The comment I was responding to was deleted. It was off the rails. Even Chomsky eventually came to see he was wrong about Chavez and it takes a lot to knock that guy off his political biases.
Venezuela is getting worse every day. Millions of Venezuelans come to Brazil in search of jobs, food, peace, and a better life. But until Maduro softens, that country will be fucked up...
Relations between the USA and Venezuela were very positive for decades. The US was the first country in the world to recognize the independence of Gran Columbia, and relations with Caracas were consistent when Venezuela later declared its own independence. In the early 1900s the US stopped European powers from invading and reacquiring Venezuela, as the country spent decades in various international incidents due to their wrong-headed trade policies. In the latter half of the century it was American expertise, ingenuity, and capital that allowed for the exploitation of the country's oil resources, turning it into by far the wealthiest nation in South America.
Hugo Chavez came to power, probably just as brainwashed as our friend above here, and started taking Venezuela in the direction of a belligerent rogue nation. He unilaterally worsened the relationship between the two countries, some would say with obvious and deliberate intent.
Chavez went on to become close friends with such bastions of humanitarianism and civil rights as Fidel Castro, Saddam Hussein, and Khamenei. He nationalized (stole) billions in the oil infrastructure others had brought to his country, so greatly enriching it. In 2000 during the Vargas tragedy, the US sent large amounts of much-needed supplies and personnel to help; Chavez turned it away after talking to Castro, deciding that maintaining his image as a belligerent twonk opposed to all things American was more important than getting aid to his people that desperately needed it. Even though the man got elected paying lip service to helping the common man, and even as the years of his leadership dragged on it became more and more apparent just how corrupt he and his cronies were, and how much of the stolen wealth from international assets were making their way into their own pockets.
Despite all of this, economic relations between the two countries remained strong. The USA remained Venezuela's most important trading partner. Venezuela made tens of billions of dollars exporting the oil from its recently stolen properties to the US. What kept these billions of dollars from reaching and having a positive impact on the Venezuelan economy certainly had nothing to do with the US. In 2005 president Bush acknowledged that Venezuela had failed completely to honor its international agreements when it came to fighting drug trafficking, and there's credible speculation that, much like Bolivia's Morales who did so completely in the open, Chavez's neglect to combat the illegal drug trade in his country was probably willful, and it's not far fetched to think he and his party were profiting from their complicity. But.. in spite of there being international law and precedent that would allow for sanctions in this situation, the US at the time imposed none.
It's pretty sad when you can stand next to George Bush and make Bush seem like the more reasonable, more intelligent, more deliberate person by contrast. Not long after Bush's refusal to impose sanctions in 2005, Chavez was at the UN where he complained about the whiff of sulfur and literally called Bush the devil. Even while trade was booming between the two countries, in spite of all of Chavez's diligent efforts to make himself an enemy, sanctions did begin but that was to limit arms sales to Venezuela given their lack of interest in cooperation with counter-terrorism efforts, was entirely warranted, and had no economic impact. As the years ticked on, Chavez became progressively more paranoid, racist, and unhinged, leading to a further degradation in relations. By the 2010s, things were unraveling fast in Venezuela, but this was still before any proper economic sanctions had been imposed.
Opposition to Chavez's corrupt, inept, and internationally adversarial and unproductive leadership within Venezuela continued to grow. Sanctions against those in Chavez's circle of power began then, as a response to corruption and human rights abuses. .... not because of resistance to American empire. Seriously how does that Kool Aid taste? ... this was decades after the various steps that were taken to nationalize the oil industry and had nothing to do with that. at all. The sanctions imposed targeted specific individuals in the Chavez/Maduro government, not the Venezuelan economy generally.
Decades of corruption, incompetence, failed policies, paranoid delusion, and a willfully and needlessly belligerent stance toward foreign policy led to the stagnation of Venezuela's economy. The fact that they failed to diversify their industries and then there was a sharp drop in the price of oil led to economic collapse.
and through this, of course, Chavez and Maduro, phony populists and deeply corrupt as they both were, human rights abuses increased sharply.
By 2016 when America would elect its own version of Chavez (a deeply corrupt, ignorant, racist, needlessly belligerent, inept, isolationist, friend-to-dictators, enemy-of-democracy, faux populist narcissist with terrible policy ideas who had no business being in charge of anything)... the country was already in freefall and none of Trump's bluster or insults mattered.
Meanwhile, canada dry, speaking of empire, your favorite country Russia is still in occupied Ukraine, isn't it? With more troops being amassed on the border. I'm sure they're just trying to build up an adequate supply of fresh-baked cookies before knocking on the door, right?
Wow, that's an impressive amount of brainwashed murican propaganda. What would us poor ignorant latinamericans do without good ole' US of A. Monroe doctrine was for our benefit, of course. Opening markets for US interests and profit was also for our benefit. If only we were all neoliberal free market capitalists, we would all be living the good life. We should model ourselves after you. After all, the US is the bestest country in the whole of ever, right?
point out even a single thing I said that isn't historically accurate. Everything you wrote was a ridiculous strawman. And who do you think is brainwashing me? The average American knows nothing about any of this. It's not something you see on the news, in movies, or in history text books. Brainwashed propaganda? Pure projection.
Having poverty and having the lowest income per capita is not the same unfortunately. The average can be high(er) when there are several people with tons of money while the rest of the population hardly has anything.
Five of the six continents are fairly get-able with a little logic, but Africa threw me totally. I got one of the five and that was purely from random guesses.
You think Africa is gettable too? Really? I've not heard any of those countries described as being particularly well off, bar possibly the second answer.
