Germany's Lufthansa suspends flights to cash-strapped Venezuela

[Marksman_91]

Source: Deutsche Welle

Germany's flagship carrier Lufthansa on Friday suspended flights to Venezuela until further notice, ending 45 years of service to the capital Caracas due to the country's economic meltdown.

"The difficult economic circumstances in Venezuela and the inability to transfer local currency into US dollars have led to this decision," Lufthansa spokesman Thomas Jachnow told DW.

In addition to declining demand for the three flights per week from Lufthansa's hub in Frankfurt to Caracas, Venezuela also owes the airline hundreds of millions of dollars.

Read more: www.dw.com/en/germanys-lufthansa-suspends-flights-to-cash-strapped-venezuela/a-19338574

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Another wonderful "success" story from the Chavista regime. Wonder how many useful idiots here will applaud this turn of events.

[Just reading posts]

1. Can't blame them.

Venezuela also owes the airline hundreds of millions of dollars.

Wow.

[Marksman_91]

2. But see, according to our resident useful idiots of the left, it's all the US/CIA's doing!

They are OBVIOUSLY behind Venezuela's economic woes, not at all the current chavista ruling party which leadership has funnily enough become multimillionaires since they took power. Wonder if they achieved that wealth through their government salary...

[7962]

4. Yes, its brought about by the british & US media. According to one response I got.

Apparently we're only getting ONE side of the REAL story.
Ridiculous

[LiberalLovinLug]

8. Yeah, stupid idiots

As if the CIA, or any other organization that represents the international monied class would ever stoop to anything nefarious or covert and try and destabilize a brazen socialist regime with a (former) popular charismatic leader that wants to nationalize oil companies and hand out free stuff like education and literacy for the poor. Stupid leftists, I mean there hasn't been one case in history of that ever happening right? What a bunch of morans.

[Marksman_91]

10. Yea, yea, we've heard that sorry excuse many times now

But after 18 years of ruling, and with each becoming more authoritarian than the next and with more and more central planning (state-owned businesses account for about 70% of Venezuelan production now), the only ones to blame for the country's dire situation is the Chavista government itself and nothing more, and each day they do everything they can to hide their colossal failure. Thankfully we live in the digital age now, where it's hard for governments to hide the truth anymore. I suggest following the Twitter feed from non-government affiliated Venezuelans. They tend to show more of the truth about what's going on than what the state-controlled/sanctioned news channels do.

[LiberalLovinLug]

11. "sorry excuse"?

So you actually do believe that its all fantasy. The CIA had nothing to do with Pinochet in Chile for instance. Okay.

The Chavista government (democratically elected), no doubt have adopted the 'circle the wagons' mentality. I'm not saying they have not overstepped in areas. I'm sure they have been shocked back to reality, from the heady times of their first big victory, that there is a very powerful class, from all corners of the world, not just in the US, that had/have a capital investment in some industry or another in Venezuela, that will be hell-bent and work tireless and fund any anti-Chavez group within the country, while building any economic hurdles they can from outside the country to make them stumble.

Chavez and Maduro have been stubborn. They do not want to let their country sink back to a neo colonist playground for the moneyed elite. Have they themselves been corrupted by wealth and power as far as making themselves better off? I'm not going to say they haven't, I don't know. But what government in the world has definitely NOT been? Its human nature unfortunately. IMO it doesn't undo the good they have done in helping thousands, millions with education and healthcare. And also raised awareness in South America that their countries did not have to bow to subservience to this moneyed elites who tell them they cannot have education or healthcare because their profits are more important. For that alone Chavez deserves a ton of credit.

Those that have been working to destabilize and impoverish this government were counting on the Chavista government to eventually get desperate and act out. When outside forces have unlimited funds for opposition papers for instance, they have a hard choice to either shut those down, and look like assholes, or just let it happen. Maybe that was a mistake. Its a dammed if I do, dammed if I don't.

Maybe it is/was a mistake to adopt this aggressive defense of their government that was a huge sore spot for the billionaire neo colonist class that had for decades, centuries, just assumed they could take whatever they wanted and back whatever leader they could buy off in South America to squeeze their own people into dire poverty all to raise their profit margins from this countries own natural resources.

But what I do not get is that while some of us can admit to the overstepping and lashing out by this government, trying to desparatly retain some of the progressive advancements in their country, and fight poverty, those of you on the other side just laugh off the idea that there was any forces at all that painted them into this corner. That its all the fault of Chavez or Democratic Socialism (even though its working just fine in European countries)

I just think its a sad situation all round. I can see the day when Venezuela may eventually be "stable" again with a right of center regime that welcomes back international private takeover of their resources and declares austerity measures for their own citizens, taking away the rights and access to services that only a democratic socialist system can deliver.

