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Breathing The Air In Venezuela? Prepare To Pay
There is something to be said about every socialist paradise in the history of socialist paradises: they always run out of other people's money. And when they do, stuff like this happens: the biggest international airport in Venezuela is charging a fee for the right to inhale clean air.
As BBC correctly notes, we're used to a seemingly endless range of taxes and surcharges when we fly - passenger taxes, departure taxes, fuel levies. But Maiquetia International Airport in Caracas has taken this a step further - passengers flying out now have to pay 127 bolivars tax ($20) for the air they breathe.
Wait, a tax to breathe the air? Why yes - it is meant to cover the cost of a newly-installed system which uses ozone to purify the building's air conditioning system. A press release from the Ministry of Water and Air Transport says it's the first airport in South America and the Caribbean to use the technology, which it claims will eliminate bacterial growth to "protect the health of travellers," as well as deodorizing and sanitising the building.
Needless to say, the denizens of the socialist paradise are all but enthused. From BBC:
But with tickets out of the country already expensive and scarce because of Venezuela's economic crisis, many on social media have responded to the tax with both humour and outrage.
Radio presenter Daniel Martínez tweeted: "Could you explain to me the ozone thing in Maiquetia? The toilets don't have water, the air-con is broken, there are stray dogs inside the airport, but there's ozone?"
"Soon we will be charged for the 'good gas'" was another tweet - a rueful reference to the tear gas that the police often use on opposition protesters. The satirical news blog El Chiguire Bipolar ran the headline: "Maiquetia Airport unveils robot that puts you upside-down and takes your money."
Some Venezuelans on social media fear the tax could end up being a new source of corruption. Others see it as evidence of how short of cash the airport is. Most international airlines have reduced the number of flights to the country because of a financial dispute with the Venezuelan government.
Depending who you ask, the tax is funny, infuriating, or just one more surreal aspect of a country that has the biggest oil reserves in the world, yet at the same time has shortages of toilet paper and sugar.
And in a "developed world" obsessed with minizing the impact of fossil fuels and maximizing the size of friendly totalitarian governments everywhere, and which is one reserve currency announcement away from being far more insolvent than Venezuela, one can be sure that Venezuela's experiment with air trax is coming to a socialist paradise near you.
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I guess Total Recall came early this year :-)
The Global Warmists must be so jealous that despite spending hundreds of billion lying to the western world masses, they were unable to con them into a carbon tax, aka, taxing the right to breathe air. Instead, dumb, stupid Venezuela, pulls off the financial coup of the century ( biggest scam since the Fed Reserve) and convinces the local populace to buy into this fraud.
Suck it Al Gore!
Taxing people to breathe...Why didn't we liberals think of it first?!
i guess SPACE BALLS was way ahead of its time!
I can provide my own brand of air if they'd like and I'll only charge them a can of beans.
Nothing says third-world like stray dogs in the airport.
TSA mothafuckas are stray dawgs. Do we count?
You have insulted a very large number of crafty canines. Good day!
Not as insulting as having a cancer-scan or an 'ol fashoined groparoo from these paedophiles.
Venzuela is prime target for a coup by the US state dept. Has anyone seen Nuland handing out cookies down there. With all that oil sitting in the ground waiting for US corporations its a waiting game.
Amazing the amount of bad press about the country from MSM
How about stray dogs in Olympic athletes hotel corridors?
or how about when the President of a country decides he can kill anyone he likes?
Hint,...it's all the third world now.
I'm waiting for medicinal marijuana air to become available in all US airports. You can't get anything easier than that. Why waste the effort of lighting up when its provided by the ventilation system.....people will willingly pay $20 for that.
Holy Cow!! Why don't they just tax us for exhaling a greenhouse gas (CO2)??
Oh wait.....
http://bikeportland.org/2013/03/02/wa-legislator-cyclists-increased-resp...
Tax the breathers!
(And subsidize free air for the rest of us liberals)
Fucking socialists, I swear.
You didn't build that...air.
MDB did it better.
But keep workin on it ;-)
It's not a tax. This is something a good capitalist would do you stupid Capitalist cunts should learn from them.
When I teach my 10 year old the ways of the world we live in, I rouinely remind him that absolutely nothing is free in this world except for AIR....and now in one part of the world absolutely nothing is free
"Come on Cohagen, give those people air!"
"Fuck them, it'll be a lesson to the others."
Gives a new meaning to the word "AIR LINES".
Idiot Utopians...
Whats the fine for farting???...two years in jail?
"Whats the fine for farting???...two years in jail?"
-----Oldwood
Well, looks like I'm in for a life sentence after that burrito I just ate.
ever eat at Mexico 1900 in La Mirada, CA? 1 fart down, 1899 to go.
It's a misdemeanor on Malawi.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12363852
And in a town in Indonesia it's 20 lashes to 3 months. But thta's just for women.
http://www.thefrisky.com/2013-04-08/women-in-indonesian-province-have-been-banned-from-farting/
Obama is so happy with the results Social Justice Campaigners achieved in Venuzuela, he has decided to import them to help create a similar economic miracle in the US.
It creates jobz.
The Hollies...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7duPNQCp-w4
...and twenty or two.
Oue Rico Papi! Still the hottest broke ass chicks in the world. Viva Socialismo!
Amen, brother. Que viva!
I love those nude beaches......wonder if they tax your eyeballs?
