Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by intalentive 161 days ago
Sounds like Yeltsin-era privatization is on the menu. “What assets can we strip from the Venezuelan people, for pennies on the dollar?”
5 comments

Similar to what Eastern Germany had done to it as well.
Vultures doesn't even begin to describe it.
The problems with the post soviet economy had nothing to do with FDI.
Yep. Plunder Mode activated. After paying your entrance fee to [insert Trump-affiliated entity here], of course.
The last twenty years of socialism in Venezuela already did that. Have you seen the extreme poverty there? The once nice, now crumbling infrastructure? The Venezuelan people have already had most of their assets stolen.
Oh, yeah the US meddling had nothing to do with anything happening there.
This seems like a thought-terminating cliche. If US meddling was so effective, why wasn’t Venezuela already doing what the US wanted?
> If US meddling was so effective, why wasn’t Venezuela already doing what the US wanted?

Messing up the situation and leaving the natives to clean up after them is what the US does every time.

> This seems like a thought-terminating cliche.

The US excuses to military aggression is a cliché. Responses to clichés with a cliché should come as no surprise.

That's a pretty good reason for these corporations to keep their grubby hands off Venezuela. At least give the people some time to recover, before stepping in to strip mine their economy again.

And when I say 'again', you know that it was the exploitation by US companies that led to Hugo Chavez ascending to power, right?

Venezuela requires billions of dollars to rebuild its pillaged industry and infrastructure. There will be no economic recovery for the people without that. Where should that investment come from?
Venezuela is now an American colony, do you not know how colonialism works? Do you need to read a history book?

We're the ones doing the pillaging. We're going to strip them of what resources they have left, take their wealth for ourselves and leave them with nothing. We're going to make the people an underclass in their own country, serving the rich white colonizers who come in to stay at the luxury hotels and casinos Trump will be building there. Or maybe the Saudis, who knows? The world is full of rich vultures. We'll build data centers over the carcasses of their cities and shoot anyone who wants the water. We're going to rape their women and children.

And then we're going to do it to Cuba. And then maybe Mexico.

You’re describing a hypothetical future, and I’m telling you that all that bad stuff has already been done to the Venezuelan people by the Chavistas. About 90% of the population lives in poverty and 50% in extreme poverty. Maduro’s government shot about two dozen people who had the nerve to protest the last election. Violence against women and children doesn’t get much worse.

What incredible privilege you have to be worried about future labor exploitation at yet-to-be-built resort casinos.

> You’re describing a hypothetical future,

> What incredible privilege you have to be worried about future labor exploitation at yet-to-be-built resort casinos.

This is an incredibly dishonest take on this situation. You ignore the innumerable historical precedents out there. And you call it hypothetical when they have already made it clear that economic exploitation is exactly what they plan to do. Heck! What is the story of this discussion even about? You're displaying willful and selective ignorance here.

> Maduro’s government shot about two dozen people who had the nerve to protest the last election. Violence against women and children doesn’t get much worse.

How did Maduro get into power in the first place? What is the situation in the other natutal resource-rich countries you invaded in the name of freedom? The US didn't spend all that money to invade a nation to replace its dictatorship with something better, did they?

These self-righteous self-aggrandizing justifications are just too disturbing to read. This is one of those harrowing comments that justify utterly reprehensible and psychopathic behavior.

>What incredible privilege you have to be worried about future labor exploitation at yet-to-be-built resort casinos.

What incredible privilege you have to not care about exploitation as long as capitalists are doing it.

Anything Maduro has done to the Venezuelan people is going to pale compared to what Trump and Western business interests are planning.

I promise you things can get worse. Making things worse is what Americans do.

Let's be honest here. Venezuela's people are not going to see any benefit from the investment that US is planning over there, besides some token development to show the international media. Any sort of investment is going to be for pillaging their economy and resources even further. If Trump and his cronies haven't made that clear by now, the history of US involvement in that country in the past is evidence enough. This is neocolonialism - the unholy amalgamation of colonialism and capitalist exploitation. Pretending that this is for the benefit of Venezuelans is just dishonest, to put it mildly.
How’s socialism working out in China? Maybe it’s the US sanctions and meddling..
Yeah, the special economic zones, foreign direct investment and cut throat competition among private enterprises are all hallmarks of socialism. /s