Comments by "" (@shauncameron8390) on "Economics Explained" channel.

  1. Poorly governed.
    833
  2. Hong Kong's problem is Beijing.
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  3.  @sownheard  Zimbabwe hasn't been capitalist since the final days of Rhodesia and Ian Smith's rule.
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  4. That's because Spain is the EU's retirement home. It's easy to say that when you know you probably are not going to be around in another 10 years and too old to enjoy it anyway.
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  5. Juan Domingo Peron.
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  6. Post-Pinochet is among the top 10 wealthiest countries in the Americas.
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  7. The consequences of rent control bearing fruit.
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  8.  @svr5423  Abolish alimony and no-fault divorce.
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  9.  @KavenLeandro  No. It's thanks to internal corruption and ineptitude.
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  10.  @eljanrimsa5843  Because Puerto Rico is a territory, not a state.
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  11.  @fabriciorosso  Inequality is the the natural consequence of living in a free (market) society as people are not equal in aspirations, skills, luck, aptitude, etc.
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  12.  @DivineInterceptor  As they don't want to be labeled racist or xenophobic.
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  13. Namely left-wing economists.
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  14.  @glendisshiko8182  <If the germans had Congo, then things would have been better> Namibia would like a word with you on that.
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  15. <Nothing will change until the government actually starts prioritising the wellbeing of the citizens > By prioritizing economic development.
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  16. Exactly.
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  17.  @leflavius_nl5370  Moral of the story: keep the borders closed, because as Sweden's finding out the hard way, social democracy and open borders don't mix.
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  18.  @japanesus_  The same Norway with a robust private sector and didn't resort to eating the rich to achieve its prosperity?
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  19. <NK was sanctioned by the US> Yet received Soviet aid.
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  20.  @ArawnOfAnnwn  Equatorial Guinea. Don't let its high GDP per capita fool you as 75% of the population is poor.
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  21.  @Homer-OJ-Simpson  The Cuban government pays them peanuts.
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  22.  @mikutsu5356  Puerto Rico, Guam, USVI, American Samoa, etc. are not starving.
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  23. And interestingly, a lot of those same Chavistas moved to the US they claim to so hate.
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  24. Wealth inequality is not a problem as there never was a time when people were equal in much of anything including earning potential.
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  25.  @svr5423  At the expense of their grand-children as they voted for more debt to support the easy life.
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  26. Both of them are ran by Marxists.
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  27. So was South Korea by the North (USSR). Yet somehow once the bombing stopped, North Korea was wealthier than South Korea.
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  28. @Citro Soda An increase in state power often results in an increase in corruption as the state will have free reign to do whatever it wants.
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  29.  @shorewall  Good PR with outsiders.
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  30. Because that's irrelevant to how the Kims ran the country into the ground even with all the financial help it got from China and the USSR. And what was South Korea's excuse as it was poorer at the end of the War?
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  31.  @maximipe  LOL @ Communism. Communism practices exactly capitalism is often accused of. 1% vs. 99%. 1% = government and the well-connected. 99% = everyone else. Never mind the borrowed and stolen resources it depends on to present the illusion of viability as it's inefficient and inadequate to produce its own wealth.
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  32. And then run it into the ground by mismanagement, corruption, ineptitude, etc.
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  33. Whatever, tankie!
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  34.  @elmohead  Not really. By GDP per capita, North Korea is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  35.  @MistikaManiac  Finland has a free market. Venezuela barely has that anymore due to Chavez and Maduro nationalizing and price-controlling it to ruin.
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  36. Yet that didn't stop DPRK from being wealthier than ROK at the time the war ended.
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  37.  @inkbold8511  No. It's called Juan Peron.
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  38. It is when America hasn't terrorized North Korea since the Korean War. And North Korea is just using America to justify letting its citizens starve.
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  39.  @anuradhajaishankar7903  US blockades didn't cause Venezuela to purge the skilled workforce with regime loyalists. It didn't cause Chavez to seize all the factories and farms killing off its ability to feed itself having to rely on outsiders for food and other basic necessities. It didn't cause Chavez to impose price controls crippling private enterprise and their ability to turn in a profit and stay in business along with the supply chains. US blockades have nothing to do with it as Venezuela's collapse took place 3 years before any blockade was imposed.
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  40. Resulting in higher operating and retail costs, unemployment, etc.
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  41. And under it. Not so much if you were part of the ruling class.
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  42. Not nearly as badly as the Cuban government and its central planning model.
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  43. Stability doesn't mean much if it's not prospering. North Korea has exactly that. Ditto for Eritrea.
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  44. Embargoes are not responsible for mismanagement and incompetence.
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  45. Not really. It's not the US's fault that Venezuela destroyed private enterprise and domestic production and in turn its ability to support itself en route to making itself oil-dependent and reliant on imports.
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  46. Agreed.
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  47. Because they happened well after the economy collapsed?
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  48.  @elmohead  North Korea got plenty of Soviet and Chinese help and yet still went backwards. It's not South Korea's fault that North Korea squandered all the help they received and reduced itself to its current pathetic state.
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  49. Ditto for Cuba.
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  50. There's barely anything capitalist about Argentina.
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  51. Indeed. And North Korea is yet another country that proved Margaret Thatcher right.
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  52. Not really. Mostly Venezuelan mismanagement and corruption.
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  53.  @Apeiron242  Mostly vanity and useless ones.
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  54. The loss of Soviet aid to compensate for Castro's wholesale decimation of domestic industry did far more damage to Cuba than any US sanction. Vietnam hasn't been under sanctions since 1985 as it long adopted capitalist reforms and moved on. Venezuela? See 2014 through 2016.
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  55. <We will never know how socialism performs unless the US stops interfering in socialist countries.> Tanzania under Nyerere was not interfered with by the US and still collapsed. Somalia under Barre had US support and yet still went on to flounder and collapse.
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  56. LOL.
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  57.  @narendrasomawat5978  Marxism and feminism go hand in hand.
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  58. It's surviving on Chinese handouts.
    3
  59. <other than indigenous populations.> Sustained by inbreeding and cannibalizing other tribes out of existence, etc. <you have to include the countless attempts from the usa to thwart and destavalize the ussr...> But it is largely insignificant as the USSR self-destructed. <and any other socialist country. Containment policies and CIA activities (assassinations, wars, ext) are rampant. > Not all socialist countries were subject to sanctions and CIA meddling, yet the results were more or less the same and many collapsed as soon as the USSR cut off aid being that they were client states with barely their own economy. <Also, literacy increased, homelessness did not exsist, everyone was fed and clothed.... can't say that for any capitalist nation.> Until they weren't when the command economy stopped working.
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  60. Not really. Venezuelan mismanagement and ineptitude.
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  61.  @martiginebullich8934  No. US sanctions didn't take effect until 2017. Venezuela collapsed in 2014-15.
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  62. Socialism kills, clear as day. Even in countries that the US/West left alone or outright supported like Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Romania, etc.
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  63.  @abudgie6909  <people are quick to point out failed socialist states, but where are the successes of capitalism in Asia, Africa and Latin America> Chile, Costa Rica, Botswana, Rwanda, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, South Korea. And thanks to capitalist reforms, China and Vietnam. <Except that one was relentlessly bombed, sanctioned and condemned by the USA, while the other received economic aid.> Yet that didn't stop NK from being wealthier than SK when the bombing stopped. And NK received economic aid from the USSR. <And consider that the island has been under internationally condemned US sanctions since 1961. It essentially cannot import any goods.> Yet it has no problem getting food aid and remittances from the very same US just like it had no problem getting Soviet aid, Canadian tourism or free Venezuelan oil. Those sanctions were due to Castro seizing all the US-built and funded businesses.
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  64. AH YES! The days when women were barely allowed to work outside the home and being single past 30 especially as a male = threat, weirdo.
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  65.  @baneofbanes  Enabled by government meddling that taxed and regulated ordinary people out of the housing market leaving corporations, investors, etc. the only entities that can afford to play the game.
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  66.  @ronald3836  Because the USSR did not allow individual freedom and everyone only existed to serve the Kremlin.
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  67. So does Canada. And Canada is hardly socialist.
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  68. Florida is anything but poor or pathetic.
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  69.  @bobbyofbrunei2023  Because they're infantilized.
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  70. He did. The US embargo came well after Venezuela collapsed.
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  71. Every leftist's favorite scapegoat for their own failures.
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  72. LOL. But North Korea made poor use of the Soviet and Chinese aid it received.
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  73. Step 3: don't use the oil revenues to upgrade and maintain the infrastructure and instead blow it on buying votes to ensure re-election letting said infrastructure deteriorate and collapse.
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  74. What were Japan's or Germany's excuses as they both experienced what you mentioned?
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  75.  @marcoslightspeed5517  Payback for stripping black Zimbabweans of their land.
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  76. <prefer spending their time and money in other ways > Namely on themselves. No money for kids, but plenty of money for their convenient lifestyles.
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  77. <These sanctions cause the deaths of thousands of Koreans every year.> No they don't. You have NK's central planning and lack of a viable economy to thank for that even with all the Soviet and Chinese handouts.
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  78. Better than being a Russian/Chinese lapdog. Interesting how countries that did business with either are among the worst off in the world.
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  79. Maybe North Korea wouldn't be embargoed if Kim wasn't threatening to nuke South Korea and Japan and actually spend money on economic development instead of keeping the military beholden to him.
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  80.  @NeverGoingToGiveYouUp000  Socialism earned its bad rep. And whatever successes it does achieve is often short-lived.
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  81. LOL. North Korea's economy is among the top 50 worst.
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  82.  @johndavidmanuel2189  Nope.
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  83.  @mjor6406  With 80% of them from out of province. Vancouver attracts the homeless due to having the mildest winters in the country and lax drug laws.
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  84. Thanks to its EU membership. Otherwise, Spain would have been in the same position as its Latin American offspring.
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  85. <The Venezuelan Chavez Regime not only didn't diversify it's economy - they actively seized or 'nationalized' many businesses, setting up the massive economic self-destruction when oil prices dropped.> Exactly. Chavez set Venezuela up for failure.
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  86. Rich in natural resources but poor in infrastructure and human development.
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  87.  @kevingriffith  <Venezuela or the United States> Venezuela or Trinidad & Tobago. You know it's that bad when Venezuelans are now risking drowning in the sea to get to T&T for food and jobs.
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  88. Not really. Venezuela imports oil, because it allowed its own oil infrastructure to rot and crumble to the point of uselessness.
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  89. Something a socialist would say.
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  90. <A worthy adversary? They won the war. Crumbled from the inside? They were forced into military spending by the US by the Star Wars program and then looted by the US thanks to a poorly planned path to a free market> Yes it did by corruption and mismanagement. Which in turn exposed the limitations of the Soviet economy. They were "forced" to, because they have to maintain the facade that communism was superior to capitalism so they didn't lose face with their supporters and admirers.
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  91.  @gregrodriguez714  <Spend a little time in Cuba.> Not as an ex-pat or tourist but a Cuban citizen.
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  92. It's hilarious how socialism has a way of making a capitalist out of people.
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  93. Not really. He's not leaving out of fear his loved ones would be targeted and harassed by the government.
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  94. Maybe because those poor nations were easy to exploit and pillage in the first place.
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  95.  @swiftay12  Actually, New Zealand has high rates of homelessness.
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  96. Hawaii's not a country, though. And the people buying properties there are other US citizens from the mainland.
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  97.    They're juts migrants.
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  98. So you prefer chronic shortages due to inefficiency and underproduction as socialism/communism is famously known for?
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  99.  @090giver090  Due to mismanagement and negligence.
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  100. Kleptocracy.
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  101.  @rickyn.1567  And even Karl Marx himself admitted that socialism cannot work without capitalism to prop it up.
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  102. And then beg imperialists for a bailout once their model fails them.
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  103.  @svr5423  Abolish alimony and no-fault divorce.
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  104. The former. Communism.
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  105. The real problem is that society has gotten too liberal for its own good.
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  106.  @elliotrather730  And also Norway has a solid private sector. Venezuela hasn't had such a thing since the late 2000's.
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  107.  @ayszhang  And what would those be as public infrastructure and services =/= socialism? Many of those successful countries don't have command economies or make it point to destroy the private sector.
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  108. Forced collectivization of farmland resulting in production decline, shortages and starvation and central planning are results of a capitalist world?
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  109. Very much.
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  110.  @nataliekhanyola5669  How come it didn't cripple Russia or Iran? It's not the sanctions' fault that most of the affected socialist states destroyed their own economies long before any sanction was imposed by price controls, land seizures and wholesale nationalizations of private enterprise killing off whatever tax base or domestic productivity they had like Venezuela.
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  111.  @marilucorracini550  <Don't be stupid, sanctions, blockades and embargoes ONLY hurt common people> Namely the ones imposed by the Venezuelan government as basic necessities are seized at the border by the military and border guards.
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  112.  @marilucorracini550  <get some real information> Namely from Maduro and academia? <spend there a few months like I did> With a state-appointed tour guide or a Chavista bootlicker.
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  113. By professors who themselves never experienced living in communism.
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  114.  @woodykusaki9970  And their icons lived off of their husbands and fathers.
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  115. North Korea is in the Northeast.
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  116. Exactly.
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  117.  @muslimcrusader5987  LOL. Now that's a good joke!
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  118.  @ausgoldman9442  Thanks to the adoption of British-styled capitalism.
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  119. It is a bad thing along with being kept ignorant of better options by the government desperate to cling to power.
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  120. More like pathetic excuses socialists keep regurgitating every other time their plans fail.
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  121. If you can afford to have a car collection, you can definitely afford to have kids. The real problem is that people have gotten hedonistic and narcissistic.
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  122.  @kgsniper4850  But either way, they end up collapsing due to complacency once the money runs out to finance that socialism/welfare.
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  123. Both of those countries have smaller populations than Japan.
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  124. In all fairness, most of the public are every bit as self-serving and it's reflected in the politicians they vote for.
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  125. South Africa is barely capitalist anymore as the ruling ANC is far-left and is doing everything it can to turn it into another Venezuela. The only reason why South Africa hasn't completely collapsed is because of the whites still around to establish businesses and pay taxes.
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  126. Foreign students, migrants and refugees are exempt from the ban.
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  127. The US has no obligation to do business with hostile regimes let alone further enrich them.
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  128. Typical socialist response.
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  129.  @dimitriwillems8735  <- Every country that works WITH the US get rich and prosper. > South Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, Chile, etc. <- Every country that embraces socialism fails and go on blaming the US> Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, etc.
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  130.  @ummmhelp  Not really. Venezuela's lack of economic diversity was due to Chavez nationalizing businesses chasing out the skilled, efficient and productive in the process of reducing Venezuela to an oil-dependent country.
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  131.  @brucethompson2940  And ended up being one of the better off countries in South America.
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  132.  @andrewdunbar828  Hong Kong.
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  133. Mismanagement and malice.
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  134. Especially in States ran by Democrats.
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  135. <On the flip side, these firms also ratchet up living expenses and most notably housing to staggeringly high levels. > Because thanks to those high-paying jobs, people can afford to pay the higher prices the raised living standards command.
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  136. Or minimal at best.
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  137. Unless you forfeit your citizenship.
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  138. <OR IMPORT FOODS> Sanctions are not what's stopping Venezuela from importing food but its own lack of money to buy said imported food.
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  139. And equally hard to do such when the government seized and mismanaged all of the factories and doesn't produce much worth exporting which seems to be the consistent story with every other country that adopted socialism/communism even those that were spared the US/NATO sanctions.
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  140. Just like the Gulf countries. Foreign migrants are not counted.
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  141. Venezuela is functionally socialist as private enterprise is all but completely no more, wholesale nationalization, the government controls just about everything, etc.
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  142. How so? Many of the people fleeing to the West come from formerly or still actively socialist countries.
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  143.  @thetaomega7816  Mexico makes $25 billion off of remittances.
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  144. But it's not SK's fault they made better use of that US aid while NK squandered the USSR and Chinese aid it received.
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  145.  @clueless3120  Be it communist Cuba or socialist Nicaragua. Communist Cambodia or socialist Burma (Myanmar). Communist Ethiopia or socialist Tanzania.
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  146.  @darthutah6649  Ditto for Singapore which China patterned its current economic model after when Deng took over.
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  147. <How about OWNERSHIP ECONOMY!!!??> And watch average people crash it.
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  148. Every socialist and 3rd-worlder's favorite excuse for their shortcomings and failures.
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  149.  @wellingtonaviationchannel634  Actually, in Venezuela's case, it was a small factor. Sanctions can't destroy what was already destroyed by internal corruption and ineptitude.
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  150. And its politics are even more divisive than the US's
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  151. Not really as foreign sanctions are not responsible for domestic ineptitude and corruption.
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  152. Not even close. The Amish have a hierarchy.
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  153. Like in 2015 and 16?
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  154. And is practiced in Angola, the Congo Republic and Equatorial Guinea minus the government throwing money at the poor.
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  155. They can live in fear and on state generosity for only so long.
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  156. Exactly.
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  157. But who wants to live like a Cuban?
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  158.  @luanrg  And who told you to take that loan knowing that it has to be paid back?
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  159.  @spaghettimon3851  First end the PCC and command economy.
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  160.  @k0mentator507  Like in Zimbabwe.
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  161.  @1001Balance  Yes the poster does. And much of Africa adopted socialism post-independence.
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  162. @sg23148 Benin Congo-Brazzaville Ethiopia Somalia Madagascar Equatorial Guinea Guinea Zimbabwe Angola Mozambique Uganda Tanzania Ghana
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  163. While North Korea's economy today is based on Chinese help.
