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Comment by sndpsy | Hacker News Reader

The executive order[1] targets the Government of Venezuela [2] not all Venezuelan companies and individuals. But I guess it's easier to deactivate everyone than try and verify if the account is related to the Government of Venezuela.

[1]https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/... [2] the term ‘‘Government of Venezuela’’ includes the state and Government of Venezuela, any political subdivision, agency, or instrumentality thereof, including the Central Bank of Venezuela and Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PdVSA), any person owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the foregoing, and any person who has acted or purported to act directly or indirectly for or on behalf of, any of the foregoing, including as a member of the Maduro regime. For the purposes of section 2 of this order, the term ‘‘Government of Venezuela’

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There are 2.8m[0] government employees out of a work force of 13m[1].. that's over 20% of the entire work force.

And that's just current active employees. From what you quoted, it includes past employees too.

They also own at least 500 companies that operate in a diverse number of industries[2]. And that wasn't found by disclosure from the government.. it required someone to research each of those companies. The actual count is almost certainly much higher. This is important because Adobe needs to know which of these companies are government owned, and the government does not make it easy to determine that. (I'm also not sure if employees of those are in the count above or not... I think not, except maybe the prominent ones like PDVSA.)

I think the fault here is Venezuela's... the government is so intermingled with the economy it's impossible for any reasonable person to determine where the government's reach ends.

0. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-worker...

1. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy/we-all-...

2. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas...

USA total full time employees: 128.5 million. Total USA government employees (federal, state and local) 20~ million.*

I've seen stats from several countries and they varied from 15-40%. So 20% is not only relatively normal, it's on par with the USA's 17-18%.

* https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-ti... * https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/21955...

Wow, this is quite surprising to me that so much of the population is employed by governments.

This little sideline made me look it up, since I had seen a comparison of only a few countries and it was many years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_se...

Most of the countries on the list I would consider living in are in the 20-30% range.

Most of the low range countries tend to be poor and underdeveloped, with the odd exceptions of Japan and South Korea with 10%.

Also interesting to see some of the countries with the highest quality of life are generally in the 30% range.

The few countries over 40% (Cuba Belarus China Kuwait Russia) aren't ones I'd personally favor for living.

thanks for the link, what about section 1.c

  The  prohibitions  in  subsections  (a)–(b)  of  this  
  section  apply  except  to  the  extent  provided  by  
  statutes,  or  in  regulations,  orders,  directives,  or  
  licenses  that  may  be  issued  pursuant  to  this  
  order,  and  notwithstanding  any  contract  entered  into  
  or  any  license  or  permit  granted  prior  to  the  
  effective date of this order.

> not all Venezuelan companies and individuals.

Er, given the structure of the socialist system in Venezuela, which companies or individuals can a US entity be sure are neither “owned or controlled, directly or indirectly” by the government or any instrumentality or agency thereof, including the central bank or national oil company, nor have ever acted directly or indirectly for or on behalf of any of those things?

What are the expected consequences for a private US firm applying the order too broadly? Too narrowly?

> What are the expected consequences for a private US firm applying the order too broadly? Too narrowly?

Broadly, you lose customers. Narrowly, you’re fighting criminal charges for sanctions evasion.

Right: to make the implication of the (most rhetorical) question more clear: the nature of the situation and the structure of the order and it's consequences very much encourage exactly what Adobe did, even if one might argue it is strictly not required.

In Venezuela you never know, when a company is owned by the state. In the US, on the other hand, we know that the state is owned by the companies. Much easier this way.

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