Ditto!!!

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

The only thing snowflake dems can run is their mouth!!!!!

Hilarious, like reading Watchtower!

Thanks.

https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/432...

It's all the Capitalists' fault.

Venezuela isn't an aberration, it's a trend. Star Trek does not explain this. Don't assume that they want to live.

The states were jealous of their power, not interested in competing experiments.

They resort to violence every time they pass another law controlling people. The only difference is in what they can get away with against whom at any point time or how much they panic.

The Democrats hate Trump because he is in power and isn't them. He isn't Hilary or Bernie, they expected him to lose badly, and they have an entitlement mentality of being in control. They can't stand being out of complete power.

There are people who still idolize Trump despite the fact that he is not a defender of individualism and freedom and cannot think or speak coherently in his shallow, emotional, range of the moment outbursts. He is a statist, pragmatist who has been a 'liberal' all his life.

As current example he is trying to save Obamacare despite the Republican promises to repeal it. He has been on record of wanting government supplied health care for years before he ran for and demagogued his way into the Presidency, supported by frustrated people who don't know any better but knew they had to stop Clinton.

It's not a matter of making "deals". That is Trump's mentality. The decline will not be stopped until better ideas are accepted. There are no short cuts. Term limits may slow down some particular corruption, such as when a single politician or organization becomes entrenched and abuses power for an extended period, but for fundamental reforms of the kind that are necessary, term limits as a political policy isn't even on the list.

"the more interesting question of what [GM was] counting on [staying in Venezuela]"
I do not know what they were thinking, but my guess is they wrongly thought the gov't would institute some reforms. It's like in the Star Trek episode Whom Gods Destroy when Kirk's mentally ill former colleague fiddles with a bomb and threatens to set it off. Kirk calmly says, "All I can say is if happens to me, it happens to you." In the show, the insane guy backs down and at the happy ending of the episode he begins responding to mental illness treatments. In real life, sometimes the insane guy goes through with the threat and sets off the bomb.

Because the disaster will affect you, too. That's one of the reasons why the Founders wanted the States individually to be the policy incubators. That way if one State did something that worked well the others could look at the success and if another did something that was a complete disaster everyone could look at that and take caution. It's why they ardently objected to having the Federal Government involved in everything - because then everyone failed and were miserable together.

Don't worry, you're among friends here, not a bunch
of Socialists and Communists.
----But even though socialism does not and cannot
work, people are going to keep trying it over and over as long as they accept its moral premises. In order to defeat that practice, we have to defeat the main, fundamental enemy, the altruist
morality. We need to uphold individual rights, and denounce their violation, not just go through complicated Rube Goldberg arguments about particular programs.

Philosophically I agree with you on all points. The question is which has the best chance of happening, term limits or a Gulch like country, and I hate to use the term country, it should be 330,000,000 individuals making their own deals for their own self interests.

Maybe they are counting on the productive people to prevent that destruction, so long as the productive people continue to go along with the program. Maybe thats why they quickly resort to violence when the production people "wake up" and not longer are willing to be productive.

Trump is by no means an Objectivist, but he has become a sort of torchbearer for people who are tired of just working all day to support the socialist principles. Maybe that accounts for the intense hatred of Trump among the democrats. I have been amazed at the intensity of that hatred, particularly when he hasnt even done a lot yet

As Ayn Rand emphasized repeatedly, the problem is to spread the right ideas so that people discover what is a proper ethics and why. Not only do they hot have that, they are following the wrong ideas of pragmatism and altruism. Life itself is not easy, without proper principles it is worse.

With the rest of the world worse than here they won't have a fat cat life style anywhere by the time they are done. Term limits changing the players more often will not stop the decline, which is caused by bad philosophical premises of irrationality, self-sacrifice as a moral ideal, collectivism and statism, not day to day enticements corrupting during a term of office.

The article said that the GM lost $400million in South America last year, that the car companies have been waiting for the economy to improve rather than leave, that a week ago the government embargoed GM's plant, bank accounts and other assets in the country, and that the government has now confiscated the whole plant.

