Topic: Could Bitcoin Smash Socialism in Venezuela? - page 2. (Read 1245 times)

I have not considered Colombia or Guyana because of some reasons. Firstly, I dont know anyone in those countries and I am afraid we have bad relations with Guyana and Colombia, many frictions.

We have a dispute with Guyana for a part of territory and Colombians and Venezuelans have some historical differences which are more strong nowadays due to policies of my government and theirs.

Regarding India and other countries that remember the USSR as a superpower with a high level of some indicators:
The only noticeable element of "greatness" in the USSR was nuclear weapons and a large army. Yes, it should also be noted - the largest tank army in the world. But this was the legacy of the Second World War, which by the way, together with Hitler's Germany, was unleashed by the USSR in 1939, and then cowardly lied that they "had nothing to do with it." In all other respects, the USSR was losing to the West - from the quality of the most primitive goods to technology, medicine, education, and the economy as a whole. Even the countries that forcibly fell into the sphere of influence of the USSR (the so-called Warsaw Pact countries), were mostly more competitive, with a higher standard of living. At the same time, the USSR spent a huge part of its money not on internal development and improving the living standards of its population, but financed mornings / Nazis and similar parties in Europe. They have invested billions of dollars in various dubious regimes in the Middle East and Africa. In those countries where, for example, countries were gaining independence from colonial status, such as India in 1947, the USSR immediately "came" and tried to "buy" a new government. Or they financed terrorist groups to overthrow the legitimate government, where they then put their puppets, on the maintenance of which they spent billions of dollars from the budget. For loyalty to itself, the Kremlin was ready to invest any money in other countries to create the appearance of high loyalty and significance of the USSR. But not in yours.
If you don't know, from the time of the creation of the USSR and until now, the Kremlin has supported financially almost all socialist, ultra-right, some nationalist, and unofficially, of course, Nazi movements around the world. In St. Petersburg, annual meetings of ultra-right, Nazi, nationalist, and other dubious parties from all over the world are held with enviable constancy, Russia accepts them with open arms.

And they constantly sang to their people the mantra "Be glad that everyone is afraid of us, soon there will be communism, we need to work harder and look less at other countries, and wait, silently, and obey the regime! In the West, 1000500 times worse, everyone is swelling with hunger." And whoever doesn't like it - for those there are hundreds of concentration labor camps, thousands of prisons, settlements (settlements of little use for life in the most remote areas). By the way, the concept of concentration camps was borrowed by Hitler's Germany from the USSR - they were actively built in the USSR since the beginning of the 1920s, for the dissatisfied and others who do not want to enjoy "developed socialism".
And yes - some republics can conditionally say "lucky" - if they had a very low level of development, i.e. In fact, backward countries, the USSR, at the cost of almost free labor of other republics, slightly raised the standard of living of such republics. But in return, the Kremlin power took away all the republics' resources - oil, gas, minerals ...


PS But note - the USSR had a more or less effective income from ... YES, again from the oil and gas trade, and the quarrel with the countries of the Middle East, which led to a fall in world oil prices, became the basis for the collapse of the USSR. The economy was very unreasonable and 10,000% dependent on how much the West pays for oil ... As soon as the West stops paying big money, Russia turns into a huge area of ​​poor people with a super-rich group of several hundred people ...

Bitcoin is always there for anyone who does not trust their country or other countries monetary policy. It works the best in cases of hyperinflation and that is clear if you look precisely at who is trying to ban bitcoin or putting ridiculous sanctions or penalties for those who try to use it.

A different thing is to be able to take down a government. That does not only require freedom of currency and freedom of capital movements, it also requires cutting off the weapons supplies, changing the minds of those who hold power and sometimes of the whole society.

Also, we could even consider bitcoin can help authoritarian regimes as it could help them move capital in the same manner as they allow people to do so.