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  164. Actually, Cuban doctors are at the mercy of their own government just like North Korean laborers. The lack of brain drain is due to fear of themselves or their loved ones being punished by the government if they dare try to defect. LOL @ them being community-minded.
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  165. Close all the retirement homes as well.
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  166.  @austinblackburn8095  But the Japanese and South Koreans have the longest lifespans in the world.
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  167. You mean China as China more or less owns Zambia now.
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  168. Not really if the government makes it hard for anyone to develop business locally.
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  169. Doctors from poor countries migrate to rich countries by choice.
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  170. Most of Venezuela's problems are home-grown. Sanctions are not a valid excuse as somehow it had no problem prospering with the oil prices being high in 2011 and 12.
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  171.  @Stellar_lnsights  Aside from a lower body count and rigged elections, not much really.
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  172. The US sanctions were little more than the final nail in the coffin for Venezuela. The real damage was done by Chavez's policies that Maduro inherited.
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  173. Pretty much.
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  174. Or the absence of a minimum wage?
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  175.  @romanbrandle319  I thought it was 70% as parroted by other Chavista-sympathizers. How did it get to 90?
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  176. <The North was instead blockaded and forced to be isolated by those same "open armies."> The North had the USSR and China for allies. It wasn't the South's fault the North squandered all the aid.
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  177. While hurting the poor within their own borders.
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  178. LOL.
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  179. Yet somehow it was when Venezuela was booming under Chavez.
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  180. Yet the government responsible for Greece's economic turmoil was socialist.
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  181. Easy for them to do stuff when dissenters are thrown in jail.
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  182. No they're not. And you're confusing public services with state-run economy and industry.
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  183. How about seeing that the Cuban economy could do without the Cuban government's heavy-handed central planning?
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  184. Imagine what it could do if it wasn't blockaded by its own government.
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  185. AH! The Scorched Earth policy.
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  186.  @TheGonzedd  They have refineries but due to the lack of maintenance are unusable and have to get the oil extracted and refined abroad.
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  187. Tanzania under Nyerere is proof that socialism cannot flourish even when the US left it alone.
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  188. Actually it's pretty pathetic. And Cuba, another communist country under the very same sanctions, is in a much better position.
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  189. And Portugal wasn't part of the PIIGS for nothing.
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  190. Only to re-adopt capitalism once those new approaches to socialism result in the same issues the old approaches encountered.
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  191.  @robinthehood00  Just like there was time before socialism and there will be a time after socialism. <The only question is, do we want to accidentally ourselves into another system that only benefits a few, or do we want to use the accumulated knowledge of centuries of scientific analysis to build a future that is genuinely good for everyone?> As long as humans are around, inequality isn't going anywhere anytime soon. And the latter you so wish for will be a short-lived experience. After all, socialist advocates and practitioners are above the human condition, right?
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  192.  @damiendeecee  Exactly.
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  193.  @tz7609  And oil production actually started falling under Chavez.
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  194.  @jbmuggins8815  It's not the US's fault NK squandered all the Soviet and Chinese aid on nukes and keeping the Kims in power at all costs.
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  195. Who wants to be patriotic to a country that's going nowhere?
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  196.  @curtisjones400  <Plus the sanctions on Venezuela also hurt the economy.> Not nearly as much as Venezuela having no real economy for the sanctions to hurt. Venezuela killed off its private industry. It mismanaged and killed off the oil industry.
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  197. What food? North Korea imports most of its food as it doesn't produce enough to feed the people.
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  198.  @gunterxvoices4101  Maybe when NK stop trying to start a war with them.
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  199. Financed by the rest of Canada. Just ask anyone from Alberta.
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  200. Namely ethnic Malays.
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  201. Or in the case of Cuba and much of Eastern Europe, until sugar daddy decides to cut off the support and kick you to the curb.
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  202. Or the expertise to make use of said technology.
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  203.  @BolshevikCarpetbagger1917  Yes they did. By forcing businesses to sell their merchandise at a loss. Oil was nationalized long before Chavez got elected.
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  204. The average American lives longer and better than the average North Korean.
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  205.  @afgor1088  Yes it did. Venezuela collapsed 3 years before any sanction was imposed. It's not the US's fault that Venezuela destroyed most private industry in the process of relying on the oil industry that went on to mismanage to pay its bills.
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  206.  @afgor1088  The sanctions were enacted in 2017. <this is a crisis caused by americans being unable to handle competition and their irrational hatred of socialism.> There's nothing irrational about their hatred of socialism as its 104+ year track record of destruction earned it.
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  207.  @afgor1088  You have no facts for anyone to deny. Lay off the Chavismo propaganda.
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  208. And the government that tanked their country was socialist.
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  209.  @lbesavant  You mean the North as the North is light years behind the South in development.
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  210. Before that, electing as leader an authoritarian ex-military general.
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  211.  @fede1324ee  And how did that work out for Greece?
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  212. Or Capitalists want only their own, feel scary to see other's developments like those countries? Just like how communists only want their own. And blame capitalism every other time they come up short. <That's why there is China, Vietnam, a lot better today!> Thanks to the adoption of capitalist economic reforms in the late 70's and 80's.
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  213.  @steviechubbs5238  Exactly.
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  214. And there are no jobs because the economy is restricted and entrepreneurship is discouraged.
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  215. Exactly.
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  216. Socialism running its natural course. Next.
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  217. Chavista, please!
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  218. Every socialist's favorite excuse for their own incompetence and corruption.
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  219. And doubly not easy when you're a theocracy.
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  220. Crony capitalism being a product of its socialist past.
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  221.  @XxLIVRAxX  And definitely a lot better off than they are now.
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  222. Sustainable how? It's living off of Chinese subsidies. God forbid if China cuts them off like the old USSR did in the 90's.
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  223.  @NotSure109  Specifically, the people of the old Yugoslavia.
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  224. The Kims cared more about themselves and military than the overall well-being of the country.
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  225. For what? Hawaii is run by Trump-haters.
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  226.  @YaroLord  <- more gun related crimes than any other country in the world but YALL AINT TAKIN MAH GUNS MHHMM *waves confederate flag> Yet Venezuela has the world's highest crime rate while the US barely cracks the top 50. There's probably more than a few Venezuelans right now who wish they still have the right to own a gun as Venezuela happily gave it up to Chavez to their own peril around 2009-10. Most of the gun crimes in the US are committed in the cities largely run by left-leaning Democrats. Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, etc. <excessive military spending while there are areas where the water is undrinkable> Which also goes to providing defence to South Korea, Taiwan, the Gulf countries, Scandinavia etc. which is why they are able to have a welfare state as opposed to fearing getting messed with by China, Iran and Russia.
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  227. But NZ's living costs are far higher than the US's.
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  228. <These are the reasons why Zimbabwe is still struggling now to find its feet, economically speaking, it has nothing to do with 'escaping the chains of colonialism'. > Exactly. And the party Mugabe founded is still in power with his former right-hand man in charge.
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  229. That's not saying much. And NK is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
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  230.  @asscheeks3212  He also also forgot that Soviet Russia was every bit as imperialist as America is. Just ask anyone from Eastern Europe or Afghanistan.
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  231. Pretty much.
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  232. Joe Biden's home state.
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  233.  @-dwaring285-3  No. Chavez and Maduro did this.
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  234. Exactly.
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  235. <total militarising and oil needle ending it wasn`t actually socialist.> Standard socialist fare to keep the military from turning on the regime.
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  236. And once upon a time, Spain was a colonial empire.
    2
  237. And their economies are restricted.
    2
  238. Exactly.
    2
  239. Replace libertarian with communist and your statement would be correct.
    2
  240. No. The simple answer is that people are fleeing countries still dealing with the fallout of post-independence socialism.
    2
  241. But the DRC was never much of a capitalist country even during Mobutu's rule.
    2
  242. In the case of Venezuela, Chavez destroyed all the other baskets to focus on one.
    2
  243. Not really. Most of North Korea's woes are self-inflicted.
    2
  244.  @Commielyn  The poster is right. It's called entrepreneurship. Save your money and start your own business. Otherwise, get back to work!
    2
  245.  @Commielyn  Dude, yes!
    2
  246.  @Commielyn  Until it runs out of other people's money and resources.
    2
  247. Not really. The Soviets exemplified was communism always was. An oxymoron. And was rightfully ridiculed for it. <Jeremy Corbyn for instance is a socialist, which is not the same thing as a communist> Actually yes it is as all communists are socialist. And Jeremy Corbyn would have bankrupted the UK like one.
    2
  248. Before that, it was the USSR.
    2
  249. Because NATO protects them.
    2
  250. Exactly. Even Karl Marx admitted that capitalism was the better system in the end and any society that foregoes profit maximization is setting itself up for obsolescence.
    2
  251. Exactly. If anything this is more about personal greed and society having gotten too liberal for its own good.
    2
  252. Reproduce or get replaced.
    2
  253. Worse than Haiti.
    2
  254. <but please don’t judge governments.> Why should governments be above any scrutiny?
    2
  255. <workers never controlled means of production in USSR, party/gov-t bureaucrats did.> Socialism/communism in practice.
    2
  256. No. The sanctions are a recent thing. The damage was already done by the Kims.
    2
  257. No. Venezuelan mismanagement, corruption and short-sightedness. THE END!
    2
  258.  @maxmagnus777  Except Venezuela collapsed long before any US sanction was imposed. Ditto for Yugoslavia after Tito died and the model came undone.
    2
  259.  @Ataturkinator  What was Tanzania's excuse as it didn't suffer from external sanctions or internal corruption under Nyerere, yet still collapsed anyway?
    2
  260. US sanctions are nothing. Venezuela destroyed its own ability to support itself by killing off the successful and productive seizing their businesses.
    2
  261.  @gabrielcollstefoni7765  The Cuban government gets paid off of all of that.
    2
  262. And neither is a system dependent on infinite money and resources which don't exist even in the richest of countries to ostensibly make things fair and equal for all.
    2
  263. Why should South Korea give them some food?
    2
  264. LOL. Lay off the PCC propaganda, comrade!
    2
  265. And brought the country to ruin.
    2
  266.  @Lewis-Legend  <it's having a heavy humanitarian impact> Not nearly as much as Chavez and Maduro's policies destroying private enterprise and in turn Venezuela's ability to support itself should the oil industry go bust. Never mind the fact that Chavez chased out all the skilled and productive personnel from said industry in favor of his political friends who went on to mismanage it and he blew the oil revenues on buying votes from the poor letting infrastructure deteriorate and crumble. What you're seeing now is their policies coming full circle with shortages, a struggling economy, etc. Food and medicine are not subject to sanctions. Maduro just refuses to accept aid and they're denied entry.
    2
  267.  @baha3alshamari152  AI will not save you.
    2
  268. Sanctions don't cause mismanagement and corruption. Iran is under the very same sanctions yet it isn't suffering like this.
    2
  269. <a critical mass of stupid people in power finished off the union,> Universal suffrage. Or tragedy of the commons.
    2
  270.  @ssach7  With the world's highest crime rate.
    1
  271. No. How about the North Korean government stop starving the North Korean people with that command economy? Yes, because of communism. And interestingly is being kept afloat by US food aid and remittances. LOL @ Laos kicking anything. Laos like North Korea is just living off of Chinese handouts.
    1
  272. US interference is not responsible for the price controls, expropriations and just throwing money at people instead of allowing people to establish businesses, etc. Chavez and Maduro did.
    1
  273. It is a failure. And whatever benefits the people enjoyed were were short-lived once the oil prices dropped and inflation took effect.
    1
  274.  Michael Davis  Communism destroyed Ethiopia.
    1
  275. Nope. It's actually just communism in the truest sense. No state, no money or classes.
    1
  276. Or their families will get punished.
    1
  277.  @nyantharmyint2952  LOL @ non-existent poverty. The poor are banished to the countryside left to starve and die. China is the modern-day Potemkin Village.
    1
  278.  @loona_mew  All on the US/NATO's dime.
    1
  279. You mean by Chinese corporations.
    1
  280. Simple. Its leadership ran the country into the ground worse than its global elite enemies could and has the audacity to blame them for their shortcomings and failures.
    1
  281.  @ki2319  If the cost of living is so cheap, why do they have to work a 2nd job?
    1
  282. Well, Greece lied its way to being a vassal state of the EU.
    1
  283. No we don't. <concentrated only on growth economy.> Better that than the stagnation and regression that socialism is known for.
    1
  284.  @404findnotnamed  LOL
    1
  285. But hardly anyone aside from naive Westerners envy their model.
    1
  286. @Alberto Fuijimori Pretty much.
    1
  287.  @tapilot9256  On the backs of foreign migrants.
    1
  288.  @KanuniSuleyman4857  Like who? Zimbabwe and Myanmar have Chinese puppets in charge. The current ruling ANC of South Africa always had Russian backing.
    1
  289. But the problem is anyone can be poor.
    1
  290. Namely in the public sector and the private sector for PR reasons (keeping activist groups and the courts off of them).
    1
  291. Because it makes up a good portion of its overall GDP.
    1
  292. Human rights is a Western construct.
    1
  293. That's nothing compared to the loss of outside aid that kept its borderline non-existent economy afloat during that whole time due to Cuban government repression.
    1
  294. Responsible for the majority of the city's overall revenues.
    1
  295. And nearly every country that practiced it being even worse off.
    1
  296.  @tovsteh  I was referring to communism making countries worse off.
    1
  297. <It has more to do with pleasing realty investors > Mostly consisting of boomer and middle-aged homeowners.
    1
  298. By Chavez and Maduro.
    1
  299. Namely the government in charge.
    1
  300.  @santostv.  Doesn't Portugal have a left-wing socialist government in charge?
    1
  301. And?
    1
  302. <A better solution is to change your society and your country in a way that people are more interested to stay than to leave the country.> Like South Korea and Japan.
    1
  303. Nope. Socialists doing socialist things.
    1
  304.  @skipy2.0  <The video also talks a lot about how oil was it's only source of income.> Only after Chavez destroyed every other source of income with price controls and property-confiscation.
    1
  305. No. Just the Chinese Communist Party.
    1
  306. Because a doctor's job carries more responsibility and risk than a doorman's? Anyone can be a doorman, but not everyone can be a doctor.
    1
  307. And a Soviet-backed one at that.
    1
  308. Um. The CIA actually supported Somalia and Siad Barre. Tanzania under Nyerere was left alone. Socialism made Ethiopia under Mengistu the ultimate poster boy for African famine among other things gone wrong with post-colonial Africa.
    1
  309. Pretty much.
    1
  310.  @svr5423  It's their husbands, boyfriends and baby-daddies who do.
    1
  311. State capitalism is a by-product of the command economy that socialism advocates.
    1
  312. @@momytik Easy to have low inequality when everyone except the politically well-connected is poor. Turkmenistan is a functional kleptocracy.
    1
  313. No. They just work in hopes to GTFO of Cuba altogether.
    1
  314.  @SergeyMilitaryRankings  Capitalists have Doctors Without Borders.
    1
  315. China is not a white country, yet they're siphoning resources like the West.
    1
  316. And the richest person in the country.
    1
  317. Sure you would. Like the Black Panthers.
    1
  318.  @SergeyMilitaryRankings  Tanzania wasn't sanctioned to oblivion, yet socialism there failed all the same. Yugoslavia under Broz got US support, yet it still disintegrated.
    1
  319. While in the West, men are going to great lengths to be women because they feel inferior in the presence of other men.
    1
  320.  @prophet_master  Only after it collapsed.
    1
  321.  @The-Heart-Will-Testify  Humans are every bit as corrupt. The politicians are just a reflection.
    1
  322. That didn't stop it from prospering during Chavez's final years on Earth.
    1
  323. Literally speaking.
    1
  324. The Soviet gulag was the Nazi concentration camp before the Nazi concentration camp.
    1
  325. And yet most of the black South African population live in shacks.
    1
  326. Yes it is. <Anarchism requires direct worker ownership> Workers can already do that under capitalism by starting their own business.
    1
  327. <The country was never allowed to. > Yes it was. Venezuela had plenty of agency.
    1
  328. Not just that, but also a change in economic model.
    1
  329.  don't read my profile picture  Japan is homogeneous with a strict social hierarchy.
    1
  330. But the quality of what they had to offer was rather mediocre on top of supply being inadequate. There's a reason why the black market existed and interestingly kept the Soviet economy afloat in its final years.
    1
  331.  @grunchidetrap476  Not really. China (namely for that Covid-19 thing) and North Korea are worthy of collapse.
    1
  332.  @sabyasachiporel4675  No they won't. As if those people even bothered to consider their futures while living it up.
    1
  333. Good question. Also: how man Americans risked their lives sailing on rickety boats off the Florida coast to live in Cuba?
    1
  334. Colonialism pales in comparison to the socialism that many African countries adopted after independence.
    1
  335.  @shoebillsankuru  A la Ethiopia circa Mengistu.
    1
  336. Yet the average American have considerably more affordable places to live than the average Canadian.
    1
  337. But it is unethical when "Teaching people to get along and improve their community" is done at gun-point. How did that work out for Cambodia?
    1
  338. <the only thing that can reduce this ineqaulity is the restructuring of government economic and social policy towards redistribution through investment towards Black Economic Empowerment, Employment Equity , Radical Economic Transformation. > They already done that. <In otherwords without fear taking stolen wealth and morally corrupt industry away from white hands and capacitating and placing it in the hands of the local black people.> Only to become another Zimbabwe as the local black people are in no position to maintain the productivity levels the white hands established.
    1
  339.  @vic8695  Very much.