[EX500rider]

12. "popular charismatic leader that wants to nationalize oil companies"

Venezuela nationalized their oil back in the mid-'70's.

The US and/or the CIA is not against education and literacy for the poor.

[LiberalLovinLug]

14. There may have been some of that but Chavez took nationalizing much further, not just oil

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-election-nationalizations-idUSBRE89701X20121008

OIL

* In 2007, Chavez's government took a majority stake in four oil projects in the vast Orinoco heavy crude belt worth an estimated $30 billion in total.

Exxon Mobil Corp and ConocoPhillips quit the country as a result and filed arbitration claims. Late last year, an arbitration panel ordered Venezuela to pay Exxon $908 million, though a larger case is still ongoing.

France's Total SA and Norway's StatoilHydro ASA received about $1 billion in compensation after reducing their holdings. Britain's BP Plc and America's Chevron Corp remained as minority partners.

* In 2008, Chavez's administration implemented a windfall tax of 50 percent for prices over $70 per barrel, and 60 percent on oil over $100. Oil reached $147 that year, but soon slumped.

* In 2009, Chavez seized a major gas injection project belonging to Williams Cos Inc and a range of assets from local service companies. This year, the energy minister said the government would pay $420 million to Williams and one of its U.S. partners, Exterran Holdings, for the takeover.

* In June 2010, the government seized 11 oil rigs from Oklahoma-based Helmerich & Payne Inc.

..........

And that last statement is quite naive. I'm sure if you asked some individual that works for the CIA, even the top brass, in a friendly conversation if they are against education and literacy for the poor you will get an enthusiastic NO...of course not!

But there is a vast history of their actions either overthrowing governments that had literacy, education, and healthcare as key platforms, and/or installed puppet dictators that hit the poorest the hardest including labor unions.

Pinochet again:

http://articles.latimes.com/1998/apr/19/business/fi-40835

Only this, the awesome power unleashed against its own population, not Flanigan's "awesome power of ideas," made it possible to impose "reforms" in accord with the "open market concepts" that Flanigan applauds.

What did these reforms achieve? Even by the usual numbers, the regime and its "Chicago boys" were a failure. Gross national income per capita, according to the World Bank, was $1,660 in 1973, the year of the coup, and it dropped steadily for the next dozen years, barely recovering to the same level, or $1,680, in constant 1987 dollars, as of 1988, the year Pinochet was overwhelmingly rejected in a national plebiscite. Only after the freely elected president took office did these figures rise significantly.

The CIA along with the MIC work for Corporate America. They pave their way in other countries, ones that their co-conspirators in the MSM keep Americans in the dark about, or paint them as evil (Like Chavez) if the country is too big to be ignored.

Its not that the CIA thinks they are purposely doing anything wrong, quite the opposite. They have simply taken the position that facilitating the largest conglomerates that are based in the US to get a bigger market share of some indiustry or another, IS the most important patriotic way to push the interests of the country as a whole. What they ignore is that the blowback (ie. ISIS) and the unintended consequences (RW dictatorships that curb union, teachers, church leaders, and dismantle programs like those that help poor farmers compete with the giant American corporate farms etc) that occur. That kind of collateral damage just is not important.

That is a failed viewpoint though. It creates a larger and larger divide between the rich and the poor. It causes disent and anger.

Chavez and Murado particularly had a choice after years and years of attacks by not only the CIA. Either give up meekly and hand it back to same right wing authoritarians and admit they lost, despite being re-elected time and time again....or.....

initiate more drastic measures to ensure that their social reforms continued, and that the international corporate community could not just walk back in and then walk all over them and the Venezuelan people once again.

They chose the latter. It was really a no win situation. Because they were basically daring the corporate oligarchy with "thankyou sir, may I have another". They really have no defense when the richest most powerful people in the world are colluding against you. They were seen as a huge threat. This socialist democratic wave could sweep through SA like dominoes. Especially after their worst fears took place when Evo Morales became president of Bolivia a few years later.

[EX500rider]

15. "but Chavez took nationalizing much further'

Yes, by stealing the equipment of companies they had hired to extract oil. Now they have no help and oil production has fallen like a rock because of it.



And all Venz.'s problems are self inflicted. You can't have tough currency and price controls during rapid inflation (also govt caused) companies run out of dollars to buy imports and people run out of money to buy goods due to the world's worse inflation.

[LiberalLovinLug]

19. "all Venz.'s problems are self inflicted"

see that's where you lose me.