^^^ Thanks for the very detailed answer. I could agree to most of what you posted. I don't know much about the state of USSR before it disintegrated in 1992. But a lot of people in India and the other developing nations believe that they were one of the two superpowers, in terms of economy, military, nuclear technology and medical science. Form your response, it looks as if the only region that actually benefitted from being a part of the USSR was Central Asia (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan.etc). The majority of the ethnic Tajiks live in Afghanistan, and those who live in the ex-USSR republic seems to be in a much better situation compared to those in Afghanistan.

Good question ... True, the answer will be very long It captures a lot of sides, so I will try to be as compact as possible ...
1. The collapse of the USSR, as for me, is a positive event, which potentially should have liberated 15 republics, which, in fact, were forcibly driven into this "union" since the 1920s. I hoped that all the republics would follow the path of adequate development and choose the western vector, such as Poland (the country was part of the military bloc created by the USSR, since the 80s they began a movement for the national idea, freedom, economic restructuring). But it turned out that the partocracy in "alliance" with the siloviki, police, special services and, in fact, bandits, created a new kind of power. Of the 15 republics, only the Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) emerged quite well.
2. Ukraine had a very high potential (economy, scientific potential, heavy industry, agriculture, ....), but ... Everything went the other way - by agreement with the Russian Federation, a new union was created, mainly economic, which however, it was more focused on supporting the Russian economy. With this approach, namely, the unequal position of the members of the union, the lifetime of such unions is predictably short. Which is exactly what happened. As a result, a new "union" appeared, with the same concept, consisting of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Ukraine has chosen the European / Western vector, at least at the level of statements and concepts.
Yes, about the "poverty of Russia" - Yeltsin has absolutely nothing to do with it, the reason is simple - a resource-oriented economy (oil and gas) and falling prices on the world market. A little later, it became rich not because, for example, it became a technology leader, or in something else - but simply because oil prices went up The oil price chart is 100% consistent with "poverty" or "wealth" of Russia - just overlay them 90s - $ 12-15 / barrel, from 2004 to 2008 growth to $ 140, Then a drop to $ 45, and then growth again and right up to 2014 a stable price of $ 100-120 per barrel. Now oil has dropped again, and Russia has started to slide down to the bottom again. Everything is simple and there are no difficulties in explanation. Oil is expensive - Russia is rich, oil has fallen - Russia is getting poorer.

3. Here the "flourishing" of Belarus also becomes clear. On the one hand, this is a small country, on the other hand, a significant number of production capacities also remained on its territory. The merit of Lukashenka (in the first half of his tenure) is that he managed to maneuver between the Russian Federation and the EU and make the most profitable trade with both the Russian Federation and the EU.
plus Belarus became a transit territory for goods from the EU to the Russian Federation, which were banned by the Russian Federation itself, as sanctions against the EU At that moment Belarus turned into the homeland of shrimps, oysters, Dutch cheeses and French wines

4. If we go back to Ukraine, to the period after 2000, everything is not simple here either. On the one hand, the country borders on the EU and understands how one can live, on the other hand, a noticeable part of the population is "soviet" - pro-Russian people, raving about the idea of ​​reviving the USSR, denying freedom and independence. And only after 2 massive popular protests (in 2004 and 2014), real shifts began to "break away" from the legacy of the USSR and move towards real independence, reintegration, and the establishment of full-fledged relations with the EU and the developed world. But Russia did not like this very much, because it is a very "bad example" for them. Yes, it sounds like nonsense - but living is good, in Russia it is considered a bad value This has been going on since the times of the USSR. The events of 2014 and the aggression of the Russian Federation towards Ukraine are still a consequence of the imperial ambitions of the Russian Federation (which they cover with supposedly humane goals), and the fear that the population of the Russian Federation can see that it is possible to live well, and it is possible to live well, even without all the wealth that is. from the RF. There really is a nuance - all these resources are owned by a small group from Putin's entourage, the population has none of this. Therefore, there is a very strong fear that the neighbors will set an example that they can change the government and you can live well, this greatly scares the Kremlin power. I see that since 2015 real changes have begun in the country, systemic ones, and there are already many real positive changes. Of course, the ideal is still very far away, and structural changes will probably take another 10-20 years, provided that there are no destructive actions both from inside and outside the country. I want my country to live well, peacefully, in abundance, in friendly relations with its neighbors.