    1
  340. Exactly.
    1
  341. Also Arab socialism.
    1
  342.  @MelfiortheOne  Economic barriers never stopped 3rd-worlders from having kids. This is just 1st-world problems.
    1
  343. Exactly.
    1
  344.  @jacklaurentius6130  Yet interestingly, Portugal is run by the left.
    1
  345. Nope.
    1
  346. LOL. So how did communist Yugoslavia and socialist Somalia manage to get international support?
    1
  347. And an economy that isn't good enough to support it.
    1
  348. They don't actually care about the country as much as they care about staying in power at any cost.
    1
  349. Brainwashed, helpless and dependent.
    1
  350. Like Uganda did under Amin?
    1
  351. @kr tu Apparently, exploitation is wrong when capitalist do it, but perfectly fine when socialists do it.
    1
  352. @kr tu Exactly. Just like imperialism. Wrong when the West did it, but perfectly fine when the USSR did it and China currently does it. .
    1
  353.  @pace5865  Typical tankie response.
    1
  354. Yet somehow they can afford their convenient lifestyles. Consumer and household debt be damned!
    1
  355.  @jasonablah7702  LOL. Actually it's the other way around. Capitalism is the reason why China and Vietnam didn't end up like North Korea and Cambodia.
    1
  356. That's not saying much when Cuba has a grand total of 11 million people to the US's 327 million.
    1
  357. But are you willing to accept restrictions on what and how much you're allowed to have?
    1
  358.  @dr.damian  Well, China cannot expect to be a global power with a shrinking population which was why it scrapped the one-child policy in 2017.
    1
  359. What about the Kazakh natives?
    1
  360.  @rakijaenjoyer5488  I'm talking about the Kazakh natives, not the ethnic Russians who were imported to dilute the demographics and continue to live under Moscow's boot.
    1
  361.  @filyapanzerman335  It figures. They may have made up the majority, but they had no say over what went on.
    1
  362.  @rakijaenjoyer5488  <most people were happy,> Easy for them to be that when they didn't know any better. <but capitalist individualism has rotten the brains of people and turned them into mindless, selfish zombies who only care about themselves.> In other words, capitalist individualism encouraged people to aspire for better than just a government-imposed meager existence and living around those who choose to let themselves waste away in the midst of opportunity.
    1
  363.  @rakijaenjoyer5488  Namely those that worked for the Politburo or got a handout from them.
    1
  364. <A dictator or monarch like in Dubai just lets development happen and prices remain affordable.> But not many people are willing to sacrifice freedom for that.
    1
  365. Exactly.
    1
  366. Yet the results are similar. Case(s) in point: Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Venezuela, Myanmar (Burma), India, etc.
    1
  367.  @tarquiniussuperbus21  Typical socialist response. Not worth my time.
    1
  368. Pretty much.
    1
  369. @jbl And use public services and infrastructure as a cover for what they really want. And that is a command economy.
    1
  370. All at India's expense.
    1
  371. Just ask China.
    1
  372.  @Feffdc  But it's heavily restricted.
    1
  373. But its neighbors, China and Russia do.
    1
  374.  @pirozigzigwam8594  Actually, India's IQ is 82.
    1
  375.  @nataliekhanyola5669  Sanctions and embargoes are not responsible for the Kim's mismanagement and incompetence.
    1
  376. Venezuela is functionally socialist as it barely has any private economy anymore.
    1
  377. As long as you keep your mouth shut and do as you're told.
    1
  378. The dangers of communism are real. And the USSR collapsed despite having the most resources of any country that adopted communism. Never mind the other countries that ended up either adopting capitalist reforms or resigning themselves to being isolated kleptocracies
    1
  379. Ian Smith was right for not caving in to British pressure to decolonize.
    1
  380.  @bane8305  The only embargo that has been effective on Cuba is that of the Cuban government against its own people. And the US embargo is just a reaction to Castro seizing and gutting all the US-built and funded enterprises at the time of La Revolucion.
    1
  381.  @bane8305  <After WW2 Cuba had a better economy than Belgium, Germany, and Norway> Under Batista. Even a documentary about the history of Afro-Cubans acknowledge that, racial inequality notwithstanding. <if there was no Embargos then they would be prospering as a Country!> Actually if there was no command economy, they would be prospering like old times.
    1
  382.  @KodakKid  And you're a deluded communist.
    1
  383. Namely in the most desirable parts of Canada. Toronto and Vancouver.
    1
  384. Not really. The new capital city was designed exactly as intended. So that average Egyptians can't easily topple the regime like they toppled Mubarak in transit-friendly Cairo.
    1
  385. And rightfully so since the landlords invested a lot of money into said existing land. They're not giving it up for free.
    1
  386. But for every China, Japan and South Korea, there's Cambodia, Philippines, Myanmar, Laos, and Mongolia.
    1
  387.  @wrathofgrothendieck  And then what happens when the robots break down?
    1
  388. Also, Norway has a free market. Venezuela does not.
    1
  389.  @earnthis1  Social services =/= socialism. China became the 2nd largest economy in the world due the Deng's capitalist reforms. Most of China's rich people are CCP lackeys and the well-connected by the way.
    1
  390. While North Korea is backed by China.
    1
  391. Are they legally allowed to visit Cuba?
    1
  392. Imagine if they didn't seize all the US-built and funded businesses that brought about the embargo.
    1
  393.  @yukitakaoni007  Pretty rich from a country that was the 2nd to last in the Americas to abolish slavery.
    1
  394. For the former Soviet states, they either collapsed as well (Ethiopia), adopted capitalist reforms (Mongolia) or isolated itself from the world (all the Central Asian Soviet Bloc).
    1
  395. Better than the utopia leftists had prior.
    1
  396.  @Cherrypi393  Including the Chairman himself.
    1
  397.  @johnallen7807  And also Iceland.
    1
  398. As long as it's a a state one.
    1
  399. Or the almighty ideology in the case of Cuba?
    1
  400. With the world offering their brains to America by choice.
    1
  401. Citizenship is patrilineal. You're considered a citizen only if your father is/was.
    1
  402.  @fezoftheworld  <They speak the language, know the culture, contributed to the enormous development of the country, and have no path to citizenship.> Because citizenship is restricted to ethnic locals based on ethnic lineage.
    1
  403. What do you mean they made you? You converted into the Euro by choice. It was your idea to lie your way into it and have Germany pay for your poor financial situation.
    1
  404. At the hands of their own government.
    1
  405.  @findingstupid424  Socialism cares about the homeless by banishing them to the countryside out of sight, out of mind where they can eat feces and die.
    1
  406. Not nearly as much a command economies.
    1
  407. @sg23148 North Korea was propped up by Russia/USSR and China. It's not South Korea's fault that they put that Western aid to good use while North Korea pissed away all the Soviet/Chinese aid and has gone nowhere but downhill since the Korean War. And by the way, North Korea was wealthier than South Korea when the War ended.
    1
  408. But no jobs and a rather meh economy?
    1
  409. The UN needs the US.
    1
  410. How so? Argentina hardly allows foreign competition.
    1
  411.  @yugonostalgia8961  If you're willing to do an about-face on women's rights.
    1
  412.  @marilucorracini550  Follow your own advice.
    1
  413.  @gregrodriguez714  Exactly.
    1
  414.  @truthseeker4280  <This will continue for a while it has been 61 years for Cuba. And yet they have survived for many years .> Thanks to US food aid and remittances. Before that, it was Soviet aid, Canadian tourism and free Venezuelan oil.
    1
  415.  @truthseeker4280  So is Iran. And yet Iran is nowhere nearly as poor.
    1
  416. <Kruschov did something like this in USSR and I think it worked for the most part.> But the Soviet economy ended up suffering in the long run and Khrushchev didn't last too long as he was ousted by his own party.
    1
  417. Along with China.
    1
  418. No. Before the US sanctions, North Korea was already on a decline. The North Korean government is what's been holding North Korea back.
    1
  419.  @muslimcrusader5987  While North Korea was communist dictatorship backed by Soviet and Chinese interests. Yet even with all that help, North Korea found a way to go backwards.
    1
  420. Most of Puerto Rico's tourists are from the mainland US.
    1
  421.  @matthew8153  Actually, Puerto Rico was a prize the US won for beating Spain in the Spanish-American War. It wasn't a matter of Spain not wanting it. It was a matter of Spain having to give it up.
    1
  422.  @magnusorn7313  Meh. Puerto Rico is held back by its corrupt leftist Castro-loving politicians.
    1
  423.  @KrolPawi  <There never truly was a communist democracy> And for good reason. Remember the USSR in the late 80's or Yugoslavia after Tito died?
    1
  424. <As people become more affluent, > They become more narcissistic and complacent.
    1
  425. No. The US sanctions didn't start until 2017 and Venezuela's economy was already on the way out.
    1
  426. <But of course tenants in the know avoid the buildings with no rent controls.> Only because they can't afford them anyway.
    1
  427.  @SamSpade2010  But they are which is why they managed to stay rich and contribute the most to the country's coffers hence the tax breaks. And any country caring about long-term prosperity would be wise to let them keep a solid amount of what they earned. Anyone can have money, but not everyone can manage it or make it last. <And a large proportion of the remainder are basically lottery winners -- celebrities, bitcoin billionaires, literal lottery winners, etc.> Lottery-winners don't stay rich for long as their inability to manage money and cut off the leeches (including family members and friends) from their lives does them in. Celebrities are little more than really well-paid workers in the sports/entertainment industry.
    1
  428.  @SamSpade2010  Like Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Sam Walton, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs?
    1
  429.  @Nigerianreaction  No they weren't. Venezuela's collapse was of Venezuela's own making. Sanctions didn't cause Chavez and Maduro to mismanage the oil industry to ruin, never mind the oil price drop.
    1
  430. <But could someone think about the poor homeowners and their speculative earnings???"> Who happen to make up 68% of the population?
    1
  431. Cut off the Chinese aid.
    1
  432.  @saagisharon8595  With plenty of help from government restrictions.
    1
  433. <people who had grate scientists, skillful poets and art, amazing athletes, top astronauts.> Many of whom risked their lives to defect from the USSR as soon as they were able to travel abroad.
    1
  434. <countries where 'blacks in the inner city' have never been a concern of anyone because they simply don't exist.> Because none of those countries ever had a sizeable number of blacks to begin with and for the most part still don't compared to the US.
    1
  435. LOL. No. North Korea is actually poorer than all but 7 African countries.
    1
  436. Left-wing politics.
    1
  437.  @rejvaik00  And both were ran into the ground by socialists and Marxists.
    1
  438. @michael boultinghouse No they don't. They fear the Kim dynasty and they're forced to love it under threat of either themselves or their loved ones disappeared.
    1
  439. @michael boultinghouse I don't watch CNN.
    1
  440.  @weezersthebluealbum9479  Hardly. He's right.
    1
  441. Agreed.
    1
  442. Which might be a good thing as if it was state-owned, the resources would have been used as a personal piggy banks for ANC elites.
    1
  443. Because it's of little consequence. Most of North Korea's economic problems are due to the North Korean government itself and its whole communist/central planning model. Wrong! Most people who die of starvation is entirely due to the North Korean government's policy of forced collectivization of farmland proven inefficient in producing enough to feed the country, hence the shortages. And it certainly doesn't help that most of whatever it does produce goes to the government.
    1
  444. What capitalism? There was nothing free-market about Nauru.
    1
  445. Not really as the whites that stayed around are the only reason South Africa hasn't gone the way of Zimbabwe yet.
    1
  446.  @grunchidetrap476  What private property? Everything is state-owned. The only huge amount of sanctions going on is that of the North Korean government against its own people.
    1
  447. Coupled with a helpless and dependent populace who have been discouraged from doing anything for themselves thanks to the benevolent social programs of said oppressive government dictatorship.
    1
  448.  @kromyzal238  Plus, he became a millionaire and property-owner from the very same capitalist system he rails against.
    1
  449.  A Fels  Sanders is a left-winger and a champagne socialist.
    1
  450.  A Fels  No. He's left-wing. What kind of right-winger praises Hugo Chavez or Daniel Ortega?
    1
  451.  @kromyzal238  Exactly.
    1
  452. Exactly.
    1
  453.  @reinhardtscheepers6317  Ditto for Vietnam.
    1
  454.  @akm47-bc  Like Greece? All the social welfare, but no tax base or thriving industries to support it.
    1
  455. Pretty much.
    1
  456.  @007kingifrit  That's their fault for not having their stuff together internally.
    1
  457. Yes they did. Just the government ones, though.
    1
  458. Which in turn destroyed whatever capacity it had to support itself having to rely on imports.
    1
  459. The latter and all it's just going to do is further line the pockets of the ruling party.
    1
  460. Especially Argentinians who are not used to living within their means.
    1
  461. But how will cities generate revenue since property taxes make up a lion's share?
    1
  462. Central America doesn't have an overpopulation problem.
    1
  463. Not really.
    1
  464. And let Soviet Imperialism have its way?
    1
  465. <I wish there was an actual example of a planned economy that was aimed with the actual goal of bettering the lives of its citizens (As far as I am aware that has not happened).> Bettering or really just controlling the lives of citizens with bribes of free stuff as in the case of most oil-rich Arab countries?
    1
  466.  @johnnewton3592  You're not going to find one as planned economies are not known for economic or personal freedom allowing people to improve their financial situation with limited government help. The common problem with many poor countries is the lack of economic freedom due to too much government.
    1
  467.  @Sedna063  Thanks to mass immigration.
    1
  468. False equivalence as those people are still in the US. Just in a different region.
    1
  469.  @JasperShoes  That happened after the collapse.
    1
  470.  @srikanthsv79  Or South Korea? Or Singapore which used to be a British colony?
    1
  471.  @srikanthsv79  Colonialism didn't stop Singapore from developing into a wealthy nation.
    1
  472.  @justlaz1444  Was it because they cut off the aid?
    1
  473. Except in Venezuela's case, the oil industry was already nationalized long before Chavez came to power. The difference is it was much better run until Chavez fired all the skilled workforce in favor of political loyalists and used the revenues to buy votes from the poor helping his re-election chances and also imports after decimating the private sector and local production.
    1
  474.  @nauticalnovice9244  Because famines in socialism are caused by government policy, not drought.
    1
  475.  @edensharma1629  No, but the military does. Like every other dictatorship, Can't afford to have the military turn on the government.
    1
  476. India until the 1990's.
    1
  477. <Economic Hitmen> Namely Chavez and Maduro.
    1
  478. No. And not even close. Much of Africa post-independence adopted socialism and the Russian/Soviet way of doing things.
    1
  479. And the people are ignorant.
    1
  480. But a Western doctor doesn't have to work a side-job to make ends meet.
    1
  481. But Europe is currently suffering a housing crisis due to mass immigration while having considerably less land to build any new housing on.
    1
  482. <If North Korea had 70 years of protection and economic aid> It did, courtesy of the USSR and China. And the Kims squandered it.
    1
  483. With the USSR and China leading the way.
    1
  484. I'm surprised no communist ever attempted to go after the Bhutanese monarchy.
    1
  485. That's why you start your own business.
    1
  486. LOL. No. And not even close.
    1
  487.  @sleepyjoe4529  LOL. China has state Atheism.
    1
  488. Yes it is flawed. And not all socialist/communist countries that failed were meddled with by the US. And in the cases of Somalia, Yugoslavia and Guyana, they even managed to get US support.
    1
  489. <If somehow stability would come to DRC and a non capitalist government would take power it would just mean America's armies would be their doorstep> Like the other Congo which still enjoys Western (French) support despite being every bit as corrupt and unstable?
    1
  490. LOL. No. There are plenty of small countries that are broke and dysfunctional.
    1
  491. Easy to have a high GDP with a population of 87.9 million.
    1
  492.  @RunehearthCL  Not Costa Rica. Or most Caribbean countries.
    1
  493. Or populists.
    1
  494. But ultimately, its prosperity was short-lived.
    1
  495. No they don't. And the US outranks them in overall healthcare.
    1
  496. Wages are not the problem. The problem is people prefer convenience and the easy life at the expense of family and future viability of the nation.
    1
  497. Not really. Somalia = true communism in practice. No state, no cash or classes.
    1
  498. But Somalia was yet another communist disaster.
    1
  499. Northern Virginia = DC suburbs.
    1
  500. Something only an ex-pat would say.
    1
  501. Hot weather has a way of making people lazy.
    1
  502. No. That would be one of Spain's former colonies, Cuba.
    1
  503. But removing the sanctions is just enabling the regime all too happy to sacrifice the people just to stay in power.
    1
  504.  @1990-w1l  The USSR fell as fast as it rose.
    1
  505.  @alexanderballa6152  And they actually supported socialist/communist regimes before. Somalia and Yugoslavia.
    1
  506. All those countries are far ahead of North Korea.
    1
  507. Spain is run by neo-Marxists.
    1
  508. <ON TOP of the fact that North Korea doesn’t have a single good economic mind in power.> That's not South Korea's problem. And it's not like communists were ever known for fiscal competence.
    1
  509. They were indeed minor things in the grand scheme as most of Venezuela's miseries were of its own making.
    1
  510.  @mysticfn2769  And then it came apart in the 80's and 90's.
    1
  511.  @vladavuckic5262  LOL. No. They either go to Canada or Mexico.
    1
  512.  @MrPolandball  Somalia, yet another country destroyed by socialism courtesy of Siad Barre.
    1
  513. How about no? This is where society f---ed up. Ceding family care to the government and private institutions out of hedonism.
    1
  514. In Western-run companies, they would have got fired/laid-off.
    1
  515. South Africa is barely capitalist anymore thanks to the whites keeping the economy afloat.
    1
  516. Except the government. And people are poor.
    1
  517.  @schubi128  Except there is barely any running tap water, frequent blackouts and so-so quality food. And a place to live unfit for even an animal.