Yeah it's gettable: Gabon and Equatorial Guinea have oil, Mauritius and Seychelles have tropical tourism and Botswana has diamonds, all combined with small population unlike others in/near top10: Algeria, Nigeria or Angola for oil (+war in Libya), Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt for tourism, South Africa for diamonds and gold.
Cape Verde is an option as small and touristy, Namibia has natural resources and small population, but other than that there are not many good options left.
It's the opposite on the Five Poorest Countries by Continent quiz. The 5 poorest in South America are the richest amongst the poorest from all the other continents.
There aren't that many countries in South America and they all tend to hover around the middle in terms of income. None that are exceptionally wealthy and none that are exceptionally poor.
Did you talk about poverty? It is with Brazil. Violence, inequality, misery, sadness, slums, people turning into fagots, carnival and everything! It sucks even this Brazil...
For me, everything is wrong. From poverty it turns into misery in my opinion. It's okay if you don't agree with me, but if God made you a man, you shouldn't be a woman, right (setting an example)? Brazil's carnival also does that. Afghanistan is only poor because of the civil wars between the Middle East and West Asia (if I'm wrong, please correct me). Haiti is really sad, many come to Brazil too. Natural disasters are horrible when they pass through there. Uganda, too. It is in Africa, it has a low HDI and GDP should be even lower. I do not judge for being in Africa, because it also has good points. The biggest of them must be the Seychelles, which has a very high HDI, even higher than Brazil, and we have just seen that GDP is among the largest in Africa, if not the largest.
You're wrong. About the effects of poverty, the source of poverty in Afghanistan, and several other things. But you asked to be corrected, so, there you go.
Monaco is a tax evasion heaven. I live close to it and I can tell you it's a really weird place with 5 star hotel skyscrapers populated by Russian millionaires.
Good to see that Australia is treated as an Island and part of Oceania the Continent instead of a Continent in itself (otherwise the five richest countries would all be Australia)
Ireland, Luxembourg, Monaco and Liechtenstein don't belong on this list. The reason they are on the list, is that huge amounts of capital rest in their banks, for the "chosen few".
Norway is the richest country in Europe measured by wealth per capita according to the World Bank, see this in many ways very interesting report; https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29001/9781464810466.pdf
Its territory is formed by two main islands (Trinidad and Tobago) and several islets. Although the islands are a geological extension of South America (northeast of Venezuela), the country belongs to Central America.
why has this not been debated with an intensity that at least comes close to cyprus? Nobody cares? Come people, a point to argue about.. free of charge!
I don't understand you. Cyprus is one of the great islands of the Mediterranean Sea (along with Sicily, Sardinia, Corsica and Crete), the most eastern of all, located between the southern coast of Anatolia and the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East. Geographically, it belongs to Asia, although culturally it is a mixture of European and Asian elements, with Europeans predominating, given its Greek past and the current two thirds of the population of Greek origin.
"PPP" is the most obvious culprit and should *never* be used when comparing the relative size of different countries' economies. But also I think the data here is based on GDP... the "income" of the entire country... not income as most people usually think of it which is the paycheck people are taking home. Often, having a high per capita GDP equates to having a wealthy populace; but not always. For that you might want to look at average wages or average wealth among citizens... and, depending on how you calculate the above, sometimes using PPP for that actually would make some sense. Some. Not a lot. It really only makes *good* sense when you are looking at things like the average wages of poor people or hourly minimum wage. Really falls apart when looking at the entire wealth of a nation and then comparing it to other nations.
I'm sorry, I have a hard time comprehending the fact that Guyana is the richest South American Country. <----(I'm having a hard time buying the veracity, of that claim.)
Haha I tried all the small African countries, but I moved on after getting 4. When I came back with 29/30 answers, I braced myself for a long ordeal of spamming African countries. I started with the Southern area (I had already tried S. Africa, Eswatini, and Lesotho) so I typed in Botswana... not such a long ordeal after all
Relations between the USA and Venezuela were very positive for decades. The US was the first country in the world to recognize the independence of Gran Columbia, and relations with Caracas were consistent when Venezuela later declared its own independence. In the early 1900s the US stopped European powers from invading and reacquiring Venezuela, as the country spent decades in various international incidents due to their wrong-headed trade policies. In the latter half of the century it was American expertise, ingenuity, and capital that allowed for the exploitation of the country's oil resources, turning it into by far the wealthiest nation in South America.
Hugo Chavez came to power, probably just as brainwashed as our friend above here, and started taking Venezuela in the direction of a belligerent rogue nation. He unilaterally worsened the relationship between the two countries, some would say with obvious and deliberate intent.
Decades of corruption, incompetence, failed policies, paranoid delusion, and a willfully and needlessly belligerent stance toward foreign policy led to the stagnation of Venezuela's economy. The fact that they failed to diversify their industries and then there was a sharp drop in the price of oil led to economic collapse.
By 2016 when America would elect its own version of Chavez (a deeply corrupt, ignorant, racist, needlessly belligerent, inept, isolationist, friend-to-dictators, enemy-of-democracy, faux populist narcissist with terrible policy ideas who had no business being in charge of anything)... the country was already in freefall and none of Trump's bluster or insults mattered.
*a l s o s i m p s f o r c h i n a a n d r u s s i a*
Cape Verde is an option as small and touristy, Namibia has natural resources and small population, but other than that there are not many good options left.
missed only Bostwana.
There aren't that many countries in South America and they all tend to hover around the middle in terms of income. None that are exceptionally wealthy and none that are exceptionally poor.
Anyway Brazil is not exceptionally wealthy but it's also far from being as poor as places like Afghansitan, Haiti, or Uganda.
Norway is the richest country in Europe measured by wealth per capita according to the World Bank, see this in many ways very interesting report; https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29001/9781464810466.pdf
Seems that they are doing pretty well for themselves regarding what just recently happened there.