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[Culise]

Brazil has active death squads however, read Human Rights Watch's summary. Then compare the worst that's mentioned for Venezuela. They don't even hint at targeted killings against dissidents being a thing in Venezuela, unlike Brazil.

So the whole "human rights" angle is bullshit politics.

Err, yes?  I just don't agree that the entire suspension process is "bullshit politics," nor do I believe that Colombia's status as an associate member somehow proves that Venezuela's suspension as a full member is somehow proof of this.  I believe there are actual, pragmatic reasons for the suspension.  Human rights are just a fig leaf, smoke to mask the economic practicalities. 

[Reelya]

Ironically, the average inflation for Brazil from 1980-now is 370%

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/inflation-cpi

Although a lot of the claims about how Venezuela's economy is doing don't seem to be born out by actual statistics. Yes, inflation is high, but some articles were claiming people only makes $100 a month. but that's strongly contradicted by World Bank figures which suggest that Venezuela has a higher GDP per Capita than nearby regions such as Brazil.

[Culise]

Ironically, the average inflation for Brazil from 1980-now is 370%

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/inflation-cpi

I choose to believe you aren't being deliberately disingenuous here, but including a data point of 6821.31% that predates the beginning of Mercosur is, for obvious reasons, going to skew the data quite a bit.  Besides that, it's just tacky.  You'll note that, after the Real Plan (which to be fair took place three years after the start of Mercosur), Brazilian inflation has been much more consistent, and consistently low at that, at least in relative terms. (EDIT) Moreover, the four countries that entered into Mercosur entered into it knowing Brazil's inflationary state already; by contrast, Venezuela's economic deficiencies only became clear after.

[Teneb]

The human rights stuff is most definitely there to make the suspension look better. Right now, Venezuela is a shithole. Brasil's (and Argentina's) government, no matter if left or right, only really cares about Venezuela's economical side. Which, right now, is in deep shit. Maduro is going full Glorious Leader #2, and that is never good for business.. Chavez may have been reprehensible in many ways, but he smart enough to not try what his successor is doing right now.

Paraguay's sidelining, meanwhile, was all political. The coup that happened there removed a leader that was pro-Brasil/Argentina and put in one that wasn't.
Fora Temer

Ironically, the average inflation for Brazil from 1980-now is 370%

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/inflation-cpi

I choose to believe you aren't being deliberately disingenuous here, but including a data point of 6821.31% that predates the beginning of Mercosur is, for obvious reasons, going to skew the data quite a bit.  Besides that, it's just tacky.  You'll note that, after the Real Plan (which to be fair took place three years after the start of Mercosur), Brazilian inflation has been much more consistent, and consistently low at that, at least in relative terms. (EDIT) Moreover, the four countries that entered into Mercosur entered into it knowing Brazil's inflationary state already; by contrast, Venezuela's economic deficiencies only became clear after.

Yeah, the whole point of the Real was to keep inflation in line, in which it was a clear success.

[Reelya]

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gdp-per-capita

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp-per-capita

As you can see, Venezuela took a steep cut in GDP per capita in 2016. But Brazil suffered the exact same thing at the exact same time. So whatever is going on that cut into Venezuelan GDP per capita, Brazil are just about the last people who have the right to point the finger, on that or on human rights.

Venezuelans still have higher GDP per capita than Brazil despite the drops. So the thing is, they never give you the full picture. Venezuela is on the high side of income in South America, not the low side. Brazil is more of a shit-hole, more poverty. They just don't tell you about it constantly. Here's
"successful" Colombia's GDP per capital, it didn't suffer a fall like Brazil and Venezuela did, but they only make about 60% what those countries earn:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/colombia/gdp-per-capita

So this is more about politics, not economics. The economics of Venezuela is pretty average: some good things, some bad things, compared to their neighbours. The same for human rights: though they have less recorded political killings than "successful" countries like Colombia and Brazil, which have much more political violence and MORE poverty. So yes, it is all about politics here.

[Reelya]

. Chavez may have been reprehensible in many ways, but he smart enough to not try what his successor is doing right now.

How was Chavez reprehensible? He kept inflation WAY down compared to the people before him, growth was pretty high, and his government killed WAY less people (none) than his predecessors.

I mean, you might have been influenced because of all the articles that have hammered home "chavez is a  bad guy" when in fact, there's basically no specifics people can ever point to, to show what bad things Chavez is supposed to have done.

He didn't like GS Bush's War on Terror. That's why they tell you how "reprehensible" he is. Meanwhile your own government was cheering on Mr Death Squad Uribe in Colombia, whom people don't think is "reprehensible" because the American media either praised him or ignored him.

