Zorro
Zorro's JournalVenezuela bus strike causes traffic chaos in Caracas
Venezuelan bus drivers protesting their country's economic crisis parked their buses in the street on Wednesday, causing traffic chaos in Caracas and embarrassing President Nicolas Maduro, a former colleague.
Hundreds of drivers joined the strike, demanding better pay, more security against violent crime and spare parts for their buses.
Tires, car batteries and motor oil are on a long list of goods that have disappeared in the shortage-racked country.
The protest paralyzed half the bus fleet in the city of three million people, the drivers said.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-bus-strike-causes-traffic-chaos-caracas-223453529.html
This presidential candidate seems to want to turn the U.S. into Venezuela
Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein has her own plan to make America great again. That's turning it into Venezuela.
That, at least, is what her proposal to have the Federal Reserve pay for everybody's student loans and perhaps their healthcare too would do to our economy. Inflation would skyrocket, the dollar would collapse, and the inevitable price controls would create shortages of basic goods. In other words, the full Chavez.
Not that Stein seems to get any of this. Indeed, she thinks that quantitative easing—which is when the Fed buys bonds with freshly-minted dollars—is just "a magic trick that basically people don't need to understand any more than that it is a magic trick." According to her, it "canceled" the "debt of Wall Street" by "essentially writing it off as a digital hat trick." So it's only fair, she says, that we do the same for student loans.
This is wrong. QE didn't buy bonds that the banks owed to other people. It bought bonds that the banks were owed from other people—specifically, homeowners and the U.S. government. Paying a bank $100 for $100 worth of bonds is no more a bailout than paying Starbucks $5 for $5 worth of lattes is. Still, though, Stein's not wrong that there is some magic to this. Just not the kind she thinks. What do I mean by that? Well, when the Fed buys a U.S. Treasury bond from a bank, it turns a debt that the government owed to somebody else into a debt that it owes to itself—so it's like it doesn't exist. QE, then, didn't erase Wall Street's debts, but Uncle Sam's.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/09/19/this-presidential-candidate-seems-to-want-to-turn-the-u-s-into-venezuela/
In Venezuelan hospital, newborns in cardboard boxes
Photos released by Venezuela's opposition this week show a dramatically different scene than you'd expect to see in a hospital nursery.
The images show newborn babies in cardboard boxes, lined up on a counter.
A hospital employee took the photos, according to the opposition group that released them.
The images purportedly were taken at the government-run Domingo Guzmán Lander Hospital in the coastal city of Barcelona, about 315 kilometers (195 miles) east of Caracas. CNN has not been able to independently verify the authenticity of the photos and it is unclear when they were taken.
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/health/venezuela-hospital-cardboard-nursery/
This powerful video shows Venezuela’s desperate politics of hunger
A woman lies sick in bed as her caretaker taps out a message on her cellphone. It rings in a soldier’s pocket, as he joins the ranks of riot troops facing down an opposition march. The caretaker opens the fridge and finds it bare, and sends another message. The soldier reaches into his pocket to read them, while his commanding officer orders the troops to stop the protest. As the soldier reads the message he looks out at the protesters and sees that they are protesting the same things making his life hell: critical food and medicine shortages, enormous lines, the breakdown of Venezuela’s economy and society.
“Dad,” a voiceover says, “remember that the people you’re sent to beat back are going through the same thing we are. It’s unbearable, you know it.”
The powerful one-minute Web clip hit the Internet on Saturday — and the Venezuelan government responded with fury. By Monday, three of the opposition activists who produced it— Marco Trejo, César Cuellar and James Mathison — were arrested, facing charges in military tribunals for “inciting military rebellion” that could see them spend the next 15 years in jail. Other activists are being sought.