    1
  518. Plenty of US support.
    1
  519.  @marcelohendrix6139  Responsible for most of the wealth produced in SA.
    1
  520. Maybe the effects were minimal at best? The sanctions are not responsible for NK's underdeveloped economy and regression even with all the Soviet and Chinese aid.
    1
  521. Well, these are the results that socialism/communism have consistently produced. And Greece is a good example of an otherwise capitalist country getting ran into the ground by (democratic) socialism courtesy of PASOK.
    1
  522. You have only Canada's lax immigration laws to thank for that.
    1
  523. Including Atheism.
    1
  524. Yet the US recovered and is still standing. The USSR is no more.
    1
  525.  @brianwarren2042  <They're sheltered, fed, clothed, medically-cared for, have greater access to education, and greater political power.> What political power? Yet no jobs or anything resembling a thriving economy to put all that to good use. And much rather risk their lives to defect to and live in countries with barely any of those with way more freedom.
    1
  526. Like what Cambodia had with Pol Pot?
    1
  527. Zoning restrictions.
    1
  528. One problem, though. Communists are every bit as prone to corruption and evil and their track record leaves a lot to be desired.
    1
  529. LOL. Bhutan has more in common with eSwatini than Switzerland.
    1
  530. Exactly.
    1
  531. And how can you blame the US embargo and not the Cuba government seizure of US-owned and funded businesses?
    1
  532.  @shamrock141  But South Africa is currently run by a socialist government, you know?
    1
  533. It's due to too much government interference.
    1
  534. <but portugal, spain and italy rich?> Due to EU membership.
    1
  535. The Nordics enjoy being under the protection of NATO.
    1
  536. So does socialism along with foreign aid as socialism has a habit of mismanaging what it has.
    1
  537. It's run by ethnic Chinese people who make up 76% of the population.
    1
  538.  @Ruckus45  Exactly.
    1
  539. They voted for the crooks responsible for bankrupting their country. Apparently, free stuff and easy living was more important to them than the status of the national treasury.
    1
  540.  @totoro5421  <because capitalisms don't give a f about wellbeing.> And neither does socialism especially when it runs out of other people's money to tax to give an F about well-being. <Stop peddling your liberal ideology BS.> Put down the Marxist Kool-Aid.
    1
  541. Average TeleSur propaganda comment.
    1
  542.  @123456789bode  Plus, Greece with help from Goldman Sachs lied about their finances to get in the Eurozone.
    1
  543. But lawlessness is what anarchy lends itself to.
    1
  544.  @filyapanzerman335  USA = exporting democracy. USSR = exporting revolution.
    1
  545. Simple. Communism is an oxymoron.
    1
  546. No. The world sabotaging itself.
    1
  547. LOL. <Capitalist nations already do not take care of the worker, and they steal their wages, but with socialism, that simply would not happen> Really? So why do workers in socialism steal from their state-run/worker co-op and sell on the black market if not keep for themselves to supplement their meager wages?
    1
  548.  @britishcodfish1472  Certainly not by the government-appointed administrators who run the place.
    1
  549. Because females are less productive, more likely to miss work, etc.
    1
  550.  @Fredreegz  Those IMF stipulations are a result of the failed (often socialist) economic policies that bankrupted the country causing it to run to the IMF in the first place. Case in point: Jamaica under Michael Manley. And he practiced the "democratic socialism" that many leftists advocate.
    1
  551. Pretty much. Don't forget US remittances and renting out its medical labor force to other countries.
    1
  552.  @dscoduc  Exactly.
    1
  553. Doesn't NZ have the most homelessness per capita in the world?
    1
  554. For what?
    1
  555. The same racists who could barely be bothered to have kids themselves.
    1
  556.  @magnusorn7313  Not Tanzania or Somalia or any Eastern European country.
    1
  557.  @ufhb6649  Socialism = big government. And what Hitler did with Germany was par for the course.
    1
  558.  @jhonklan3794  Same with Eastern Europe.
    1
  559.  @Ms.-Lily  Maybe if you enjoy living in the projects of (insert US city).
    1
  560. No it isn't.
    1
  561. That same way of living paid for by German taxpayers? LOL
    1
  562. In the UAE and Qatar's cases, foreign migrant workers are not counted in their economic statistics.
    1
  563. Being better than some bottom-tier countries isn't saying anything. North Korea isn't even better than Cambodia, another socialist/communist failure.
    1
  564. Canada is not that dependent on oil. Just the province of Alberta is.
    1
  565.  @fizzyboy08  Justin Trudeau.
    1
  566. LOL. Chavez set Venezuela up for failure.
    1
  567. That's because Kim is just going to use the money to further enrich himself, his regime and the military. The common people can eat tree bark and feces for all he cares.
    1
  568. Mugabe was a product of Britain's decolonization policies as Rhodesia got sanctioned into ceding white minority rule to black majority rule.
    1
  569. Yes it is.
    1
  570. Without the EU, individual countries just simply don't stand a chance against America or China politically and economically.
    1
  571.  @chudchadanstud  Especially after losing the Afghanistan War and Chernobyl.
    1
  572. And let their voters deal with the consequences of their voting choices.
    1
  573. And used to have the world's highest household debt until Canada took over that spot.
    1
  574. The American politicians are just reflection of the Americans who elected them. Corrupt, ignorant and dumb.
    1
  575. Mexico. It collects $25 billion a year from remittances.
    1
  576.  @Theorychad99  <Yugoslavia did quite well,> With outside money, that is. Until it was cut off and Tito died. <Cuba performs super highly on literacy on healthcare as well as many developed countries.> Yet many Cubans much rather risk their lives to live elsewhere. . <It was not u til Kruschev’s policies > Khrushchev's policies gave the USSR its most prosperous years. <nd US bankrupting the solviets in the cold war arms race u til they went downhill.> By exposing the USSR's economic limitations. <Socialism CAN work > No it can't. And not without capitalism and wholesale suppression of individual freedom (thought, speech, movement, agency, association/assembly, etc.) to prop it up.
    1
  577. Yet it didn't survive the loss of Russian and Venezuelan aid.
    1
  578. And interestingly, the Philippines for all the poverty its known for is wealthier than Vietnam.
    1
  579. Because those big companies are not situated in India. And it seems that Indians can only thrive outside of India.
    1
  580. Name one country that adopted socialism by free will as opposed to having it imposed through violent revolution.
    1
  581.  @spyrop.8428  Czechoslovakia was a Soviet client state.
    1
  582. Exactly.
    1
  583.  @magnusorn7313  Especially their own government.
    1
  584.  @JoaoSantos-lj3jp  The US didn't owe him a thing.
    1
  585. <What we never tried is giving everything to...well...everyone? Such as the case of economic systems based on communal, decentralized ownership,> That is just not sustainable as many will squander what was given to them becoming a burden and threat to those who wisely saved and grew their resources.
    1
  586.  @4.mnj1  Like post-Barre Somalia?
    1
  587. 1) That's because Chavez and Maduro went on a major purging spree against the private sector killing off whatever backup plan they might have had should the oil industry collapse.
    1
  588. LOL. Easy to do if you are financially set and you're not dependent on being a doctor to make ends meet. Or maybe because it's their only legal way of getting out of from under the government's jackboot in hopes to defect at the cost of their families getting punished.
    1
  589.  @baha3alshamari152  No. Just CCP bootlicks.
    1
  590. US sanctions is not what's stopping North Korea from prospering. It's the leadership and its model.
    1
  591. But Latin America is politically unstable.
    1
  592. That's a non-issue as children don't work or pay taxes. But their parents do.
    1
  593.  @mysticfn2769  But it didn't last as soon as the 80's rolled in.
    1
  594.  @magnusorn7313  Like Albania under Hoxha was?
    1
  595. Namely because of what it entails. Low property values, decay, blight, crime, etc.
    1
  596. For what?
    1
  597.  @yaelthesnail  Protectionism only benefits local governments and local industry elites. Not the average person.
    1
  598.  @_tablearmy_  Yet the results are the same. Tyranny, poverty, genocide, economic stagnation and ruin, dependency, etc.
    1
  599. Namely 3rd worlders.
    1
  600. LOL. <They were actualy much much more efficient than other much bigger capitalist nations.> Not really as whatever prosperity they enjoyed didn't last. <The fact the soviets valued human needs before profit doesnt mean they were economicaly ineficient. > Yes they were which was why they were no longer able to meet those human needs once they fell apart.
    1
  601. The people are too fickle and unreliable to be served.
    1
  602. And a general public who much rather sacrifice the country's long-term viability for short-term comfort.
    1
  603. To do away with global blight and decay.
    1
  604. But that corporation was state-owned and run.
    1
  605. Judging by the result they produced, the differences are negligible.
    1
  606. No. It's true communism as communists advocate.
    1
  607. Oil is needed just to build and put that so-called green technology to efficient use.
    1
  608. Because all of its poor people live in France and Germany.
    1
  609. Especially Germany. Greece should have never been allowed in the EU.
    1
  610.  @gothenmosph5151  Because Lenin himself was greedy and power-hungry. And Marx whom Marxism is named after was the OG champagne socialist who came from an upper-class background.
    1
  611. It's not sanctions by America, but the loss of Soviet aid and Kim's economic repression on his own citizens.
    1
  612. That's the Gulf region in general.
    1
  613. Pretty much.
    1
  614.  @jaykay5142  Wealthier societies don't have poverty rates above 25%.
    1
  615.  @Stroggoii  Exactly.
    1
  616. Yet much rather risk their lives and flee for that majority of Latin America.
    1
  617. And labor-outsourcing.
    1
  618. Because they also produce most of the country's wealth.
    1
  619. <Canada is just becoming dependent on foreign labor.> Like the UAE and Qatar.
    1
  620. LOL. Like it fixed the USSR, Cuba, Cambodia, North Korea, Romania, etc?
    1
  621. Rich. In the US, you have the opportunity to improve your situation. It's not the US's or capitalism's fault some just simply can't hack it or get complacent.
    1
  622. But men are far more likely to end up homeless.
    1
  623. Maybe, but most people will just squander the resources and live a "desperate" life.
    1
  624. Doctors don't get paid well as the Cuban government takes 90% of their earnings.
    1
  625.  @communistpropagandist4608  Yes they can as they don't have to work a side-job to make ends meet and their salaries are not completely controlled by the government.
    1
  626.  @communistpropagandist4608  You said US doctors, not US college students. Stick to the topic at hand, tankie!
    1
  627. Just ask Greece.
    1
  628. Starting with you.
    1
  629. By any means necessary.
    1
  630.  @accordionthief  So you're admitting that higher education should only be for the privileged?
    1
  631. LOL. Sure you would!
    1
  632. The same land whites stolen from black Zimbabweans?
    1
  633. With men being targeted once again just like the old bachelor tax.
    1
  634.  @luanrg  How so? Under Batista, Cuba was among the top 5 wealthiest countries in the Americas. <Cuba has 8.4 doctors per 1,000 people, whereas the US has 2.6, according to the world bank.> So? <Oh, and healthcare there is free.> Yet it's under staffed, under-funded, under-supplied and under-equipped.
    1
  635. Because the last thing it needs is a pro-US capitalist country right at its doorstep.
    1
  636. Exactly.
    1
  637. And also have a robust private sector that Venezuela decimated in the early 2010's.
    1
  638.  @Sixrabbbit  But they do have to work a side-job as their wages are meager and the local currency isn't worth much.
    1
  639.  @huriking7234  And how exactly was Lenin equal to a peasant he stole property from and had executed if dared resist?
    1
  640.  @ClassicCase  LOL. True!
    1
  641. Yet pay more taxes than most of the rest of humanity have earned in the past year.
    1
  642. America already did that during colonial times. Only property-owning, married White men were allowed to vote.
    1
  643. Meh. Ethiopia was a Soviet proxy.
    1
  644. Exactly.
    1
  645.  @magnusorn7313  What's so democratic about one-party rule?
    1
  646.  @magnusorn7313  In other words, people are not allowed to think for themselves and have a differing (political) opinion. Hence, the crackdown on dissidence.
    1
  647.  @magnusorn7313  By wholesale suppression of independent thought, speech and action.
    1
  648. Exactly.
    1
  649. But Venezuela is just like every other Latin America country. Corruption, instability and stagnation rule the roost.
    1
  650. <follow IMF guidelines,> Only after bankrupting the country with socialist policies.
    1
  651. But they go hand in hand like socialism/communism and central planning.
    1
  652. LOL. Cuba did that to some rather flattering results with the government officials being the richest people in the country while ordinary citizens make little more $40 a month.
    1
  653. It worked for Chile.
    1
  654. Because citizens are killed if they try to leave.
    1
  655. Or toilet paper.
    1
  656. Pretty much.
    1
  657. In Cuba's case, namely the Castro regime.
    1
  658.  @jkesgoogleaccount4686  Including the human nature of socialism's advocates and practitioners.
    1
  659.  @morgancody6752  Tanzania. Madagascar. Mongolia. Romania, Bulgaria. Hungary. Albania. Benin. Guinea.
    1
  660.  @croesuslydias6488  Exactly. And to top it off, some of those countries live in fear of Russia.
    1
  661.  @aryalamge3778  That's because the wealth tax did nothing but chase out the best and brightest while not collecting the revenue they thought it would generate.
    1
  662. Pretty much.
    1
  663. Since when was did retail service jobs pay livable wages?
    1
  664. Like Eastern Europe?
    1
  665. Basically, Bhutan is yet another one of the WEF's dream countries.
    1
  666. LOL. <they associate anarchy with chaos.> Well, because that's what anarchy have consistently produced.
    1
  667. That's how Chavez killed the private sector and local production.
    1
  668. LOL.
    1
  669. Much of the 3rd world adopted socialism as soon as they got their independence and are now dealing with the fallout.
    1
  670. Neither is Monaco.
    1
  671.  @dregrant6828  Exactly.
    1
  672.  @grayishcolors  Socialism = command economy.
    1
  673. Yes. But there's one problem. Chavez crippled local business with price control.
    1
  674. And guess which one the average Cuban has access to.
    1
  675. Zoning codes are under the authority of the city government.
    1
  676. And what happens when the robots break down?
    1
  677.  @ikp4success  Robots have self-awareness?
    1
  678.  @Atilla_the_Fun  You mean maintenance workers.
    1
  679.  @alexanderfeustel3500  Namely China.
    1
  680. The Bahamas, Botswana and Barbados. But general, you're right.
    1
  681.  @JoaoSantos-ur1gg  37th ranked is nowhere near one of the worst in the world. It's only the worst in comparison to Canada and Western Europe.
    1
  682.  @steveburke7675  As a consequence of the government making long-term rentals no longer viable to maintain.
    1
  683. It's dependent on its neighbors for defense.
    1
  684. Idea bad, practice worse.
    1
  685. In overall GDP, it is.
    1
  686.  @bane8305  Not in the case of Tanzania, Ethiopia or any Eastern European country.
    1
  687.  @bane8305  Interestingly, US interference turned out to the best thing to happen to Chile, South Korea and you forgot to mention Ghana in the long run as those countries ended up prospering.
    1
  688. Which is the reason why they cooked the books and lied their way into the Euro ditching the Drachma. To get German taxpayers to pay for it.
    1
  689. Somalia falling out with the USSR and losing the Ogaden War to fellow communist and Soviet puppet Ethiopia started its downward spiral to collapse and civil war.
    1
  690.  @loona_mew  And you're just a virtue-signaling trust-fund baby or welfare recipient who barely did an honest day's work in your life. WTH would you know about a worker class?
    1
  691. Especially with Democrats in charge.
    1
  692. Aside from maintaining regime loyalty so that the military doesn't turn on Kim and try to overthrow him.
    1
  693.  @mariusvanc  Say what you will, but Bill 101, 21, and 96 are blessings in disguise for Quebec.
    1
  694. Forcing newcomers to learn and speak the language of the land which is French discouraging Anglos and those seeking to live in ethnic enclaves from moving in.
    1
  695. That is just not sustainable. And the last thing the US needs to be is like the formerly and actively socialist countries most immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers come from.
    1
  696. There is no such thing as equality as even the most egalitarian societies have rich and poor.
    1
  697. After socialism and autocracy destroyed them.
    1
  698. Just like communism.
    1
  699. Exactly.
    1
  700. Like Monaco, many of the locals live outside the country.
    1
  701. What West? South Africa is being plundered by the ANC.
    1
  702.  @Hypnopotimus27  Socialism destroyed Africa far more than colonialism did.
    1
  703. <It succeeds best in areas where free markets just do not work well - like health, education and defence.> Virtually all free-market countries have all of those. Public infrastructure and services =/= socialism. Try a command economy.
    1
  704. And Argentina was once a refuge for Nazis.
    1
  705. Not quite in Cuba's case. It's the central planning model.
    1
  706. And Puerto Rico.
    1
  707. And real estate is what's keeping Canada's economy afloat.
    1
  708. No. They are starving and in duress because of Kim Jong-Un and his central planning communist model that has proven itself to be inefficient and inadequate.
    1
  709.  @GhPadua  Singapore as well as South Korea when it finally got off the ground under a dictatorship.
    1
  710. That requires accountability and a strong legal system administered by people with integrity. The problem with the DRC is that it has neither as it has corrupt leadership and an equally corrupt populace.
    1
  711.  @Septimus_ii  And it's nothing without India financing it.
    1
  712. Functionally speaking.
    1
  713. OH! That provincial teachers' pension fund?
    1
  714. But it isn't. Plus people in China are not legally allowed to move within the country without documentation.
    1
  715.  @iambicpentakill971  But those people exist because of the able.