[Teneb]

Yeah, okay, I spoke out of my backside there. At least this made me rethink the situation. I'd like to say, though, that in no way I believe my government, current or previous, is morally or ethically good. They will cheer on any SA leader who they believe they can profit from, and try to screw over the rest.

[Reelya]

One example of a story that made the rounds was about the army of socialist bikers who apparently ruled the streets in Venezuela, and were Chavez's personal army. That sounds scary, but then you think, when was the last time you met one socialist biker, let alone an entire army of them. Well someone went and videoed them in all their glory. It turns out there were "bikers" except they were  skinny college kids on motor scooters and 250cc bikes, usually with their girlfriend on the back waving the national flag, and the main weapon they wielded was the mobile phone.

Yet the journalist still managed to tell a tale how they were a secret army that would be made an official wing of the Venezuelan army (hint: it never happened: there's still no Venezuelan army of liberals on scooters). Basically what you heard and what you saw were 180 degrees apart, and this is sort of average reporting on Venezuela. The mainstream media in Venezuelas use tactics extremely similar to the alt-right in America does against Obama, Chavez and Obama even got the exact same mash-ups, e.g. merging their faces with Osama Bin Laden and the like, which makes 0% sense in either case.

The most "questionable" thing Chavez did was try and overthrow the Venezuelan government in 1992. But then you read about the 1989 Caracazo in which the government suspended the constitution and killed somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand protestors against their right-wing economic agenda (which was a "surprise" reform that contradicted their election promises). Chavez's overthrow attempt was in response to the massacres the then-government had conducted.

[Culise]

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gdp-per-capita

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp-per-capita

As you can see, Venezuela took a steep cut in GDP per capita in 2016. But Brazil suffered the exact same thing at the exact same time. So whatever is going on that cut into Venezuelan GDP per capita, Brazil are just about the last people who have the right to point the finger, on that or on human rights.

Venezuelans still have higher GDP per capita than Brazil despite the drops. So the thing is, they never give you the full picture. Venezuela is on the high side of income in South America, not the low side. Brazil is more of a shit-hole, more poverty. They just don't tell you about it constantly. Here's
"successful" Colombia's GDP per capital, it didn't suffer a fall like Brazil and Venezuela did, but they only make about 60% what those countries earn:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/colombia/gdp-per-capita

So this is more about politics, not economics. The economics of Venezuela is pretty average: some good things, some bad things, compared to their neighbours. The same for human rights: though they have less recorded political killings than "successful" countries like Colombia and Brazil, which have much more political violence and MORE poverty. So yes, it is all about politics here.

It's not just about GDP per capita; that's more useful to determine average standards of living (and that is more useful if calculated in terms of purchasing power parity rather than nominal figures, at least for domestic consumption).  If it were, China would be considered to have an economy worse than St. Lucia or, given that your site appears to be using World Bank nominal figures rather than IMF figures or PPP, Lebanon.  Your own site agrees with me that Venezuela's economy is less powerful than Brazil's due to sheer mass. 

I'm also confused why you keep harping on Colombia; again, it's not a full member of Mercosur.  It is irrelevant to which full members of Mercosur get suspended or not. 

[Reelya]

If you're going to bring up PPP as if it contradicts the argument then you should look up the figures for that, which isn't hard. Venezuela still beats out Brazil and Colombia on that measure. So if they're that systematically impoverished, as the mainstream media makes out, you have to ask why no mainstream source has data that supports that idea. And if the "data is wrong" then what is the basis of the claims? In other words the claims are either flat-out wrong, or they're purely anecdotal claims not based on credible data sources.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gdp-per-capita-ppp
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp-per-capita-ppp
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/colombia/gdp-per-capita-ppp

I mention Colombia and Brazil because those two nations along with Venezuela are large and nearby, they're the best comparative measure of whether Venezuela is a basketcase, or average for the region. If you're going to make an argument that things are especially bad in Venezuela due to some specific quality that they have, then the litmus test is that they are indeed worse at that thing than their similarly-developed neighbors.

Colombia is noteworthy, because it has a population similar-sized to Venezuela, and is often mentioned as being economically and democratically successful by the American media in contrast to how they cover Venezuela, despite virtually everything being more horrible in Colombia (higher poverty, mass murders by state actors).

similarly, you might say "well Venezuela has more poverty" but you can check that too. Colombia drooped from 44% to 32% poverty 2004-2014: 12% down in 10 years.
http://colombiareports.com/poverty-levels-continue-fall-colombia-according-government-stats/
Poverty went down from 50% of the population before Chavez, to about 30% in 2013: 20% down in 15 years. So Venezuela saw bigger poverty reductions than Colombia.
http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/venezuela/overview

As for inequality:

Inequality also decreased, as reflected in the decrease in the Gini Index, from 0.49 in 1998 to 0.40 in 2012, among the lowest rates in the region.