UPD "Russia became one of the poorest countries in the world from the superpower status it held before 1992." - This is an erroneous opinion, in 1992 the Russian Federation was not a superpower, it was a primitive fragment of a bankrupt "colossus with feet of clay," with 70% of the poor population and empty budgets.

When a nation goes bad, it goes bad, there is really no smashing it with anything. It doesn't matter if it is because of that or because of this, it matters if it is smashed and there are many nations like this in the world, I know people love to hate socialism, but there are african nations, there are middle eastern nations, there are asian nations all doing horrible without socialism as well, does that make socialism good? No, does that make it bad? No. It just means that some nations are beyond saving and bitcoin can't save them, doesn't matter how wildly used it becomes, there is no way that it could save a whole nation.

Maybe blockchain could help a bit, but as long as that nation is not getting enough food help from other nations to cover all the needs of the population, then people will not even be fed enough to help grow the nation back up.

Well.. since DrBeer is from the former USSR, he will be more knowledgeable about how the socialist system works. And for Hispo, I agree. At this point there is not much that you can do about it, other than fleeing to some other country where your skills can be better utilized. Now everyone may not be able to migrate to the United States or Canada. So why don't you try your luck in Colombia or Guyana?

And for DrBeer, I have one question. Are you happy with what happened after the disintegration of the USSR in 1992? I don't know much about Ukraine, but in Russia they had the drunkard Boris Yeltsin in power. He destroyed the Russian people and allowed oligarchs to loot the natural resources. In just 7 years, Russia became one of the poorest countries in the world from the superpower status it held before 1992. On the other hand, communist Alexander Lukashenko remained in power in Belarus, and that country fared much better when compared to Russia.

They are not offering interest for now, zero APY.
Probably, common people will start trust a bit on them eventuially. But I doubt it.

I am afraid I will have to move as well some day, sad but not much I can do.
I don't like being treated like this as citizen.

Probably, there is already people and businesses that have tried the new banking services, because of the convenience.
We are aware of the flagility of the banknotes, businesses do not accept bills in bad conditions and there is even people who buy bills in bad condition for half the price of their legal value.

Very good description
Yes, I once lived in such a "socialist paradise moving towards a communist super paradise". In comparison with those countries that I visited, where I communicated with people, compared values, mentality, and so far I have not met a more bastard regime than in the USSR, from almost 40 countries that I have visited. I am sincerely glad that that country has ended its existence, although there are still "metastases" of that defective country.

and that is actually the function of a bank, rather than keeping it at home, of course it will be very risky, so I think a bank is safer to save money, even though we are subject to administrative burdens that do not match the interest given.

OK.. so even if people are permitted to hold USD in their bank accounts, you are saying that few people would do that, since the banks are not trusted by the people. I can't blame the ordinary citizens, because we have seen bank accounts being used for wealth confiscation before (check what happened in Cyprus). But then holding all the USD bills under the mattress can be extremely risky. And since these are banknotes and not coins, you need to store them with care. Banknotes can get spoilt easily.

Corrupt cops are always trying to screw us anyways, in anyway you can imagine.
There is also an initiative going on to created bank accounts in USD so people can pay easily with it when buying their stuff, because due to de lack of coins and 1$ and 5$ bills, it can be difficult to spend exactly what you want. I have been in the sitution I needed to spend 10$ with a 20$ but I could not.
However, many people people do not trust banks here anymare, and will likely do not put their few USD with them, because of how they have limited the access to your savings in the past, nowadays, for example, in order to withdraw 5 million Bolivares in cash (about 2-5$ ) one needs to get up at 7 am and spend 2-4 hours in a line outside the bank, together with 500 hundred people. I did this last week.

So people literally stuff their few dollars under the matress.


I can relate, it is usual to see pictures of our "leaders" relatives of the Socialist Party of Venezuela in pictures during the stay in New York, Florida.. or while going collegue in France.