    1
  716. <hey're just more willing to keep working at an abusive and low-paying employer,> But thanks to entrepreneurship among other things capitalism allows, workers can pursue other sources of income which makes them less beholden to their low-paying employer. Not to mention improve their skills to pursue higher-paying positions.
    1
  717.  @person-yu8cu  <That's why Cuba has 8 doctors per 1,000 people, while America only has 2 per 1,000!> Easy to achieve that when Cuba's population is on par with the state of Illinois's.
    1
  718.  @person-yu8cu  <It is really a hyper-competitive economy where workers are alienated from their product. A few are able to rise above other workers, but most have very little bargaining power, despite producing the majority of the economic value> Because if it wasn't for the employer, most of them wouldn't have a job at all. And what exactly do you mean by "their" product? The idea of the product belongs to the employer and designer. The workers were just instructed on how it was to be made. <And even the ones that get promotions, they still don't own the means of production and are likewise alienated.> There's nothing stopping them from taking on the financial and legal risks of owning the means of production except fear preferring the security of working for someone else.
    1
  719.  @neeneko  Um. No. You know that many 3rd world countries had or still have socialism as their main model since independence, right?
    1
  720. Pretty much.
    1
  721. It solves nothing as students, refugees and migrants are exempt. Foreign investors can use that group to own property.
    1
  722. Because the socialists in charge are amateurs.
    1
  723. And the economy is volatile.
    1
  724. How can they when they're in the same boat as that half of the poorer and desperate population?
    1
  725. Not really.
    1
  726. Don't you just love hypergamy?
    1
  727. They should have never been allowed to join the Euro.
    1
  728. Exactly.
    1
  729.  @sbrocoli6950  Case in point: Ethiopia.
    1
  730.  @Drunken_Master  But what good is a free education if there are no jobs to put said free education to good use in? Hence the saying, you get what you paid for.
    1
  731.  @joplin8433  Thanks to the suburbs surrounding Detroit.
    1
  732. Would that be due to mass immigration rearing its ugly head?
    1
  733.  @NeverGoingToGiveYouUp000  Chavez died a hero as Venezuela was raking in oil money. It collapsed months after Maduro took over.
    1
  734. They would need a capitalist-minded leader for that. Not another Marxist or Mobutu who was a Mao-fanboy while claiming anti-communist.
    1
  735. Venezuela killed them off with its wholesale nationalization of private enterprise.
    1
  736.  @dirtyfighters7751  Capitalism never had a problem thriving in a socialist regime in the form of the black market.
    1
  737. That's because they are Marxist.
    1
  738. Socialism is even more evil. And besides, didn't socialism bankrupt your country in the 1970's?
    1
  739.  @ulfljung4630  Whatever, commie!
    1
  740. Yet interestingly, socialism was the reason why the Caribbean ended up running to the IMF. Case in point: Jamaica under Michael Manley.
    1
  741. <Did the same with Zimbabwe after Mugabe kicked out the colonialists> And replaced them with political friends who allowed the farmland to go to waste.
    1
  742. Because those people will blow that money and then cry about being broke and hungry the next day.
    1
  743.  @SergeyMilitaryRankings  No. That's what happens when communism rules the roost. Mismanagement and repression.
    1
  744.  @SergeyMilitaryRankings  Speaking of yourself.
    1
  745. Because they don't make enough to afford the lifestyle they want to establish families in?
    1
  746. <Hire a bleeding heart liberal to run your company. U won't have a company very long.> Or country as in the case of Jamaica under Michael Manley.
    1
  747. But Sweden has an immigration problem.
    1
  748.  @sleepyjoe4529  LOL.
    1
  749. Part of your prosperity is based on remittances from Indians who live abroad as India is the world's #1 remittance recipient.
    1
  750. Nope.
    1
  751. You mean Democrats.
    1
  752. There are barely any left.
    1
  753. And let's just ignore that for all the anti-communist rhetoric and Western support, Mobutu idolized and ran the DRC (Zaire) like a communist, and ran out of other people's money like a communist.
    1
  754. Except the black market.
    1
  755. Not really. Whatever successes socialist economics achieved have always been short-lived.
    1
  756. Stop being envious.
    1
  757. And it really doesn't help that the people in charge care more about feeding the military and staying in power letting citizens suffer than economic development.
    1
  758.  @quisqueyanguy120  And to top it off, Cuba gets food aid from the very same US that has an embargo on it.
    1
  759.  @hydromic2518  LOL.
    1
  760.  @romanbrandle319  Most of which are interestingly just fresh off of socialism and only recently adopted capitalism to get their economies off the ground.
    1
  761.  @VinyZikss  Natural resources don't mean anything if you don't have the human capital (brains, acumen, work ethic, etc.) to make good use of them. Part of Brazil's problem is its over-reliance on government for prosperity.
    1
  762.  @Sam-gy3ok  That valued nepotism, centralized authority and a caste system.
    1
  763.  @romanbrandle319  And you do?
    1
  764. What local economy? Venezuela decimated that in 2010 on its way to being an oil-dependent nation.
    1
  765. While small nations have a unique hobby of blaming the Western world for their own incompetence and poor political and economic choices with North Korea being one example.
    1
  766. Exactly.
    1
  767. But internal factors laid the foundation. All countries collapse from within.
    1
  768.  eres  Not they don't and they all produced similar dismal results. And it's not like Stalin's predecessor was any better.
    1
  769.  Jonathan Williams  Exactly. It's not the West's fault that many African countries after independence chose socialism not just to flip them the bird.
    1
  770. And it's state-imposed slavery?
    1
  771. 68% of Canadians are property-owners.
    1
  772.  @flimsyfinance2836  <Far better to tax heavily> That doesn't work either.
    1
  773. LOL. Hardly. African workers are barred from the infrastructure projects China does in favor of Chinese workers and architects.
    1
  774.  @kasperknutsen8283  Like Sri Lanka. China is colonizing countries via buyouts.
    1
  775. As a matter of government policy.
    1
  776.  @nawjoghschool2714  <I personally know Serbian families whose grand parents praise Yugoslavia.> LOL. That's because Serbia benefited from the wealth stolen from Croatia and Slovenia, two to the most wealthiest and productive regions in the country.
    1
  777. Venezuela was already the richest country in South America in spite of the US in the 50's and 60's.
    1
  778.  @Adil_Turysbek_TVRC  Yeah! Until that AI breaks down. And then what?
    1
  779.  @xx_donkeyfucker_xx7910  There was nothing stopping Cuba from replacing them with its own corprations.
    1
  780. Um No. Greece was ran by leftists at the time of the crisis and also at the time it lied its way into the Euro Zone. There was nothing right-wing about the PASOK.
    1
  781. Or Iran. Or France. Or Pakistan. Or even South Africa before they voluntarily scrapped it.
    1
  782. Yeah! Best education system, yet no job market to put it to use in.
    1
  783. First remove the command economy.
    1
  784.  @matheusvillela9150  Yet they had no problem obeying imperialist demands from the USSR. LOL
    1
  785. <A smart entrepreneur will never be successful in a corrupt poor country. > Unless he has ties with the people in charge.
    1
  786. Which is the result of the cruel and counter-productive effects of Castro seizing all the US-funded and built businesses, never mind destroying the local economy using similar tactics and being host to Soviet nukes.
    1
  787.  @ma.s2386  BS! NK has been strangled by the Kims who could barely be bothered to develop an actual economy of its own worthy of the Juche name. And even with all the Soviet and Chinese subsidies was and still is a basket case.
    1
  788. Doormen, taxi-drivers, jiniteras, etc. being richer than doctors. and engineers.
    1
  789. But Cuba's sanctions on its own people are even more unjust in the form of absolute government control.
    1
  790. LOL.
    1
  791. Life expectancy-wise, Bhutan is on par with Jamaica.
    1
  792. Actually, the US's healthcare outranks Cuba's overall. Crime-free life? So does North Korea. Easy to achieve such un a totalitarian regime. Try Switzerland or Japan.
    1
  793. North Korea hardly does any manufacturing. China is what keeping it afloat.
    1
  794.  @jumboridesagain7336  No. That's North Korea.
    1
  795. <Chavez brought the poverty rate WAY down,> By throwing money at it destroying local business in the process.
    1
  796. Respect what? North Korea's economy is pathetic even with all the Chinese aid it gets.
    1
  797. And so are the people who elected them.
    1
  798.  @henrylootens6578  North Korea began as a Soviet outpost.
    1
  799. Yet has no problem living off of Indian largesse.
    1
  800.  @loneIyboy15  Canada, the US, Germany, the UK, France, Sweden.
    1
  801.  @blueciffer1653  Not in the case of Tanzania, Mongolia or Albania.
    1
  802.  @JK-gu3tl  The only industry in DC is government.
    1
  803.  @fanaticcoder3320  It's not surprising that in the 3rd world, socialism and autocracy thrive.
    1
  804.  @IMP_ROM  It is.
    1
  805. Which socialism allows and facilitates.
    1
  806. The only country where true communism was achieved. No state, no money and no classes.
    1
  807. Canada is anything but decent and is just living off of US largesse.
    1
  808. No. That's Monaco.
    1
  809. But Venezuela hardly had much of an economy to blockade.
    1
  810.  @clintonkotzee7271  The "greater good" = the ruling class and the well-connected.
    1
  811. LOL. Teaching people act selflessly while being selfish itself. Don't you just love champagne socialism?
    1
  812. What about banning abortion and divorce?
    1
  813. <good at saving the world> By condemning millions to starvation, destitution and death. For a ideal that claims to have compassion and empathy for humanity, what lies behind it is utter contempt and vanity.
    1
  814. Lower body counts and free but oft-rigged elections in socialism. Besides those, nothing really.
    1
  815. Maybe because the sanctions had little impact therefore irrelevant compared to Chavez and Maduro's seizing of private enterprise, the oil prices hitting rock-bottom, price controls, blowing the state treasury on free stuff for the poor, etc.
    1
  816. No more than Equatorial Guinea is despite having oil.
    1
  817. No we don't. The real problem is the government policies that allowed it to be a thing.
    1
  818. To keep the West via South Korea at bay.
    1
  819. Namely after the Red Terror and Lenin killed off the "kulaks" for daring not to hand over their hard-earned land and wealth.
    1
  820. Western society set itself up for failure due to that.
    1
  821. LOL
    1
  822.  @pera1295  Says you. The Cuban government is what's holding Cuba back, not the sanctions.
    1
  823.  @pera1295  <your reading comprehension is what's holding you back> Not really. <there are no socialist countries without sanctions to compare.> That's because they either adopted some capitalism and became a "social democracy" or collapsed under their own weight after 1990 when the USSR was no longer around to prop them up. Interestingly, Cuba is propped up by the very same USA it sneers at through food aid and remittances.
    1
  824.  @anothergermanmapper7754  And a social democrat is just a reformed communist.
    1
  825.  @kommag2763  It's about what they do, not what they say or call themselves.
    1
  826.  @Adil_Turysbek_TVRC  Like how the USSR took resources from Ukraine and starved some 7 million ethnic Ukrainians to death?
    1
  827.  @jondoe406  Maybe because it was a minor factor as Venezuela already collapsed 3 years prior to any sanction imposed? It's not the sanctions fault Chavez and Maduro killed off the local economy with price controls, expropriations and free oil money to buy votes and imports while letting the oil industry infrastructure crumble beyond repair.
    1
  828. Just like the USSR backed North Korea economically.
    1
  829. .< Mainly physically..> More than just physically.
    1
  830. According to a tankie.
    1
  831.  @bigman9490  And mess up the politics.
    1
  832.  @zelimirmarinovic6800  <Problems of the world woul be solved if the world bannes USA to set foot outside the atlantic.> LOL. Like what? I don't think you have any idea how worse off the world was before the US became a superpower. Especially with countries constantly at war against each other. Care to name another country with the US's political, military and economic might that can uphold and enforce world peace?
    1
  833.  @TWE_2000  It's just that other countries are no longer interested in doing business with Cuba due to its record of not paying and defaulting on its bills.
    1
  834. <Ontario & Quebec are much resented in Alberta the #NorthKoreaOfNorthAmerica.> Because Ontario (who just recently became a have-not province after years of McGuinty/Wynne Liberal rule) and especially Quebec's equalization payments come from Alberta.
    1
  835. Maybe, but the countries the US supported made better use of the aid than the countries the Soviet Union supported.
    1
  836. And being propped up by some of the same capitalist countries it mocks.
    1
  837.  @Mel-jc7lt  Yet the results are more or less the same. Just like Zimbabwe. Tyranny, poverty, famine, genocide, economic ruin, etc.
    1
  838. Because it had little impact on the political and economic decisions NK made on its own and the results of them? And also, sanctions or no sanctions, the US and the West have no obligation to do business with North Korea.
    1
  839.  @shalyfemusic  Socialism = government ownership.
    1
  840. Not in real-life results.
    1
  841.  @shalyfemusic  <If your neighborhoods production and property is controlled by a central planner like a union then its socialist> That central planner (directly) works for the mayor, therefore state-owned.
    1
  842. Not really as the US sanctions were of little consequence compared to Chavez and Maduro's wholesale decimation of the private sector and local industry rendering Venezuela unable to support itself. Chasing out the skilled and productive oil industry workers in favor of political lackeys and not re-investing in said industry opting to throw money at the poor to help further their political ambitions didn't do them any favors.
    1
  843. Marxism is even more of a cancer. And SA's current ruling party is Marxist.
    1
  844. With Venezuela being #1 and South Africa being #3.
    1
  845. Says a Soviet propagandist.
    1
  846.  @JG-es5dj  <But it was the first experiment of it's kind, with achievements never before seen in the history of mankind. Don't be so easily fooled mate> Follow your own advice. And too bad those achievements the USSR made were short-lived proving socialism's lack of sustainability once the money ran out.
    1
  847. It is bad.
    1
  848.  @hung-upear2659  Or Japan after two of its cities got nuked.
    1
  849.  @Lord1885  Yes they are.
    1
  850.  @bullymaguire1087  Arguably even more so.
    1
  851. Namely in the capital. What about the rest of the country?
    1
  852. And poor countries are dysfunctional pushovers.
    1
  853. <Gov needs to regulate rent control and cap its cost..> Rent control has done nothing except exacerbate the problem with shortages and enabling renovictions.
    1
  854. In terms of resources, but the poorest in the world in human development.
    1
  855.  @svr5423  Or just general convenience.
    1
  856. North Korea is as communist as they come. Total state control.
    1
  857. Yet Sri Lanka got destroyed by socialist policy.
    1
  858. Like South Africa?
    1
  859. That isn't much of an accomplishment.
    1
  860. Tanzania Somalia Ethiopia Cambodia Romania Hungary Albania USSR East Germany Mongolia Madagascar Benin Republic of Congo Burma Poland Bulgaria
    1
  861.  @magnusorn7313  Rojava is not a country.
    1
  862. Venezuela's inability to recover is due to Chavez and Maduro destroying the local economy on its way to being oil-dependent with price controls, property-seizures, etc.
    1
  863.  @TruckStopLayby  Because it was imposed well after the Venezuelan economy collapsed.
    1
  864. At least Brazil is fiscally competent.
    1
  865. In socialism's case, the black market is its free enterprise.
    1
  866. UGH! Exactly!
    1
  867. Chavez whatever diversification Venezuela had taxing and regulating the private sector to oblivion.
    1
  868. Exactly.
    1
  869. Like it did in North Korea and Cuba?
    1
  870.  @ethankellogg8087  Except most of the US's prison labor consists of actual murderers, rapists, etc. while much of the USSR's prison labor consisted of "enemies" of the state.
    1
  871. Or higher prices for everything as everything has to be imported.
    1
  872. Or thrown into a labor camp.
    1
  873. Due to Argentina's own fiscal irresponsibility.
    1
  874. From the wealthiest country in South America in the 1980's and 90's to the poorest country in South America right now.
    1
  875.  @Jo-vn7tg  The leadership is a mere reflection of the populace that elected them.
    1
  876.  @007kingifrit  Hitler had a high approval rating as well.
    1
  877. Housing is not a human right. Never was.
    1
  878.  @davidbach7003  Since when was Haiti capitalist? Argentina is one example of a country that got destroyed by socialist and populist politics. <every country in central Africa?> Like Rwanda that adopted capitalism to become one of the better off countries in Africa? The ROC, the other Congo, has been run by socialists since independence and is nothing much to write home about.
    1
  879.  @davidbach7003  <The richest 20 percent of its population holds more than 64 percent of its total wealth,> And how many of that 20% are not friends and relatives of the government?
    1
  880. LOL. The same capitalism that made the USSR a superpower and gave it its most prosperous years during the regime's reign?
    1
  881. The ANC started out as communist group. It figures.
    1
  882. Austerity wouldn't be needed if the economy wasn't mismanaged into bankruptcy.
    1
  883.  @croesuslydias6488  It also applies to nations that have gone socialist like Zimbabwe (Mugabe), Tanzania (Nyerere) and Venezuela (Maduro).
    1
  884.  @igorthelight  While the West is doing it to their own detriment.
    1
  885. No they can't and not for long periods of time. There's a reason they often adopt capitalist reforms just to sustain themselves.
    1
  886. @Spring And what does socialism use?
    1
  887. It did not. And Venezuela have long destroyed any ability it had to support itself on its own.
    1
  888.  A Fels  Exactly. Actually the sanctions were imposed in 2017.
    1
  889. Bhutan would like a word with you on that.
    1
  890.  @magnusorn7313  Cuba is a failure.