The details do not matter in knowing what to think of this. We know what the Venezuelan government is and the destructive consequences of its ethics as the cause. GM knew all about the "particulars" and it didn't help them because they ignored the principles -- which is why I raised the more interesting question of what were they counting on. Thinking in principles does not require and is not restricted to concrete bound details of the heist or counting the ways we are morally superior to thieves.

Most people do not have the enough ethics to turn down a comfortable retirement package in order to live a life with correct ethical standards. Not only do they think it is in their best interest to live in a system of dishonesty and illegality, they no longer see a) that it is ethically wrong, and b) that is not in their best interest. You are correct, ewv, but the general public does not realize that "It's not in their interest to live in a system where dishonesty and illegality can be imposed at the whim of a president." Living by the ethical standards of John Galt is not easy, but nothing in life that is easy is worth having.

It's not in their interest to live in a system where dishonesty and illegality can be imposed at the whim of a president.

Those in power will continue with their delusional efforts to stay in power while they secretly move money off shore to continue their fat cat life style. Surely our leaders wouldn't be doing that would they? Term limits now, term limits forever!!!!

"The mechanics is in the philosophy"
Let's break it up into A) the particulars (what I was calling "the mechanics"), B) the philosophy, and C) the excuses.
I don't care about C. Almost all thieves have excuses. B could possibly be interesting, but it's not what I'm talking about.

The particulars (A) is the part I'm interested in. This GM plant was struggling. The gov't has this ridiculous exchange rate that in no way reflects the market. Did the plant have some sort of deal with the gov't to get a better rate to pay foreign suppliers? Either way, I suspect the gov't milked them so badly in so many ways; which explains why they haven't produced a single car there since 2015. What were its 2,700 employees doing? I suspect supporting Venezuelan dealers, who employ an additional 3,900 people.

A court ruling in some lawsuit from the 90s caused (more likely was a gov't excuse for) the gov't to seize this plant and bank accounts. We don't know how much was in the accounts. The company has been losing money; I imagine it's not a fortune. If the plant hasn't produced a car in over a year, it would take significant investment to get it up and running again.

Did gov't officials come by the plant after seizing the accounts with a notice that this building belongs to us now? If so, did they ask them to get out of the building, to keep supporting the local dealerships, or did they just deliver the news with no desired action? Did they send some administrator by who would be able to sign paychecks, generate POs, enter contracts, and the like?

It doesn't make much sense because the company was losing money, not making any cars and was supporting Venezuelan dealerships. Now the gov't is the proud owner of a broken-down factory that was losing money. I wonder if the gov't knows about some assets it wants to loot and liquidate that may be worth enough to get it through a few more weeks of crisis. Maybe it was just a court flexing its muscle (unlikely), independent of national politics. It could be a political move to do something to symbolic to stick it to foreign corporations. No narrative I can think up makes sense to me.

There should be a separate thread, which I would not care to read, for the question "is stealing GM's property immoral?" and counting the ways we're are morally superior to thieves.

It would be interesting to hear from someone who knows something about the particulars of what they did and how they did it.

Those at GM would not speak out because it was in their best interest to be dishonest and illegal. What a ** system.

Staying in power means they will be destroyed. Keeping their power is self-destruction, which they are willing to do rather than lose control over others. Self destruction is preferable to them over working in an honest life. They would rather die than surrender their control.

Giving up power means they will be subject to the results of their philosophy- meaning they will be destroyed Therefore, giving up power is equivalent to destroying themselves.

Yes, I had to go through two agencies (US Dept. of Agriculture and "???" to bring in some Ebony from Africa. When the pallet load arrived at the airport I had to bring some documents (?) and permits (?) along, and they told me they could not release the shipment for fear of some possible exotic bugs in the wood. After I convinced them Ebony was too hard and too dense to take bugs they complained about the pallet. I finally convinced them they could keep the pallet and burn it. We loaded the Ebony in my pickup and I took off as fast as I could before they came up with more excuses. That was about 20 years ago, I'm sure it's more difficult now.