is that imports and dividends in dollars have been reduced by half in comparison to 2016.

Trump did not dare take the measure of prohibiting imports from Venezuela, given the many interests of U.S. companies involved, but this multi-pronged attack is making any explicit prohibition unnecessary. The measures taken have managed to make a dent in exports of oil to that country. All this is with the objective of continuing to strangle the Venezuela's economy and force the nation into a debt default by restricting purchases by U.S. refineries.

America really doesn't like it whenever anyone in the world dares think the oil under their own soil might belong to their own country rather than to the private multi-national oil companies that control the US politicians. When Iran dared declare the oil in their ground was theirs rather than the private oil companies, those oil companies got the US to overthrow the democratically elected Iranian government in 1953, leading to religious-crazies gaining power in the Iran we know and love today. Venezuela is likewise not allowed to dare to think they might own their own oil, and so their state-owned oil company must be quashed, even if it means collapsing the Venezuelan government and economy and making the people there suffer.

America was embargoing (not buying) oil from Venezuela. We were never blockading (physically keeping it from being exported) them.

Fail better.

[Starlight]

America was embargoing (not buying) oil from Venezuela.

So we can agree that:

A. Venezuela was a country who's economy was focused on oil, and predominant the export thereof, and predominately to the US in particular.
B. The US decided to embargo its purchase of oil from Venezuela, but not to technically, blockade it.

And given this general background and the subsequent collapse of the Venezuelan economy, you are maintaining that:

1. This was in no way the US's fault, and deliberate US actions didn't at all in any way cause the Venezuelan economic crisis or worsen it. And the fact that Venezuela's biggest trading partner decided to embargo their biggest export product had totally nothing to do with it.
2. This was totally the fault of Venezuela being "socialist" (whatever that is taken to mean, because it doesn't appear to mean not being capitalist in Venezuela's case).

Fail better.

[Mountain Man]

Source: MAGAnomics: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs July Report � Private Employment +170,000, Government Employment -13,000, Net: +157,000

https://theconservativetreehouse.com...00-net-157000/

© Copyright Original Source

sky_is_falling_cartoon.jpg