    1
  891. Not at all.
    1
  892. Neither does living in poverty.
    1
  893. <Greedy corporatists won't let more egalitarian social system prevail > Who needs them when Argentinian government and society are doing a much better job at not letting it prevail?
    1
  894. Not nearly as greedy as those underworked and overpaid NHS administrators on top of your doctors being overworked and underpaid.
    1
  895. GDP per capita-wise, North Korea is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
    1
  896. Nope.
    1
  897. Like much of Africa.
    1
  898. For warlords, that is.
    1
  899. China needs North Korea as a buffer between itself and the US via South Korea.
    1
  900.  @flappingflight8537  Actually they don't produce much and are dependent on China for their goods including food.
    1
  901. Like in Latin America?
    1
  902. No minimum wage
    1
  903. Norway has no minimum wage, though.
    1
  904.  @succsucc6270  <not only is the majority of Venezuela economy in private hands> And how many of them are thriving now after the price controls and supply disruptions?
    1
  905. <whereas NK has been sanctioned ever since> NK was funded by the USSR and China. SK put that US aid to good use while NK pissed away the Soviet and Chinese aid.
    1
  906. <Also, Cuba would do way better if USA wasn't blocking them economically for so many decades. Enough of USA's BS and cinism on Cuba.> Actually, Cuba would do way better if the PCC ditched the command economy and allow citizens to earn an honest living. <For instance: construction workers, plumbers, police officers, locksmiths, sportsmen/women, politicians, actors, famous people that got popular just for their sexual affairs, etc. > Yet hardly any of them have to work a 2nd to make ends meet as their salaries are decent enough to live on and they're free to work in another profession.
    1
  907. Tell that to Rhodesians during the last years of Smith's rule.
    1
  908.  @loona_mew  Yet socialism has no problem with greedy governments.
    1
  909.  @loona_mew  So is envy, sloth (laziness) and covetousness.
    1
  910.  @nickchua5772  They were frivolous spenders when they were broke
    1
  911. <Good on these Cuban doctors for choosing to be doctors for the right reasons.> Largely in hopes to GTFO of Cuba once the government sends them out on one of those humanitarian missions.
    1
  912. Yes you can as government bureaucrats = workers.
    1
  913. Inequality is natural. And the US is not even the most unequal country around. That would be South Africa taking the cake.
    1
  914.  @Feffdc  Thanks to the black market, remittance payments from exiled relatives, tourism, the government pimping out its doctors to other countries, etc.
    1
  915.  @elephantman2112  Or Ethiopia in the early 1980's.
    1
  916.  @SpaceCowboy5634  Because in reality, those societies often stagnate and collapse.
    1
  917. Um. No. Collectivism = repression and regression.
    1
  918.  @radec5166  Exactly.
    1
  919.  @Pesso86  Better than economic systems which produce infinite stagnation and eventual ruin. Socialism failed for a reason and it has very little to do with outside meddling.
    1
  920.  @misterharryman  Being better than the absolute worst isn't anything to brag about or much of an accomplishment worthy of praise. Cuba being better than Haiti (by the way is anything but capitalist), Honduras, Guatemala is not saying anything. And the OP left out fellow socialist Nicaragua, the 2nd poorest country in the Americas.
    1
  921.  @quisqueyanguy120  Not Guatemala. Try Costa Rica or Panama. Or even Mexico.
    1
  922. Only to tax everyone else.
    1
  923.  @AlbertRossvids  Or because the nation has a weak private sector and virtually all the well-paying jobs are state ones.
    1
  924. The UK = another country socialism all but completely destroyed thanks to the Labour Party that preceded Thatcher.
    1
  925. Fascism is an offspring of socialism.
    1
  926. All because they were scared of Le Pen.
    1
  927.  @Sparticulous  Yet Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the Americas and is socialist. Poorer than even Guatemala, and Honduras. Socialism has done more to set Africa back than colonialism did.
    1
  928.  @Sparticulous  <you mean the cia backed coups have done great damage to Africa> Not in the cases of Tanzania, Ethiopia, Benin, Madagascar or even Somalia that managed to get CIA support. <The contras backed by the cia were fascists, not socialist and their massacres and destruction of Nicaragua got them where they are today> That hasn't been a thing since the 80's. And Daniel Ortega has run the country unopposed from that point on.
    1
  929.  @Sparticulous  But it was in 70's and 80's under Mengistu to become the perennial poster boy for famine. Ditto for Somalia under Barre.
    1
  930. <how the capitalist takeover destroyed> Conducted by ex-members, descendants and beneficiaries of the old communist guards responsible for running those states into the ground.
    1
  931. Capitalist reforms under Deng in the early 1980's along with Clinton's free trade deal in the 1990's.
    1
  932. The Bahamas is a tax haven .
    1
  933. Or how Greece lied its way into the Euro.
    1
  934. And poor people are so ignorant.
    1
  935. But Chavez did make everyone a 6-figure earner, though.
    1
  936.  @Smerpyderp  It isn't. If it is a right, then someone would have to be forced against his will to grant it. But at the same time, he should have the right to dictate the terms and conditions under which it will be granted.
    1
  937. Due to humans being too prideful to live within their means.
    1
  938. And then what happens when there are no more rich to tax to fund said UBI?
    1
  939. Exactly.
    1
  940. No. The government is the reason why Canada has a housing crisis.
    1
  941. In the Kardashians' case, they're the offspring of a successful lawyer.
    1
  942.  @jakekaywell5972  LOL. Vietnam is successful only after it adopted some capitalist reforms in the mid 80's. Yugoslavia thanks to Soviet and US subsidies. Cuba? US remittances, Canadian tourism, Venezuelan oil and the Chinese picking up where the Soviets left off.
    1
  943.  @notmenotme614  Canada is hardly socialist.
    1
  944.  @tsarofmeme3022  Which allows you, if you choose, to pursue other ventures and sources of income that in turn will make you less dependent on your current line of work to get by.
    1
  945. Projecting much?
    1
  946. That's because they're banished to the countryside left to starve and die. That's how North Korea deal with its homelessness problem.
    1
  947.  S, Lianis  That's not saying much when NK isn't militarily good enough to invade anyone.
    1
  948. Nearly all the money went to the regime.
    1
  949. Because those countries were stupid enough to elect populists and socialists resulting in crippled finances requiring IMF and World Bank help.
    1
  950. Better than perpetually stunted development and state-imposed poverty.
    1
  951. Meh. The general population was part of the reason why Greece hit rock bottom in the first place voting for politicians who promised them free stuff and easy living, state treasury be damned!
    1
  952.  @juniorleslie4804  Exactly.
    1
  953.  @Omer1996E.C  There's not much of a private sector in Brunei.
    1
  954. And US/NATO protection.
    1
  955. But Portugal is one of the poorer countries in the EU.
    1
  956.  Anonymer Nutzer  Yes it was as the means of production was under the control of "the people." Namely PSUV elites and bootlickers.
    1
  957. They're poor because of communism. By they way, Cuba gets food aid and remittances from the USA.
    1
  958. Enjoy the gynocentric society you voted for. Let it rot!
    1
  959.  @mikechasmar4154  Plus women are strong, independent and don't need no man. They can maintain society themselves.
    1
  960. Exactly.
    1
  961.  @fuckfannyfiddlefart  Socialism doesn't work. And its own neighbors can attest to that. Why don't you do better?
    1
  962. Just ask Greece.
    1
  963. Not even the rappers who boast about loving the hood while trying to get themselves and their mamas out. <Problem is, it’s becoming less affordable by the day.> Due to high demand and government-sponsored low supply.
    1
  964.  @MA-go7ee  And a relatively low life expectancy.
    1
  965.  @valkaerie8715  Or near-unlimited cash flow which is the only reason why Libya was a success under Gaddafi.
    1
  966. 68% of ordinary Canadians are home-owners.
    1
  967. Too late for that. Especially in English Canada.
    1
  968.  @ccvcharger  <corporate ownership of land, > The result of taxing and regulating mom-and-pop property-owners out of the market. <gentrification.> Which is long overdue because it's only so long people will put up with blight and decay.
    1
  969. Exactly.
    1
  970. The black market and access to foreign currency.
    1
  971. Well, the US is the world's largest English-speaking country.
    1
  972. Government affiliation.
    1
  973.  @debkalpapal2682  Here's an example: Australia and Haiti.
    1
  974. Like what? Women barely even work the same jobs as men let alone bear the same workload.
    1
  975. Not all Soviet puppet states were embargoed, though. Not Ethiopia. Not Mongolia. And not Eastern Europe.
    1
  976. <Norway is not.> Does Norway have a far-left America-hating megalomaniac in charge?
    1
  977. And to top it off, they make up the majority of the population.
    1
  978.  @BolshevikCarpetbagger1917  LOL. How come none of the other oil-rich countries collapsed like Venezuela did despite taking a hit themselves?
    1
  979.  @BolshevikCarpetbagger1917  <None of the other oil rich countries are being starved by U.S sanctions.> Because none of the other oil-rich countries are run by US-hating communists or theocrats.
    1
  980. How so? No country is obligated to allow foreigners to buy or own property on their land.
    1
  981. And yet in spite of the sanctions, Iran isn't starving or anywhere nearly as badly off as Cuba is.
    1
  982. In other words, socialism can only work when capitalism is present and at the forefront.
    1
  983. Which are the results of central planning and centralized systems.
    1
  984. Socialism is mismanagement personified.
    1
  985. Humans are the authors of their own poverty.
    1
  986.  @kingofhearts3185  No. Apartments are only a necessity in the cities where the population has always been "too high."
    1
  987. Eh. Don't forget the Marxism that it adopted post-independence as a F U to the West and the capitalist economic model that gave it whatever prosperity it had prior.
    1
  988. <So where go the rest of $98+ billion?> The bank accounts of PCC elites.
    1
  989.  @nicolaszan1845  <return to city states.> That could hardly feed or defend themselves with rural area backing.
    1
  990. Oh yes it is. That is communism.
    1
  991. Not really. NK's beholden to China.
    1
  992. And left behind plenty of bankrupted countries in its wake.
    1
  993. It's not the IMF or World Bank's fault that those nations bankrupted themselves with said different idea on how to run things prior to running to them for help.
    1
  994. Don't forget about many of those countries adopted socialism post-independence that led to their current dismal state.
    1
  995. Pretty much.
    1
  996.  @chrisdominguez5097  Exactly. Case in point: post-socialist Somalia.
    1
  997.  @souvikrc4499  The only Iranians the poster met were the well-to-do and was largely sheltered from how the average Iranian lived.
    1
  998.  @scottwilliams645  But you still can unlike socialism where entrepreneurialism is heavily discouraged.
    1
  999.  @CoolChris-vn8hz  Just ask the average Romanian when Ceausescu ran the show.
    1
  1000.  @succsucc6270  <That is incredibly unstable...> So is welfare especially when there are more freeloaders than contributors. And there's only so many rich people you can tax. <Or be forced to dig through the trash, rob someone, or loads of other acts that dig away at your dignity.> Or live off of money stolen from those who actually earn a living on top of gradually killing off any ability or desire to stand on your own two feet and do likewise never mind voting for politicians who advocate policies to rob your neighbors legally to fund this newfound lifestyle choice. Just because food is necessity doesn't mean you are owed it.
    1
  1001.  @jonassavimbi4795  Like Brazil.
    1
  1002. No country is obligated to grant to grant anyone citizenship.
    1
  1003. And Democrats run Hawaii.
    1
  1004.  @elvenkind6072  Mostly CCP members and affiliates.
    1
  1005. Plus its leadership pursued free markets and meritocracy over Marxism that its neighbors adopted.
    1
  1006.  @mzadro7  That is communism. Stalin style.
    1
  1007.  @mzadro7  <If Stalin was a real communist he would’ve redistributed that food regardless of the quantity of it.> And the country would have still starved anyway due to Stalin's forced collectivization policies resulting in not having much food to redistribute in the first place.
    1
  1008.  @mzadro7  Resource misallocation with Stalin favoring one region over the other. So much for equality.
    1
  1009. The US is the only big-population country in the top 20 in per capita GDP.
    1
  1010. Venezuela is a dumpster fire because of Venezuela. Interesting how Venezuela managed to prosper in spite of the supposed sanctions in the late 2000's early 2010's.
    1
  1011.  @magnusorn7313  Not really. The people of the DDR voluntarily chose to flee for the West as they wanted nothing to do with socialism. You just have a hard time believing or accepting the fact that people especially those with talent and ambition genuinely want nothing to do with socialism and would rather risk their lives to live in a capitalist society that allows them reach their fullest potential.
    1
  1012. Canada is too woke for that.
    1
  1013.  @tobos8909  Somalia was never capitalist and certainly not at the time Mohamed Siad Barre, a USSR-backed socialist, was in charge.
    1
  1014. Chile? Free helicopter rides.
    1
  1015. But is propped up by China. Used to be propped up by Russia.
    1
  1016. The IMF is the consequence of leadership foolishly adopting socialism and mismanaging their countries to ruin.
    1
  1017.  @onyeonye1060  <Ethiopia was torn apart by a Western sanctioned coup to install a more amenable govt in place..> You mean the one spearheaded by Russia/USSR that brought about the Derg and Mengistu Haile Mariam?
    1
  1018.  @Maelstromme  But that invasion didn't last very long. Plus, that was nothing compared to the Soviet-backed Derg that ousted Haile Selassie replacing him with Mengistu Haile Mariam which really set the country back.
    1
  1019. <and the unemployment rate was near 0%. > Too bad that made a lot of businesses costly to maintain by redundancy in the face of declining revenues.
    1
  1020. They have a welfare state and pension system to maintain with too many people in need and not enough people contributing.
    1
  1021. No. This is what you long advocated that now you're trying to distance yourself from. Somalia = true anarchy/communism in real-life practice.
    1
  1022. <People blaming the South African government for mismanagement are the same people who hold all the wealth.> Thanks to Nelson Mandela.
    1
  1023.  @tshepomaenetja8068  It was Mandela's idea to allow whites to keep the land and wealth in hopes to avoid a civil war.
    1
  1024.  @multilangcoder8723  What's even more insane is how whites make up 8% of the population yet account for 75-80% of all the wealth generated in South Africa.
    1
  1025. Not really. Many of the poorest countries in the world have small populations. Some smaller than Ireland's such as Guyana.
    1
  1026. LOL. There's hardly anything free-market about Iran as the state controls most of the industries. And the Ayatollahs are supported by Marxists in the forms of Russia and China.
    1
  1027. LOL. Stop blaming other countries for what you chose for yourself. After all, you're the one that voluntarily lied about your finances to get into the Euro Zone.
    1
  1028. How come Iran isn't struggling like Venezuela while under more or less the same sanctions?
    1
  1029. LOL. North Korea doesn't care about economic development as much as keeping Kim in power and the military beholden to him. North Korea isolated itself. It's not called the Hermit Kingdom for nothing. And what is the lifting of sanctions going to accomplish besides further enriching the regime as the money will not reach the people anyway?
    1
  1030. In terms of overall GDP.
    1
  1031. Only after it adopted capitalism.
    1
  1032. But students, refugees and permanent residents are exempt from the ban.
    1
  1033.  @magnusorn7313  Thanks to US remittances, Canadian tourism and free Venezuelan oil.
    1
  1034. Yes they are. Not everyone works in the service/retail sector.
    1
  1035. Because you think you're entitled to live where you're not wanted or welcome?
    1
  1036. Chinese subsidies.
    1
  1037. Thanks to the US.
    1
  1038. Yet so far, communism/socialism has proven itself to be even more unsustainable with its need for unlimited resources than capitalism is with its need for unlimited growth.
    1
  1039. USSR East Germany Romania Red China Cambodia Vietnam Burma North Korea Cuba Nicaragua Guyana Ethiopia Somalia Madagascar Zimbabwe Tanzania
    1
  1040. No. Socialism destroyed Venezuela.
    1
  1041. Not really as its mountainous geography holds the country back.
    1
  1042. That's leftists in general.
    1
  1043.  @jummagamedeveloperbeginner6509  In other words, it was meant to be imperialist just like the capitalism it denounces for being such. And the Soviet Union treated Eastern Europe like the US treated Latin America.
    1
  1044.  @DarckAngel11  And they're not legally allowed to have an honest opinion.
    1
  1045. And watch society collapse.
    1
  1046. Pretty much.
    1
  1047. It is outdated not to mention inefficient.
    1
  1048. LOL.
    1
  1049.  @jacktaylor9290  Pretty much.
    1
  1050. Not really. The Boomer generation more or less had that and yet they chose not to have kids and voted for the good life at the expense of the country's future.
    1
  1051. But they're oil-rich just like the Gulf states.
    1
  1052.  @juanmam.2113  Namely the Chavez family among other affiliated with the ruling PSUV party.
    1
  1053.  @hades2679  <Communism is a stateless classless society> Like post-socialist Somalia was?
    1
  1054. LOL. NZ is playing the puppet to China.
    1
  1055. Eaten by his own. Like every other revolution.
    1
  1056. Pretty much.
    1
  1057.  @unfortunatelyrob2635  That's the case with Canada.
    1
  1058.  @thenoobprincev2529  Simple. Females are not supposed to suffer anything. That's reserved for males.
    1
  1059.  @rfvtgbzhn  Which Cuba actually achieved under Batista.
    1
  1060.  @rfvtgbzhn  Yet they have to wait hours in long bread-lines just basic food. Yet they have to work a side-job, because their wages and whatever benefits they get from the government are too meager to live off of.