Meanwhile inequality in Colombia has skyrocketed. Their Gini Coefficient is 0.535, one of the highest in the world.
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-latin-americas-2nd-unequal-country-honduras/

Some media outlets are trying to claim that Venezuela has an 80% poverty rate. but that's just plain impossible. They have one of the highest GDP per capita of nearby countries, and one of the lowest rates of income inequality. It's just not credible or good journalism to cite sensationalist stuff like 80% poverty because there are no credible economic sources that back that up, nor is it credible given the World Banks 2013 figures that we have on record.

~~~

[Reelya]

Sorry for the double post, this will be the last one. I just wanted to highlight the type of story they run about Venezuela doom and gloom, and how even the most cursory checking of factual independent sources reveals how much bullshit there is:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-26/steak-is-one-more-thing-that-s-disappearing-in-venezuela

Steak Is One More Thing That's Disappearing in Venezuela
A "way of life" is fading in the country's economic crisis

This year, steak-loving Venezuela has gone from being the world's second-biggest cattle importer to bringing in almost none, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A drop of 127,000 cows so far this year.

Oh yes, a "way of life" is going away because of the socialists. Except for the fact that beef consumption is massively higher than it was before Chavez was even elected:

http://beef2live.com/story-venezuela-beef-production-imports-consumption-1960-2015-0-120921
1998 - 415,000 metric tons of beef consumed
2015 - 590,000 metric tons of beef consumed, an increase of 10000 metric tons per year.

A cow is about 440 pounds of beef, from sources, which is about 200 kilos, so 1/5th of a metric ton. So 127000 cows is ~12700 metric tons. Or about 1 years worth of the increase in beef consumption in Venezuela since Chavez was elected. So instead of the 2015 level of consumption, their "way of life" has receded back to the 2014 "way of life" level of consumption.

[Culise]

I didn't bring up PPP as it contradicts the argument; that was an ancillary statement on the worth of nominal GDP per capita.  It seems I lost a sentence in the final tweaks, and I apologize for that; what I brought up was the total GDP of Brazil versus the total GDP of Venezuela.  For easy reference:
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/gdp
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/brazil/gdp

I will also note that I didn't say the data itself is wrong; I will state explicitly that you were and apparently still are misusing it.  As noted, using GDP per capita as per your logic, China is a worse economy than several Caribbean islands, which what I would term a rather curious conclusion.  Perhaps it can be concluded that it is better for an individual person to live in the latter rather than the former, but it is unusual to use these data points to conclude that the economies of the latter are more powerful than the former.  Things like inequality, GDP per capita (either nominal or PPP), poverty rates, or mass murders by state actors aren't actually in themselves sole indicators of total economic power or market size.

Also, I would note that if you're using records from 2013 (which seems odd; your own site disagrees on that account), your records predate the present economic state in Venezuela and, indeed, there's a good chance they predate the death of Hugo Chavez in that year.  I didn't even think to check the date of your numbers, but that is a significant issue.  The IMF, for instance, expects Venezuelan inflation to pass 700% this year; this is an order of magnitude greater than Colombia and Brazil, or even Argentina.

I'm curious, though, given your statements that Venezuela is entirely average, are you arguing that there is no crisis in Venezuela at all?  I was unaware of a need for military to take control of food shipments, or of privation even in hospitals.  Venezuelan oil production has tanked compared to their peers in the production of crude, and opening the border has led to Venezuelans entering Colombia for food, which seems odd if Colombia is such a basketcase compared to Venezuela.  My apologies if Al Jazeera and RT are Western sources, but if those are not preferred, I'm not certain which other sources you would prefer.

[Reelya]

Sorry mate, but that's why I specifically compared just three countries which are close to each other, and of fairly similar size. Comparing and island to the largest nation on earth of course is not going to be meaningful. Nobody would expect a small island to be as "powerful" as China, that is a non-sequiter. A country can only be judged based on success compared to similar countries. I also used the most recent numbers which are published, from each source. I did not cherry pick. But people have been constantly making the argument that "but the current figures are worse!!!" since Chavez was elected, saying if we only had the next 6-12 months of data that aren't published, then we'd realize how horrible it really is.

Ok let's look at your data. I wasn't sure what your point was, but I'm guess it's that "Brazil has more GDP". While that's true, they also have 200 million people, compared to 30 million Venezuelans. Claiming that Chavez "failed" because he didn't manage to have a small country out-produce Brazil is kinda a fucking retarded argument. I certainly hope that's not the argument you were implying, because it's d.u.m.b.

