Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

This exact situation in Venezuela made me think Hugo Chávez was not always completely nuts with some of his ideas.

He was sick of multinationals like Coke buying water for a couple of cents a mega-liter. Coke would then add some sugar and color to it before selling it back to the people for dollars per liter. The expensive purification of that water was paid for by tax revenue.

Chávez decided this was not right, and put an extremely heavy tax on multi-nationals buying "resources" from Venezuela and doing that.

Personally, I think the world would be a better place if that was the law everywhere.

On a related note, Juneau, the capital of Alkasa needs a new water purification plant, theirs is running beyond capacity. The proposal was to increase tax so everyone pays for it. It came to light Holland-America (cruise line) buys millions of gallons for a tiny, tiny fraction of the price that locals pay. When it was suggested to Holland-America they should pay a little more to help fund the new purification plant, Holland-America simply threatened to stop bringing cruise ships to Juneau. So now the residents pay more tax so that Holland-America can continue to buy millions of gallons for much cheaper than the locals pay!

He identified a real problem (that part is not hard as no country is short of easily identifiable problems), the problem was he using it as base/narrative to gain more personal power and influence, instead of solving the problem for the country's benefit.

The problem with third-world countries is not that the political elite fails to identify problems, it is that they use this to gain more power through populism or they use it to gain more money through corruption.

Yeah populism in third world counties. What do you call whats happening in the US and Europe.

In first world countries, populism is often triggered by government overreach.

In third world countries, populism is often triggered by promising people finances from government coffers.

That is why you see populism in Brazil, Venezuela, etc cause the government to overexpand, grow corrupt, and eventually start to implode. First world countries have self sufficient people who would prefer more freedoms, third world countries have people who rely on the government to meet their basic needs.

>In third world countries, populism is often triggered by promising people finances from government coffers.

I disagree. Voting for the guy who will bring in job subsidies, factory subsidies, farm subsidies, government investment in rural areas, government contracts, federal projects, etc to your area is absolutely finances from the government coffers and one of, if not the largest, campaign issue during the 2016 US presidential race.

>third world countries have people who rely on the government to meet their basic needs.

Most of rural America, nearly 50m people, would collapse overnight if not for farm subsidies, factory job creation tax credits, and all manner of welfare. Even with all these things the rural poverty rate is almost 20%. Poor parts of urban America are almost as bad.

I think you're dismissing how poor much of America is and how much these people depend on the government to survive.

I disagree with this assumption. I believe what differs first and third world countries is the strength of institutions, not the belief of their individual people. There is diversity among developed countries regarding the role of the government, but the similarity is that institutions are more mature and are more respected.

I don't have an opinion about what's happening in the US and Europe.

Cities along the Inside Passage are miniscule and would basically not exist if not for cruise ship revenue, so that makes sense.

That said, they probably could have called Holland America's bluff. But I'm sure they had good cause for not wanting to take that risk.

> Cities along the Inside Passage are miniscule and would basically not exist if not for cruise ship revenue, so that makes sense.

You know these cities existed long, long before cruise ships, right?

Also there are plenty of them (Haines comes to mind) actively fighting to keep cruise ships OUT. It ain't all sunshine and roses.

I really don't think you can put Hugh Chávez into any argument about making the world a better place. Venezuela is a disaster, and the human suffering is inexcusable.

Lots of capitalistic countrys have suffering citizens, but there is there private fault, because they dont work hard enough. We all know the various ideologys immunity declarations. I wish there was a downvote for boring.

Yeah its Chavez's fault. No mention of sanctions, sanctions. The people who are obsessed with sanctions don't care about the humantarian impact as long as they get what they want.

On a related note, the Trump administration exempted Venezuelan state owned oil company Citgo from the recent round of American sanctions.

Citgo happens to employ former Trump campaign advisors as lobbyists.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/348007-trump-ex...

He is talking about a policy, not Chavez. The fact that lot of Chavez's policies were disastrous doesn't mean this one in particular was bad.

The disastrous policies. Could you name them?. Before he died, as afar as i know, Venezuela was getting on just fine. Whats disastrous is Maduro much like the one running the US. Both stupid

It's frequently pointed out Chávez didn't invest as much in modernizing PDVSA and production eventually fell. As oil prices crashed, the reduced production became a problem as it can't be expanded quickly enough without substantial investments.

But this is what I heard from an analyst and we must consider some information loss because this is far from my core expertise.

> This exact situation in Venezuela made me think Hugo Chávez was not always completely nuts with some of his ideas.

Well, they were protecting environmental travesties before and after; the only difference was that he got a greater cut.

In fairness, the cruise visitors to Juneau do spend a fair bit of money there.

If you have ever been, you would see 99.9% of cruise passengers stay down the end of town designed for them, where the ships dock.

Guess who owns the vast majority of shops there!......

Yup! Holland-America!

(Friends tried to open a jewellery shop in Skagway, AK and didn't want to pay the kick-backs Holland-America demanded.... so Holland-America just warns people on the ships not to shop there .. "We heard someone got ripped off.. " etc. Out of business in less than one season!)

I spent on a tour, a ride, and on beer, easily a hundred in all. There are many ways to spend.

I spend easily a hundred on dinner for my family in one sitting. That doesn't mean it props up the economy where I live nor is it a way to justify an argument about an entire economy in a city you visited once.

Not to play down the injustice, but it seems like you'd be able to prove a defamy case for the cost of one cruise. Alternately, you could prove a whole class of defamy cases if there are other businesses affected.

Defamation occurring and proving a case are notably different events, never mind the difficulties of proving damages (many businesses fold or make no profit in the first year even without defamation), and the cost of litigation.

This would work if you would have tons of money, I am looking at Intel case where the evidence is clear and the process is taking years,then someone appeals, some minor issue is found and everything needs to start over, it is hard to fight against a big corporation.

How do you prove it?

Holland-America are not officially printing brochures or anything like that.. they're a just using word of mouth.

If it ever went to court, I am certain they could just say "yeah, we heard it was true..."

There is just no way that the ship will skip Juneau no matter what the city does. It is too important of a port.

"Fairness" is a funny word to use for not participating in an open economy and extracting subsidies through coercion instead.

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