The arrests are just the latest episode in Venezuela’s increasingly rapid descent into a classic police state. News of detentions of regional opposition activists have become routine, as a government that once sold itself as a shining new beacon of enlightened “21st-century socialism” turns to the same types of repressive tactics of its 20th-century counterparts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/this-powerful-video-shows-venezuelas-desperate-politics-of-hunger/2016/09/21/c842dbb8-800c-11e6-9070-5c4905bf40dc_story.html
Peru brings up Venezuela crisis at U.N., Venezuela swipes back
Peru's president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski told the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday he is concerned about what he called the critical economic situation in Venezuela, citing shortfalls of food and medicine, while Venezuela accused him of meddling.
It was the latest in a series of diplomatic blows to the OPEC-member country as it suffers through a major economic crisis with food supplies depleted and triple-digit inflation.
"It is unavoidable that I mention our concern for the very critical political, economic and social situation that our friendly nation of Venezuela is experiencing," Kuczynski said in an official address to the annual gathering of world leaders.
Venezuela's representative to the United Nations, Rafael Ramirez, called Kuczynski's comments "a gratuitous attack."
https://www.yahoo.com/news/perus-kuczynski-voices-concern-venezuela-food-medicine-shortages-191831403.html
How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil
One oil rig was idle for weeks because a single piece of equipment was missing. Another was attacked by armed gangs who made off with all they could carry. Many oil workers say they are paid so little that they barely eat and have to keep watch over one another in case they faint while high up on the rigs.
Venezuela’s petroleum industry, whose vast revenues once fueled the country’s Socialist-inspired revolution, underwriting everything from housing to education, is spiraling into disarray.
To add insult to injury, the Venezuelan government has been forced to turn to its nemesis, the United States, for help.
“You call them the empire,” said Luis Centeno, a union leader for the oil workers, referring to what government officials call the United States, “and yet you’re buying their oil.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/world/americas/venezuela-oil-economy.html
MacOS 10.12 Sierra was just released
So far so good with the download and installation.
Venezuela accuses US of spying on Non-Aligned summit
Venezuela accused the United States on Tuesday of spying on a Non-Aligned Movement summit it recently hosted, saying Venezuelan fighter jets had intercepted a US surveillance plane and forced it to turn back.
President Nicolas Maduro's latest beef with Washington comes after Venezuela hosted leaders from the 120-member group on the Caribbean island of Margarita last weekend, a meeting that featured numerous jabs at US foreign policy.
"We know a military aircraft carried out flight patterns 130 nautical miles from Margarita island, collecting information, carrying out intelligence operations on the summit," said Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez.
He said a US Coast Guard Dash 8 plane was detected near Venezuelan airspace on Friday and Saturday, "flagrantly violating international norms" by failing to announce itself to the Venezuelan military's air traffick controllers.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-accuses-us-spying-non-aligned-summit-230444773.html
"Near Venezuelan airspace" is a provocation? Maduro is as full of shit as Trump.
Maduro extends Venezuela emergency for fourth time
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro extended a state of "economic emergency" for the fourth time Thursday, keeping vast powers to deal with a crisis that has only deepened in recent weeks.
The state of emergency, in place since January, has been extended for another 60 days, said a presidential decree.
The declaration allows the socialist government to seize assets of private companies to obtain essential food and goods.
Under the emergency, Maduro has put the army in charge of food distribution, seeking to ease severe shortages that have triggered outbreaks of looting and riots.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/maduro-extends-venezuela-emergency-fourth-time-230230683.html
It's the USA's fault we keep shooting ourselves in the foot! And we're running out of toes!
Venezuela state declares food emergency at schools
The opposition governor of Venezuela's second-largest state, Henrique Capriles, declared an emergency Monday over a lack of food for public schools, blaming the socialist government's "misguided" policies.
"We are declaring a food emergency in our state," said Capriles, the governor of Miranda state, who is leading a campaign to remove President Nicolas Maduro from office in a recall referendum.
Capriles and his center-right opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), blame the leftist president for an economic crisis that is causing severe shortages of food and medicine in Venezuela.
The state of emergency enables Capriles, Maduro's opponent in the 2013 presidential election, to divert funding toward food for schools, nursing homes and facilities for the disabled.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-state-declares-food-emergency-schools-220223843.html
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