I would gladly pay for mouth to mouth resuscitation lessons at the airport from some of those hot Venezuelan chicks
Too late, Tylers. It's already here in the US. The TSA just raised a fee/surtax on all airline tickets - up to an exta $22 per flight.
The punchline: the fee will be used to PAY DOWN THE NATIONAL DEFICIT. And yes, they said that with a straight face. Link:
http://rt.com/usa/172744-tsa-security-fee-rises/
Wow, they must be expecting a big surge in passengers. Let's see... the national debt / 22 bucks, that's allot of airplanes.
Only rich people fly in airplanes. So it's cool.
I, myself, am a Middle Class Shut-InTM. I can live a VERY comfortable middle class life as long as I don't go anywhere or do anything.
Haha, nice to know we're all the same!
somebody's gonna have to go back and get a shitload of dimes !
Speaking of saying things with a straight face:
WH: We've ‘Substantially Improved the Tranquility of the Global Community’
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/wh-weve-substanti...
I'm not sure what's scarier. That he thinks anyone would belive that, or that maybe he believes it himself.
Just thank God that we have big oceans on either side of us and plenty of southern states we can give to Mexico to appease them as they slowly take us over by sheer numbers. Canada is still pretty friendly when it's time to escape the US.
Speaking of saying things with a straight face:
Marc Rich's lawyer (Eric Holder) despite his lack of bringing charges on the Black Panthers in Philly or Lois Lerner at the IRS for "voter intimidation" seems to think we have a problem with, you guessed it, voter intimidation:
“I'm attorney general of the United States. I will not stand for -- I will not allow people to take away that which people gave their lives to give, and that is the ability for the American people to vote,” Holder said."
Really?
And its high time to talk about what "Rule of Law" this man operates under regarding illegal aliens. Is it this one?...
"How we treat those in need, particularly young people who must appear in immigration proceedings, many of whom are fleeing violence, persecution, abuse or trafficking — goes to the core of who we are as a nation," the attorney general said, explaining a program to provide 100 lawyers and paralegals for minors brought here by drug cartels and other human traffickers."
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/071114-708428-eric-holder-deported-alien-minor-elian-gonzalez.htm
Or this one?...
Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy?
Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.
Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.
Holder: We didn’t need an order.
Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?
Holder: [Silence]
Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.
Anyone remember Elian Gonzalez?
Holders duplicity knows no bounds.
NO FUCKING WAY !!!!! bwaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
"salt free air" - I just KNOW Bloomberg has a hand in this and tomorrow Cramer will be pumping
perrier....."back to you Bob pisani"
Sounds like capitalism. I provide you a service ( clean air) and charge for it. If you don't want to pay find an alternative route out of this shit hole. Now if they subsidize some users well that's socialism.
Ozone is a pollutant at ground level.
If you drive a car, I'll tax the street
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet
My GOD, it Senator Seuss!!
If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it
Nah, just the guy from The Inland Revenue, a.k.a. the Tax Man.
Close. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqK97av7I3s
New system? Made where and installed by whom. Satellite shot of the roof of the airport, PRONTO!
Philip K. Dick was psychic.
It's true - he said so.
Do you get a credit if you bring a plant on the plane with you?
LOL I see a massive drop in Maiquetia International Airport traffic. Next they charge by the foot step from the front door to the departure gate.
Coming to the DC US in 3..2..
Note: Ozone , as in O3, is not good for the lungs or body, as it has an extra oxygen on the molecule which comes free during metabolism. So they are taxing, extorting, the people for the unhealthy air that they are pumping into the airport--must be the criminals of government at it again.
The BBC poking at Venezuela for Socialism - that's a bit rich isn't it ?
Even better to recognize the irony LOL.
Paying for what? They already installed it. Charging you to pay for something that's already been built. Troll toll.
Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge? Said the troll to the 1st Billy goat gruff.
Fiood, air, work, smiling, writing your own name....
Vacationing in good ol' Phillippines in the '80's, spent all but $10 and thankfully I had that on me or else I wouldn't have been able to leave. Had to be in USD not country currrency.
Just wait until US airlines get "wind" of this. Mark my words: soon an air charge will be added to all tickets and airplanes will only have pay toilets.
Once upon a time, long, long, ago air travel used to be a fun experience.
Prepare for more inventive tortures by airlines. Soon you will have to remain semi-standing throughout the flight:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/07/14/airbus-want...
Heinlein also predicted this. Sometimes science fiction is a little too prescient for comfort.
Heinlein also predicted this. Sometimes science fiction is a little too prescient for comfort.
Word for word Rand, not that one, all the way down to people and corporations bailing out.
If you like your air, you can keep your air....for a small fee
Pffft, that's nothing, you could pull that deal off in neo-capitalist nirvana Shanghai, and make serious bank.
At least Venezulans get a breath of fresh air. Here in America, courtesy of our tax dollars, some punk at DOJ screams how racist we are, we are ordered to mandatory gay sex indoctrination, and Nicaraguan babies are delivered right to our doorstep, just so the general public can raise dose cutey liddle baby Dem voters. Fckin oh joy.
Now, if they could get Venezulans to pay for sunshine, that would be truely awesome.
Maybe this explains in part why so many younger and not so younger Venzuelans are trying to get to the US by any means possible. I don't like the influx, but wouldn't you try to escape such a sick place?
'Nuff Sed!
Well I'm glad that they at least admit it's to pay for the fancy new airco and don't slap some excuse on it about how you should be always breathing the correct government approved amount of ozone to grow into a good and proper socialist citizen.
They are improving!