Also, technically my country is a western one. But I believe I know what you meant.

And this is the "normal" behavior of all "people's rulers" - the people are told tales about the terrible but decaying west, of course about how the USA / Britain / is about to collapse or another situational "enemy" is chosen. And of course, they tell the people what useless dollars and the Western format of life. BUT in reality, all the "top" of the socialist / communist parties - prefer Western products, keep their savings in Western banks in US currency or another, but not in their own, and even less in their own banks. Children of such "people's leaders" study and do business in the West, mistresses, wives - live in houses and villas in those very capitalist countries. But for a stupid people a "horror story" is needed - the wild west, the victory of socialism, the collapse of capitalism, be patient a little and everything will be fine, but for now you have to live a little in shit .... And this can last for decades.

Making ownership of US Dollar 100% legal is a good step. At least this will protect the ordinary people from corrupt cops. But as long as it is not de jure legal, people will face some difficulty in exchanging it to other currencies or to store the money in a bank account (I don't think that storing large amounts in the physical form is safe, especially in a country that is going through economic devastation). For storing larger amounts, I guess cryptocurrency may be a better option.

Who told you that I am not European myself? But sure you can talk about how you have been there for 4 years. However one thing is for sure, if I wasn't in Europe, if I was in the other side of the world, Japan, Australia, USA, or any other place, that wouldn't really matter. This is the information age and what you are talking about is information you got, are you from Venezuela? Have you lived there all your life?

Or at least 4 years which according to you is enough to know? If not, then maybe you should not talk about Venezuela neither, but if you want to talk about Venezuela, me, you , some non-EU person or a European person all can talk about it.


Whataboutism is not the case here, you listed some things that makes a nation socialist, I showed you that there are social benefits in every nation, you said every socialist nation is bad, I showed you good ones. As a collective all humanity should realize that it is not about socialism versus capitalism, it is about finding the middle ground, too much of each makes a nation horrible, that's just the fact. A little bit of that, a little bit of this and you get a good nation, if you go all the way to socialism or go all the way to capitalism, both are horrible, deadly even.

Being a shopkeeper is not as stressful as you believe, they simply tag the prices in USD and multiply the price for the exchange rate of the day.
We receive daily notifications on Telegram and other social media, twice a day from monday to Friday (at 8 am and at noon), with the average rate.

https://imgur.com/a/RLLuwmB


I personally took that picture.


Even street food vendors tag in USD





Carrying USD and Euros is not illegal anymore, since 2018. But Government can't legalize USD as de jure currency because they don't want /cant pay the public workers in USD, which are the majority of the workers in this country, the state is the biggest employer and the worst payer.

Being a shopkeeper might be really tough in Venezuela. With the currency devaluing every day, I don't know how they are managing the situation. Maybe they are taking an additional margin while accepting payments in the local currency. I really don't know why the government is not allowing USD as a legal tender. So many people are using it, and it makes no sense to ban it's usage (although the ban is not enforced). If they make it legal, at least it would reduce the suffering of ordinary people to some extent.

We have already places that accept cryptocurrency, specially in the capital. The accept Bitcoin but others like DASH, LTC, ETH or USDT are prefered, for obvious reasons.
In my case, the biggest place that accepts crypto is a big department store of several floors, one can buy clothes, food, toys, beer, ect.

For now, people are more accostumed to USD in cash, but crypto is slowly taking its part within the new economy.

Also: I have not been in a situation where I go to buy something and local currency is rejected.
This mostly happens when one is trying to make a big deal, like a house, a car or specific good and services where the local currency will be likely rejected as payment method, in general retailers will take it at the exchange rate of the day.

The other funny part here is that Venezuela seems to be already running on US Dollar. They want to be a good socialist country but nobody has confidence in their currency anymore. Many stores don't accept any local money anymore and only deal in USD. While bitcoin could take the place as the preferred currency to be paid with, I don't think that this is very likely at the moment. Especially if people prefer to use cash.