    1
  1061. <In communism the decision making can and should be decentralised, where the experts and workers responsible for their sector (soviet) collaborate with other sectors. > Yet interestingly that was the final nail in the coffin for the USSR and Yugoslavia
    1
  1062.  @abnerruiz4011  <One of the richest nation in the world yet our standard of living is not even higher than some of the nations with a lesser economy.> Namely tax havens and oil-rich uber-theocracies.
    1
  1063.  @007kingifrit  And leftists in general.
    1
  1064. Thanks to government lockdowns and handouts.
    1
  1065.  @thetaomega7816  Given how corrupt, wasteful and heavy-handed the surrounding countries' governments are, I don't blame the companies.
    1
  1066. Exactly.
    1
  1067.  @KitoAkari1612  Only if they adopt some capitalist economic reforms like China and Vietnam did.
    1
  1068. I say India's adoption of socialism after independence di far more to hold India back than whatever the British did.
    1
  1069. But nope. A lot of jobs require a person's physical presence.
    1
  1070.  @keterscp1064  Yet the US isn't in the top 10 in per capita homelessness among developed countries while New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, Sweden and the UK are .
    1
  1071. Who's the everyone else that's poor?
    1
  1072.  @GaelicStallion  Nope. This communism. Revolutionaries become the new oligarchs and the people are every bit as expendable.
    1
  1073. What about the seizing of all the US-funded and built businesses along with hosting Soviet nukes that brought it about?
    1
  1074. For aspiring tyrants.
    1
  1075.  @007kingifrit  Actually it did work. For a short period of time, that is.
    1
  1076. Nor do previously poor blacks who made it like entertainers, athletes and those who landed themselves a good-paying job.
    1
  1077.  @KitoAkari1612  Maybe when the Cuban government lift theirs against its own citizens first.
    1
  1078.  @KitoAkari1612  But the differences are negligible and the results are more or less the same.
    1
  1079.  @patrickbateman529  Exactly. It might have allowed some private enterprise to pop up, but the economy is still state-controlled.
    1
  1080.  @KitoAkari1612  Barely as the government still controls the economy.
    1
  1081.  @KitoAkari1612  <Communism is the part that completely abolishes the need of a government, as it's a classless, moneyless society.> Like post-socialist Somalia only after Barre was forcibly removed?
    1
  1082.  @KitoAkari1612  <No. It still has private sector> And that would be? Post-socialist Somalia had it. A classless (every man for himself), moneyless (it had no functional economy) society.
    1
  1083. But Lenin was every bit a genocidal lunatic as Stalin.
    1
  1084.  @jakekaywell5972  Except he was. Red Terror was a thing.
    1
  1085. <Airbnb and short term rentals are by far the main problem> The consequences of government meddling and making long-term renting unviable.
    1
  1086.  @silenthawkstudios9924  China only got rich after Deng implemented market reforms and the West shipped out all of its manufacturing jobs. Cuba was one of the wealthiest countries in the Americas under Batista. Castro set the country back. Vietnam did like China and implemented market reforms. Russia (USSR) fell as fast as it rose once the oil prices dropped and all of its other industries were left to crumble.
    1
  1087. Air BnB is the consequence of rent control and government over-regulation of the housing market.
    1
  1088. Their country, their laws.
    1
  1089.  @mmercier0921  Exactly.
    1
  1090. The country or the capital as that's the only part of the country that's developed? It figures when that's where all the elites live.
    1
  1091.  @SR-wm1kr  Yet millions have no problem risking their lives to live in free-market capitalist countries. Hardly anyone is risking their lives to live in command-economy socialist/communist countries, not even the biggest socialist/communist cheerleader.
    1
  1092.  @SR-wm1kr  What about Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Mongolia, Tanzania, Somalia, Ethiopia, Madagascar and Benin? None of those countries were meddled with by so-called free-market powers and yet they still failed. Even ones that got said so-called free-market support like Somalia, Yugoslavia and Guyana.
    1
  1093.  @josef7461  If not then they seized US-built and funded private enterprises without compensation as in the case of Cuba.
    1
  1094.  @KitoAkari1612  Because Vietnam adopted some capitalist reforms and liberalized the economy.
    1
  1095.  @handsomejustin  Like Singapore? South Korea? Japan? Switzerland?
    1
  1096. North Korea currently lives off of China. And before that, it was living off of the USSR. Yes it can be described as pathetic as it found a way to regress with all the help in the world.
    1
  1097. Only for its military spending to expose the USSR's economic limitations.
    1
  1098.  @RextheRebel  And mismanaging it into ruin. That's socialism being incompetent alongside corrupt.
    1
  1099. But anyone can be a janitor. Not everyone can be a bank employee.
    1
  1100.  @downsouth1678  But not everyone is smart or have the same abilities.
    1
  1101. Along with populist politics.
    1
  1102. <I hate it when people associate anarchism with chaos and disorder. A failed state is not an example of anarchism. > Yes it is. Unless you're admitting that anarchism just like communism cannot be achieved without inevitably defeating its own purpose.
    1
  1103. And then there was Pol Pot. Killed more people per capita than any other during his rule. Also a socialist.
    1
  1104. But presently, a lot of educated Africans much rather risk their lives to live in the West than build up their own countries.
    1
  1105.  @ganonzero1  But the problem is that the educated that do stay home don't want to build.
    1
  1106. Easy to do that in a one-party state like China where the government is unaccountable to anyone.
    1
  1107. And even harder with a severe command economy. The NK government is what's holding North Korea back, not US sanctions.
    1
  1108. As if they were ever in any position to.
    1
  1109.  @kingfish2703  They would if they could just like Haiti tried to invade the DR once.
    1
  1110. What theft of talent? Most of those doctors went out of their own way to emigrate to the West.
    1
  1111.  @sorat5000  And Yugoslavia actually had what the poster advocates.
    1
  1112. Because they and their voter base are property-owners and the last thing they want is low property values.
    1
  1113. But it will be long overdue.
    1
  1114. LOL. <He was the first ruler of the new communist state and not a genocidal lunatic who didn't understand even basic facts> Ever heard of Red Terror?
    1
  1115. And the DRC has been suffering from kleptocracies and political instability since independence.
    1
  1116.  @sasquatchhunter86  Exactly.
    1
  1117. And eventually become the every rich you stole from.
    1
  1118. But it succeeded in enriching bureaucrats.
    1
  1119. Also a deviant and threat.
    1
  1120. @Joseph Melzer But South Africa is ran by reformed Marxists.
    1
  1121. Or put their people to work.
    1
  1122. Easy to have "full" employment when they had forced labor. 100% literacy yet no jobs aside from state jobs to make any use of it in. 0 homelessness due to the homeless being banished out to the countryside. Just like the Potemkin Village of their yesteryears.
    1
  1123. <a guy i know thats an engineer and his wife is a lawyer of some kind had trouble finding a place they liked just east of downtown. when people that have good jobs have trouble something has to be done. > Here's the problem. They want to live Downtown or in close proximity to it, the single-most expensive part of town.
    1
  1124. No it's not. Inequality is natural as not everyone can or will achieve the same even when given the same opportunity. If anything, equality is pure evil and unnatural. Why should one capable of or desiring better be held back just to spare the feelings of those incapable of or have no desire to improve?
    1
  1125. Socialism is bad. And the West has immigrants from those "worker's paradises" who can attest to that. There are people who value freedom more than free stuff.
    1
  1126. 3rd-worlders have no problem having kids despite the lack of finances.
    1
  1127. Yet its average life expectancy is on par with Jamaica's.
    1
  1128. But too much prosperity leads to degeneracy and complacency.
    1
  1129. BS! NK's government is what's holding NK's economy back. Not foreign sanctions. Maybe if you remove its central planning model and allow some private enterprise and actual economic development, it will grow.
    1
  1130. Tell that to the small and medium businesses that went under. In socialist nations, they hardly exist let alone be in any position to underperform and ask the government for a bailout.
    1
  1131. Yet interestingly in Cuba, people have to work a side gig because their state wages are meager. And their social benefits are inadequate.
    1
  1132. <IMF structural readjustments, > Due to the policies and models the countries previously had that led to their collapse in the first place along with the corruption and mismanagement.
    1
  1133. But they don't count foreign migrants as part of their GDP statistics despite them making up the majority of the population.
    1
  1134. LOL. No. They just made exceptions for refugees, international students and permanent residents.
    1
  1135. The NK government is what's holding NK back, not the embargoes.
    1
  1136.  @RextheRebel  Not in Tanzania, Yugoslavia, Madagascar or Mongolia's case.
    1
  1137.  @dopaminedreams1122  Very much.
    1
  1138. It's hard for sanctions to kill an economy that hardly existed because the Kims barely even bothered to develop it. . And North Korea already hit rock-bottom before any sanction was imposed due to communism and mismanagement. <Because the Chinese are communist and have the best economy> Thanks to Deng's capitalist reforms and Clinton's outsourcing of US jobs.
    1
  1139.  @night_wolf9734  Wrong! In North Korea's case, it squandered all the Soviet aid while being too inadequate and inefficient to support itself.
    1
  1140. Not in Greece's, Jamaica's or Venezuela's cases as the left ruined them.
    1
  1141. You'd have to do a major about-face on women's rights.
    1
  1142. <in the last 10 years and we have the 2nd lowest birth rate of any country and a median age of 45.> Due to almost half of the population being elderly while a lot of working-age people moved to the mainland.
    1
  1143. Like in North Korea. Yet even there inequality exists as men under 60 are barred from starting their own business.
    1
  1144. While a socialist economy clog the waterways by allowing infrastructure to fall into disrepair and seep in.
    1
  1145. It was colonized by Spain.
    1
  1146. Fascism is part of the socialist family tree.
    1
  1147. But many are generally lousy with personal finances.
    1
  1148. Take that up with the city mayor.
    1
  1149. So do governments.
    1
  1150. <Either that or tightly regulate the rental market to give tenants many more rights.> And then you wonder why no one wants anything to do with rentals.
    1
  1151. No it's not. People are starving because NK's agricultural system isn't sufficient enough to feed everyone and depends on China for food which is a consequence of their centrally planned forced collectivization model.
    1
  1152. <This is proof that politicians who only think about the next elections are the first cause of economic and social downfall in a country. > Reaffirming the Founding Fathers' disdain for democracy.
    1
  1153.  @Commielyn  Yes it is.
    1
  1154. <Guess which country also does this, Singapore.> Just ask any Filipina housemaid.
    1
  1155. Don't be naive. Cuba's system has little to do with improving the quality of life for its citizens and everything to do with the government trying to maintain absolute control at all costs.
    1
  1156.  @user-xs1is9yd5o  But you have to generate revenue like a capitalist in order to spend like a socialist.
    1
  1157.  @silverhost9782  Or while taxing and regulating workers and producers to poverty.
    1
  1158. Exactly. Also a shrinking local population and tax base.
    1
  1159. And in dictatorships, brains = threat to the elite's rule.
    1
  1160.  @emirozer9280  Only for those rich people to be replaced by other rich people.
    1
  1161. But in communism, you wouldn't be allowed to have a Facebook let alone the TOS to sign. Just ask the average North Korean.
    1
  1162. <People believe economic growth is the solution to everything,> It is as even Marx said that countries that forego such are just condemning themselves to obsolescence and irrelevance.
    1
  1163.  @longnewton1  But not everyone is interested in living destitute especially by force just to test that theory out.
    1
  1164.  @longnewton1  It's not all that ridiculous. That's pretty much the average North Korean.
    1
  1165. LMAO. True.
    1
  1166. Like Cambodia under Pol Pot or Tanzania under Nyerere?
    1
  1167. LOL. Don't deny Venezuela its agency.
    1
  1168. Communism stunted India's development.
    1
  1169. Only as long as the oil money keeps flowing to keep the citizens happy and obedient.
    1
  1170. Actually, it was left wing politics that did Venezuela in.
    1
  1171. Yet they live off of China just they used to live off of the USSR. LOL @ them being self-reliant practicing Juche.
    1
  1172. No. Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro. That's how.
    1
  1173. But leftists.
    1
  1174. Ditto for Trinidad & Tobago.
    1
  1175. For what. Refugees and international students are exempt.
    1
  1176.  @Phyt5  Due to government restrictions.
    1
  1177. Communism and fascism are offsprings of socialism.
    1
  1178. <Africa would dominate the world if it was given the chance to be developed> Africa had its chance long before any European showed up. It came and went. And before the Europeans, it was the Middle-Eastern Arabs doing the raping and dictating of Africa.
    1
  1179. Namely Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.
    1
  1180. @Johan Liebert It figures.
    1
  1181. Pretty much.
    1
  1182. Abolish the theocracy.
    1
  1183. And succeeded. Otherwise they would have collapsed like every other communist regime.
    1
  1184. And many of those inner cities have "affordable" housing in the form of city housing.
    1
  1185. Especially Quebecers.
    1
  1186.  @Operative34  <ah, blame the poor students who go into debt,> Taking non-productive courses like (insert marginalized group) studies. <real causes, like the megarich and landlords hoarding properties, investors using housing as a way to make money, insufficient supply and a lack of housing choices.> Thanks to government regulations that restricts supply while allowing just anyone in the country.
    1
  1187. Responsible for most of the prosperity South Africa enjoys.
    1
  1188. Or harass their loved ones.
    1
  1189. Nope.
    1
  1190. Cuba post-communism - kleptocratic crumbling squatter camp.
    1
  1191.  @ammarally3055  Actually, Venezuela started NATIONALIZING, not privatizing industries going from the wealthiest country in South America to now officially the poorest country in South America. Had the worst-performing economy in the world for some years. Has the world's highest crime rate.
    1
  1192. LOL. Housing is a privilege. And landlords are not going anywhere as the government is the biggest landlord of them all.
    1
  1193.  @userre85  See China helping North Korea and Russia helping Belarus.
    1
  1194. Nope. Try the other "S" word. Socialism.
    1
  1195. That's the price to pay for being an EU member.
    1
  1196. Western society doomed itself.
    1
  1197.  @dopaminedreams1122  Pretty much.
    1
  1198.  @UniqueBreakfastTaco  Or they'll just blame the US/West/IMF, etc. for their self-inflicted problems.
    1
  1199.  @flakgun153  And also the general lack of infrastructure and a centralized economy.
    1
  1200.  @johndavidmanuel2189  Africa already did socialism.
    1
  1201.  @watchout3811  In their case, on a land where everything grew and food was plentiful, the had no incentive to do much beyond basic survival. If anything, complacency did them in. They evolved in a climate that didn't demand much from them in terms of long-term planning.
    1
  1202. But they're kept afloat by Chinese subsidies.
    1
  1203. Neither does Iceland.
    1
  1204. Fascism is socialism's offspring. Just like communism.
    1
  1205. What patriarchy? Western society is currently a de-facto matriarchy. And matriarchy only leads to regression.
    1
  1206. And less crime, because the people there knew how to conduct themselves and the high prices kept the undesirable elements from moving in.
    1
  1207. But they also have a high death rate. .
    1
  1208.  @AlexCab_49  And had US military protection so it didn't end up under the Soviet jackboot like the rest of Eastern Europe.
    1
  1209. Alleviating poverty or really just further exacerbating poverty as "free" money renders people dependent on government no longer having any agency in their lives.
    1
  1210.  @John_Smith_86  That's because you didn't know any better and made do with the best technology that existed.
    1
  1211. Lower lifespans due to overexertion?
    1
  1212. And Costa Rica.
    1
  1213. Because children = social safety net and cheap labor.
    1
  1214. In remittances disincentivizing local development.
    1
  1215. That and also communism/socialism is just not sustainable without massive repression and subsidies. Notice that every other country that adopted communism/socialism either collapsed or reformed?
    1
  1216.  @doctor1901  It's the truth.
    1
  1217. Except the government.
    1
  1218. Namely the baby-boomer generation.
    1
  1219.  @slap_my_hand  Like where? Jonestown?
    1
  1220. And probably for good reason. Why would anyone entrust amateurs with the means of production? It's one thing to own it and it's another thing to run it in a way that ensures viability and sustainability.
    1
  1221. They're just carrying out what Mao intended.
    1
  1222. Socialist ideology = mismanagement personified.
    1
  1223. Just like its former colonies.
    1
  1224.  Mark Collins  Fidel died a multi-millionaire, but yeah!
    1
  1225. Take it up with the government that employs those teachers.
    1
  1226. But Spain has been run the left since the end of the Franco era.
    1
  1227. But will vote Blue and turn the Red areas into the very same Blue areas they fled from. Left-wing-styled gerrymandering.
    1
  1228. Yet you keep voting for governments that support mass immigration and cultural Marxism.
    1
  1229.  @pestilence.and.plague  Like what Venezuela has?
    1
  1230.  Symon Mailhot  Nope. Most socialist/communist nations are closed-off.
    1
  1231. Thanks to Affirmative Action and Diversity Quotas.
    1
  1232. And being a refuge for Nazis.
    1
  1233. Due to mass immigration. By Republicans for cheap labor and by Democrats for easy votes.
    1
  1234. <They would loose their free time, government benefits, holidays, free health care and education for their children, social security, low level of crime, and, of course, they would be loosing those lovely Cuban beaches and great Cuban weather.> LOL. A doctor working in the US enjoys all of what you said on top of a good salary. Plus, they have the option of living in California and Florida with the latter having lower living costs.
    1
  1235. Under threat of jail, torture and death to either themselves or their loved ones if they don't.
    1
  1236. China.
    1
  1237. How come Iran is doing better in spite of them?
    1
  1238. Typical communist response every time an attempt at communism devolves into yet another sh*tshow.
    1
  1239. Or benevolent ones as their benevolence is for personal gain.
    1
  1240. The story of Nicaragua under Ortega.
    1
  1241. Which can be traced back to government over-regulation of housing.
    1
  1242.  @tatertom2641  No. North Korea is being held hostage by North Korean government as they have hardly bothered to develop a viable economy since God knows when.