So how did Venezuela and Brazil fair relatively from 2006-2014. Real GDP increased by 200+% (tripled) in Venezuela (US $183 billion to $509 billion), which was an increase of $326 billion in total economic activity, while Brazil grew from $1107 billion to $1774 billion, which is a 60% increase, or an icrease of $667 billion, so Venezuela's GDP grew at more than triple the rate of Brazil for an 8 year period, and each Venezuelan generated additional GDP equal to 3 Brazilians.

Notably, 2014 saw a massive growth spike in Venezuelan GDP, yet weren't the media also only talking doom and gloom at that point? Was there any news telling you their economy went from $371 billion to $509 billion in a single year? That's a 37% growth rate in one year. And they didn't even report it. And you still trust them?

And these are not new "doom and gloom narratives" they've been constant, even across the times when Venezuela was objectively booming from 2006-2014.

[Culise]

Sorry mate, but that's why I specifically compared just three countries which are close to each other, and of fairly similar size.

Comparing and island to the largest nation on earth of course is not going to be meaningful. Nobody would expect a small island to be as "powerful" as China, that is a non-sequiter. A country can only be judged based on success compared to similar countries.

I used the most recent numbers which are published, from each source. I did not cherry pick. But people have been using the "but the current figures are worse!!!" argument since Chavez was elected. It's been the constant claim for almost 15 years now, that if we only had the next 6-12 months of data that aren't published, then we'd realize how horrible it really is.

The problem is that GDP per capita is not used to compare the power of economies in the first place; picking nearby or distant nations has nothing to do with that.  GDP per capita is better used to track a country's standards of living.  It might be worthwhile as an indicator of market strength (EDIT: that is, the effective purchasing power of a citizen of that nation abroad), but not so much of economic strength as a whole.  The reason I bring it up as an example is because according to the superficial logic you presented in your posts, such a non-sequitur would apparently be expected.    I invite you again to make the case, contrary to the uses by others, that GDP per capita should be used instead of total GDP to describe the comparative strength of the economies of entire nations to each other.  I also ask you why GDP per capita should be uniquely useful for comparing the oil-producing Venezuela to the relatively diversified, non-oil-dependent economies of Colombia or Brazil, when the artificially-inflationary effect of oil production on GDP per capita is well-known.

I also wouldn't particularly concern myself about the constant claim for almost 15 years now; it's irrelevant, as far as I can determine.  I'm well aware of the wolf-calling by the opposition, and I am rather unconvinced to say the least of their merits as leaders, but I will note that the present inflation numbers are given in the very link I gave, if you read it.  They are *already* an order of magnitude over their peers.  If you want me to use only the particular source you've linked, and to track actual standards of living locally rather than total economic power, then I suggest the following statistics:

Food Inflation: (inflation indexed to food prices)
Venezuela: 315% (2015)
Colombia: 8.53% (2016)
Brazil: 12.41% (2016)

Inflation Rate (Consumer Price Index):
Venezuela: 180.9% (2015) - official Venezuelan figures; present unofficial calculations put it much higher
Colombia: 6.48% (2016)
Brazil: 7.87% (2016)

There's a reason why news sources are reporting rising food prices and food shortages in Venezuela, even from non-Western sources; they're not lying. 

Also, just to note, not all island countries can be expected to be "better" than China: Haiti and several Pacific island nations confirm that.

EDIT: Aah.  Basic sanity check on some glitchiness on my part.

[Reelya]

But those food inflation figures are in their own fiat currency. Since they can print that, looking at values in raw US dollars is actually more meaningful for the overall health of an economy. e.g. if you look at minimum wage, it's kept pace with inflation, while the unemployment rate is 7.3%, which is less than the USA during their own recent crisis.
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/minimum-wages
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/unemployment-rate

The main source of the inflation is actually artificial and external. It's because of the oil money, which is dependent on global oil prices. This has happened to Venezuela before.

Venezuela gets a constant stream of US dollars into the economy. When the oil price fell, less dollars come in, making dollars more scarce, pushing up their price. And the GFC created a very large sudden drop in the oil price. People then start seeing an opportunity and start hoarding dollars to make a profit. The more that gets hoarded, the faster the price goes up (artificial scarcity), and at this point the process accelerates itself without needing an external engine. The problem is that to get off that train, you need to either flood the market with US dollars to stop people hoarding it (too expensive), print more money to keep the real liquidity the same (easy but puts the problem off), or restrict the money supply (crashes the economy).