The world is not as black and white as you want it to be.

[Marksman_91]

21. HA! That's what I tell every one here who says the US is responsible for every cat stuck up a tree

[anigbrowl]

17. When you need to reach back 40 years for your example...

Maybe it's not such a good one any more. Nobody disputes that the CIA has historically interfered in Latin America. But that fact doesn't meant it must necessarily be doing the same thing now. None of the other countries in the region, several of whom lean quite left, seem to be having the same sort of problems Venezuela is.

[LiberalLovinLug]

20. Oh of course they are playing by the rules now

and would never dream of interfering with another countries elected government or its economy. Even if it meant giving up billions of investments, and an established hegemony over the continent and allowing a symbol of anti-American imperialism to flourish and inspire others in the region.

[Marksman_91]

22. The US is Venezuela's biggest trading partner, and the country that buys most of its oil

Clearly you have no idea what you're talking about

[LiberalLovinLug]

23. Everything is white hats or black hats to you

The US was caught eavesdropping on German diplomats
they were caught hacking Brazil's communications
Israel was caught spying on the US

They are not all enemies now.

So if that can happen with "friendly" countries, cannot you understand that a covert orchestrated attack can still take place to replace an unfriendly government, but still keep business going at the same time. Businesses that will carry on long after Maduro leaves office.

[Marksman_91]

24. Maduro and co. recently met with Kerry to negotiate God knows what

And Thomas Shannon, the White House envoy to Venezuela, will be coming in the next few days there. And a few months ago, Diosdado Cabello (chavismo's #2 man) was all happily hugging with Shannon in Haiti along with the Venezuelan foreign minister.

They absolutely know that the US is not causing the country's problems. They're the ones who made themselves multimillionaires by stealing Venezuelans' oil money. Tell me, how is it possible that Venezuela progressed more in the Pre-Chavez years with oil prices even lower than today, while under Chavez and now Maduro, and with oil prices having been over $90 for a good 15 years, it all went to shit?

[Jazzgirl]

13. Seriously!

Looks like somebody needs to read Economic Hit Man. I would not be surprised if the US engineered the crisis. They hate anything in this hemisphere that is slightly left and just about every south American country that is left has been targeted. Lets see if they do anything to Canada with Trudeau. Oops.....probably won't bother him. Figure that out.

[FLPanhandle]

16. Economic Hit Man?

I read it, and anyone with an IQ laughed their asses off at it. It was such a load of bullshit.

[EX500rider]

18. That book is nonsense..

Columnist Sebastian Mallaby of The Washington Post reacted sharply to Perkins' book:"This man is a frothing conspiracy theorist, a vainglorious peddler of nonsense, and yet his book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, is a runaway bestseller." Mallaby, who spent 13 years writing for the London Economist and wrote a critically well-received biography of World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, holds that Perkins' conception of international finance is "largely a dream" and that his "basic contentions are flat wrong". For instance he points out that Indonesia reduced its infant mortality and illiteracy rates by two-thirds after economists persuaded its leaders to borrow money in 1970. He also disputes Perkins' claim that 51 of the top 100 world economies belong to companies. A value-added comparison done by the UN, he says, shows the number to be 29.
Other sources, including articles in The New York Times and Boston Magazine as well as a press release issued by the United States Department of State, have referred to a lack of documentary or testimonial evidence to corroborate the claim that the NSA was involved in his hiring to Chas T. Main. In addition, the author of the State Department release states that the NSA "is a cryptological (codemaking and codebreaking) organization, not an economic organization" and that its missions do not involve "anything remotely resembling placing economists at private companies in order to increase the debt of foreign countries". Economic historian Niall Ferguson writes in his book The Ascent of Money that Perkins's contention that the leaders of Ecuador (President Jaime Roldós Aguilera) and Panama (General Omar Torrijos) were assassinated by US agents for opposing the interests of the owners of their countries' foreign debt "seems a little odd" in light of the fact that in the 1970s the amount of money that the US had lent to Ecuador and Panama accounted for less than 0.4% of the total US grants and loans, while in 1990 the exports from the US to those countries accounted for approximately 0.4% of the total US exports (approximately $8 billion). According to Ferguson, those "do not seem like figures worth killing for"

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

[7962]

3. A little late to the club, guys. And you'll NEVER see your money either.

Another notch in the belt of failure for the "Revolution"
What a sad joke.

[Just reading posts]

6. All they can do is cut their losses.

[msongs]

5. democratic socialist. venezuela can have them lol nt

[TipTok]

7. Probably worried they'd strip the plane for parts...

... snacks and meds from passenger luggage.

[7962]

9. Ha!