    1
  1243. <isn’t it the landlords raising rents?> In response to governments raising taxes and restrictions.
    1
  1244. Just like it doesn't matter how much oil you have if the infrastructure to extract, refine and put out to market crumbles due to mismanagement and neglect as Chavez and Maduro blew the funds on buying votes hardly bothering to reinvest.
    1
  1245. <With socialism, the government can provide services, basic and more than basic needs for free, wich cannot happen in a capitalist country.> But of mediocre at best quality not to mention being under-staffed, under-funded and under-equipped/supplied with deteriorating infrastructure to boot.
    1
  1246. Same as the USSR to Eastern Europe.
    1
  1247. No. And not even close.
    1
  1248. Thank to bad economic policies that bankrupted the countries forcing them to seek the IMF and World Bank for help.
    1
  1249. And economic freedom, or the lack thereof in the latter since private enterprise is heavily restricted and the only well-paying jobs are state jobs. And it doesn't help that the vast majority of the latter's population are illiterate and unskilled.
    1
  1250. A different economic system with a proven track record of failure even in countries that didn't get embargoed if they were not outright supported by the very same US like Tanzania, Yugoslavia and Somalia.
    1
  1251. At least the US can print its own money. Spain has to get Belgium's permission to do that.
    1
  1252. And a lot of it comes back to the government.
    1
  1253. Socialism is communism's father.
    1
  1254. Given communism's "stellar" track record, I don't blame the CIA. <you forgot to mention that during the cold war the Russian standard of living was higher then the us> Only after some reforms to tone it down by Khrushchev. And then that declined under Brezhnev, then collapsed under Gorbachev.
    1
  1255.  @svr5423  It's not an affordability issue. It's a personal one. A lot of the people who say they can't afford kids probably live beyond their means which includes a lifestyle in the trendiest/gentrified/expensive part of the city their relatively sub-par salaries cannot support.
    1
  1256. Exactly.
    1
  1257. Well, who wants to live in a world of hopeless stagnation and regression?
    1
  1258. Along with the government threatening to do harm to their loved ones if they dare defect.
    1
  1259.  @KitoAkari1612  And collect some 90% of their earnings.
    1
  1260.  @KitoAkari1612  Yes.
    1
  1261.  @ZZ-ui5fy  They are. To their neighbors, that is.
    1
  1262.  @hasspass8751  Albania = another post-communist basket case.
    1
  1263. LOL.
    1
  1264.  @Astronalta-ot6ho  Because you chose "quality of life" over family and future.
    1
  1265. Don't forget Vietnam ending Cambodia's communism and Pol Pot's reign.
    1
  1266. <The Venezuelan government's only mistake was to decide to take care of all of it's people > By buying votes and loyalty with money stolen from the middle class.
    1
  1267. Exactly.
    1
  1268. Half of them being Quebecers.
    1
  1269. That's pretty much every other communist regime not named the USSR or China.
    1
  1270. Naive Westerners and bitter 3rd-worlders.
    1
  1271.  @magnusorn7313  Tanzania under Nyerere was allowed to exist. And still collapsed anyway.
    1
  1272. Working for who exactly? Certainly not the average Cuban.
    1
  1273. Largely of its own doing. Who told Castro to seize and gut all the US-built and funded private businesses? Who told him to kill off all the farmers and entrepreneurs rendering the country unable to support itself depending on outsiders including the very same US for food?
    1
  1274.  @vic1sch  You do realize that the lack of sanctions will just further enrich the regime with the population still suffering anyway..
    1
  1275. Not really. Socialism is the father of communism.
    1
  1276.  @Commielyn  Yet the results are more or less the same.
    1
  1277.  @Commielyn  Yes they have and the results are less than flattering.
    1
  1278. Not even the socialist disaster that plagued Russia and Eastern Europe.
    1
  1279. <And the doctors do part time dolar earning job for better benifits in cuba. Everything is not profit driven> What better benefits? The benefits are meager which is why they even work a 2nd job in the first place.
    1
  1280. No. Mass immigration is a product of feminism and encouraging women to forego family in favor of career.
    1
  1281. The farmland? Simple. Less efficiency. Less productivity. Shortages. See: Zimbabwe under Mugabe, China under Mao, USSR under Stalin, Cambodia under Pol Pot, North Korea under Kim Il-Sung, or Tanzania under Nyerere.
    1
  1282.  @jamesshaw3500  ROFL
    1
  1283. Enabled and facilitated by the Democrat Party. See any Black-majority US city such as Detroit, Baltimore, Memphis, New Orleans, etc.
    1
  1284. Very much. And they were also backed by the Soviet Union.
    1
  1285. < If the average person is squeezed to the point where they are in debt all their life,> Partly due to trying to live a lifestyle their salaries cannot support.
    1
  1286. Why voting should have never been made a right.
    1
  1287.  @noahramsey  Equality, maybe. But happiness and prosperity? LOL.
    1
  1288.  @noahramsey  Equality, happiness and prosperity. Venezuela has none of the 3. Venezuela is functionally socialist.
    1
  1289. So much a triumph that citizens want out by the hundreds of thousands risking death and homelessness abroad.
    1
  1290. No. The last thing Canada needs is more taxpayer-subsidized crime and degeneracy-ridden ghettoes. Toronto has a lot of those.
    1
  1291. No. Somalia is more the wet dream of anarchists and communists as it has no state, money or class.
    1
  1292. That will just fall apart due to negligence and mismanagement within a couple of generations.
    1
  1293.  @Merle1987  That's how it's done in Cuba and North Korea.
    1
  1294. Neither is socialism with its state-imposed scarcity and its mismanagement of resources.
    1
  1295. And is the world's #1 remittance recipient.
    1
  1296. <Not like nowadays where ppl with university diploma deliver pizza.> Because there are only so many white-collar jobs to go around and university all but completely lost its value.
    1
  1297.  @jojinkang2779  And whatever successes it does achieve is often short-lived.
    1
  1298.  @stephenc2481  Especially once the free stuff (namely stuff stolen from people who work and produce for a living) runs out.
    1
  1299.  @MistikaManiac  Only Venezuela is functionally speaking. Finland is a capitalist welfare state.
    1
  1300.  @TheMagnificentGman  With many of the rich being Trump-haters and Democrats.
    1
  1301.  @LuciusKyrus  Like Albania was. It's a crime what Hoxha did to that country blowing the public treasury on military bunkers for a war that never came about.
    1
  1302. <and yes, socialism doesn't overproduce. It just produces what it's necessary> Because socialism UNDER-produces, unable to produce even an adequate amount of what's necessary, hence the chronic shortages.
    1
  1303.  @SatchelChannel  <That's what allende was trying to do with cybersyn> And how CIA intervention turned out to be a blessing for Chile in the long run.
    1
  1304. When Zimbabwe meets Venezuela.
    1
  1305. Just like there's no mention from you Castro's seizing of US-built and funded private enterprises that brought about the embargoes in the first place.
    1
  1306.  @thinkpad20  LOL. No. He seized them and let them crumble and go infertile destroying Cuba's ability to support itself in the process. Serve what Cuban people?
    1
  1307. <Again Norway isn't under US sanctions.> Because Norway doesn't have a far-left America-hater in charge.
    1
  1308. Capitalism never claimed to be perfect unlike socialism still waiting on that perfect condition and person to bring about utopia on Earth.
    1
  1309. And their love for big government.
    1
  1310. They're either oil-rich or tax havens protected by the US military and economic largesse.
    1
  1311. You already have that with entrepreneurship. Workers are free to start their own businesses.
    1
  1312. Yes it due to the Chavez, Maduro and socialism.
    1
  1313.  @nadmoi  Inhumane or not, Europe doesn't owe migrants anything.
    1
  1314. LOL. If so, then how did Venezuela manage to prosper during that time?
    1
  1315. Not at all. North Korea is poorer than all but 7 African countries.
    1
  1316. And adoption of post-independence socialism?
    1
  1317. <Under socialism it is meant to liberate the masses and form more creative and happier lives by them pursuing passions without soul crushing capitalist telling them they can’t.> But instead, socialism enslaves the masses forming wasted and miserable lives under the thumb of soul-crushing socialists all too eager to throw them in a gulag/re-education/labor camp, etc. if they dare try to escape.
    1
  1318.  @imgayforyou222  Yet whatever successes the Soviet Union achieved were short-lived.
    1
  1319. North Korea is the worst Korea and a communist puppet of China.
    1
  1320. Which only jacks up operating and retail costs while pricing low-skilled workers out of the job market.
    1
  1321. Not they're not. Not having machinery is probably part of the reason for their low life-expectancy.
    1
  1322. Due to high land prices, insurance, property taxes, utility costs, etc.
    1
  1323.  @taylorbug9  Human greed is just one of Pride's manifestations.
    1
  1324. Because Cuba's certification is of low standard. Actually, it's because aside from international missions, Cuban doctors are not allowed to leave.
    1
  1325. The USSR.
    1
  1326. Cuba's national IQ is 85.
    1
  1327. <People in Iraq and Libya had a free schooling paid by government around the globe,free healthcare,free housing,free of national debt and so on > That's as long as you do what you're told by the government.
    1
  1328. And whites foolishly drinking the liberal Kool-Aid.
    1
  1329.  @DanaTheInsane  Yet the results they produce are more or less the same. Whether it's communist Cuba or socialist Nicaragua or Venezuela. Communist Cambodia or socialist Burma. Communist Ethiopia or socialist Tanzania or Somalia.
    1
  1330. North Korea is Atheist heaven, though.
    1
  1331. Simple. Who wants to be a country with no tax base?
    1
  1332.  @OnlyOneHunnids  Namely Black South Africans.
    1
  1333.  @iv9449  But Whites only make up 8% of the population while Blacks make up 80% with many being die-hard ANC voters.
    1
  1334. The ANC is socialist by origin and purpose.
    1
  1335.  @ngpdreamteam2k4  Doctors are not millionaires in the US, but they're definitely doing better than doctors in Cuba.
    1
  1336. The Nazis were socialist as well and Hitler wasn't much of a fan of free market capitalism.
    1
  1337. Or China to bring them revolution.
    1
  1338. Sanctions don't cause things like this, not even at its worst. This one is on Maduro.
    1
  1339.  @jikjlmvjtcakktbmnjjrsnjsca1770  Mostly political dissidents and those of the wrong ethnic group.
    1
  1340. Saudi Arabia is not all that capitalist.
    1
  1341.  @souvikrc4499  Socialists and Islamists are mutual allies.
    1
  1342.  @loona_mew  Social democrat = communist rebranded.
    1
  1343. While it's perfectly fine for government officials to have it all and live it up.
    1
  1344. Capitalism (South Korea).
    1
  1345. Maybe, but housing is still a privilege.
    1
  1346. Just like it was the USA that built Cuba's economy.
    1
  1347.  @Commielyn  No it isn't. That is standard socialist fare. And actions speak louder than words.
    1
  1348.  @Commielyn  <The soviet union did not do this and have it all controlled by some top officials> Communism/socialism in real-life practice.
    1
  1349. That's not saying much.
    1
  1350. And Venezuela killed it off in its all-out war on private enterprise.
    1
  1351. LOL. No one working for Gates or Musk are poor. And most of Amazon's workers are part-timers. They're not that beholden to Bezos.
    1
  1352.  @chrisdominguez5097  Exactly. And the only risk those workers took in establishing the company was a rejected job application.
    1
  1353. Expat = (Western) European and North American Immigrant = African, Asian, Latin American, (Eastern) European
    1
  1354. No talks of internal corruption and mismanagement?
    1
  1355.  @transparent6842  <Where people rule and not trans-national capital.> Well, Cuba Romania Albania Guyana Hungary USSR China (Mao-era) Cambodia Mongolia Czechoslovakia Yugoslavia Bulgaria Tanzania Ethiopia Somalia Benin Zimbabwe Venezuela North Korea (East) Germany Poland Guinea Mozambique actually lived that other world you so advocate. And the results were rather flattering.
    1
  1356.  @transparent6842  For more or less the same reasons why Albania had military bunkers yet its biggest threat was fellow communist Yugoslavia, not any of the NATO countries across the sea.
    1
  1357. Considering that Cuba is anything but developed.
    1
  1358. A failed South American dictatorship that just happened to be socialist as Chavez and Maduro ran the country like such. The decimation of the private sector and domestic production with price controls, expropriations, the killing off of the successful, skilled and productive or should I say the bourgeoisie in favor of political stooges, vote-buying and rigging, etc.
    1
  1359. Define normal. Debauchery, degeneracy and deviancy are not normal.
    1
  1360. No matter how many times socialist fanboys swear you don't know what it is.
    1
  1361. Not as much as the overall inefficiency of communism as it cannot produce enough to sustain itself having to eventually rely on outside help to stay afloat.
    1
  1362. Left wing politicians already did that even without nationalizing private enterprise thanks to the PASOK.
    1
  1363. France scrapped it as it didn't generate the revenue it thought it would and lost a lot of productive people.
    1
  1364. <English superiority complexe or inferiority complexe, british taught Indians white skin color is superior> LOL. No. India had the racial caste system long before the British came around to teach them anything.
    1
  1365. Argentina was never under sanctions. Come up with a better excuse.
    1
  1366. Given the history of the US and its treatment of Black people, it is about race.
    1
  1367. Like Ethiopia? Or Yugoslavia even with Western support?
    1
  1368.  @painfultruth1846  Only for human nature to rear its ugly head and it's back to square one.
    1
  1369. Not according to the thousands of Jamaicans who happily moved in when Batista ran the show.
    1
  1370.  @noname-sg6qx  Until it wasn't and it crashed.
    1
  1371. What free market? Much of Africa have a centralized state-run economy.
    1
  1372.  @mensrea1251  But these days, even the smaller urban centers are unaffordable due to everyone moving in en masse.
    1
  1373. You will own nothing and be happy. (c) Klaus Schwab.
    1
  1374. I didn't know Norway goes around seizing private property it could get its hands on and chase out its successful and productive among them.
    1
  1375. True. But socialism have consistently failed regardless of who's in charge.
    1
  1376.  @mzadro7  Chavez is right-wing now?
    1
  1377.  @mzadro7  LOL. Chavez set Venezuela up for failure when he decided to decimate private enterprise and reduce the country to being oil-dependent. He was just fortunate enough to die while the oil prices were high.
    1
  1378.  @mzadro7  There is hardly anything right-wing about Maduro.
    1
  1379.  @mzadro7  <how about the fact that the only people he helps economically are his close allies?> LOL. Like every other left-wing socialist regime that ever existed including his predecessor Chavez.
    1
  1380.  @mzadro7  Before Stalin, there was Lenin.
    1
  1381.  @peaceleader7315  No you don't as that one-world government will be just an oversized China with even less accountability.
    1
  1382.  @davidbach7003  <and a government that cares for it's citizens.> This is when we humans don't have the same needs. Not everyone needs a government micromanaging their lives 24/7.
    1
  1383.  @Ms.-Lily  Tribal society was blood and lineage-based and were hardly compassionate nor kind to outsiders.
    1
  1384.  @Ms.-Lily  Yes we are. We were not made selfish. Are you saying that humans have no agency in their lives? <Laziness is a right. People should have the right to enjoy leisure.> Agreed. But they don't have the right to demand that others support them with their hard-earned food/money/etc. as others do not owe them a thing. You're free to be lazy, but you should have the decency to do it at your own expense. And if that means you starve, so be it!
    1
  1385.  @chudchadanstud  Including communism's practitioners and supporters themselves.
    1
  1386.  @chudchadanstud  Especially forced selflessness. But then again, socialists were never known for actually practicing what they preach.
    1
  1387. Actually the US sanctions contributed little to Venezuela's decline as Venezuela collapsed 3 years before any sanction was imposed. And how exactly is Scandinavia socialist as it doesn't operate on a command economy like Venezuela does?
    1
  1388. Politicians are property-owners themselves.
    1
  1389. A prime example of why America's Founding Fathers didn't want a democracy.
    1
  1390. Because everyone wants a white-collar 6-figure job.
    1
  1391. Namely Mao's food policies.
    1
  1392. What private job? Cuba hardly has any private industry so to speak.
    1
  1393. No. Venezuela failed because of Venezuela.
    1
  1394.  @Lewis-Legend  No it is right. Chavez and Maduro are the main culprits. The sanctions are of little consequence. Most of Venezuela's difficulties were self-inflicted. And where were you in 2015 when Venezuela collapsed and it wasn't under sanctions yet?
    1
  1395.  @arne4926-x8o  And what's wrong with profit?
    1
  1396. Social is just codeword for state. And what Kim is doing is just par for the course.
    1
  1397. To get away from the high taxes and corrupt left-wing politics of up North, I presume.
    1
  1398. LOL. Is that a joke?
    1
  1399. Or nearby Cuba unless you were a Black Panther member.
    1
  1400.  @陈芹-y9j  But no jobs or economy to put said higher education to good use in.
    1
  1401. One problem, though. Lenin was every bit as brutal.
    1
  1402. <if they cancelled money somehow people would live peacefully maybe solve problems.> While exacerbating and creating other problems.
    1
  1403. Self-sustaining only because of the black market, remittance payments from exiled relatives and favors from other countries.
    1
  1404.  @FNK-1401  Namely White people from neighboring European countries.
    1
  1405.  @ohmnesia  Mostly White people from neighboring European countries.
    1