"Obsessed"

OK, chief.

Witnessing the slow motion, real-time collapse of a relatively well-off country is very uncommon.

People in the west cheerleading the regime/making excuses for the regime as that country is thrust into the abyss is more uncommon still.

Microbet,

When people think captalists are the enemy and wealth confiscation and limitation are good ideas, Venezuela is the result.

Venezuela is literally right now the worst place on earth. As bad or worst than North Korea. Yes it is interesting to discuss why.

Well, it's not even close to as bad off as Yemen. Living in Venezuela or Gaza isn't too easy of a choice either.

And Venezuela is one result and there's a lot more to it than wealth confiscation, which is something that happens in all the heavily taxed social welfare states.

You are aware that over the 20 years before Chavez took office, Venezuela went through a period where extreme poverty increased at a rate greater than any country in Latin America and where income inequality increased at roughly the same rate, right?

Chavez/Maduro are certainly terrible, but let's not act like the place was a capitalist paradise before they came along.

Venezuela isn't a cautionary tale for the US because of the dangers of socialism, it's a cautiionary tale for when wealth becomes concentrated to the point that 6,000 people have to start gofundme accounts to pay for insulin, which is happening in the US right now.

What the market fundies (and the socialist tankies) don't get is that concentration of power and concentration of money are the same thing and they are both bad.

Concentration of power and money don't have to be the same. In fact, one of the killer apps in US is concentration of money hasn't translated that well to concentration of power. (Relatively speaking to historical and global norms).

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journ...D4893B382B992B

https://www.businessinsider.com/majo...igarchy-2014-4

And I think that's only looking at direct influence on public policy and electoral politics, which are certainly not the only ways in which power is used.

Sick sample size bro.

Iran's economy is also largely controlled by the state. Not only are many industries owned outright by the state, the government controls about half the "private" market.

https://nationalinterest.org/feature...-economy-12925

I dunno, maybe domer is right and it just has nothing to do with socialism.

Iran, Nigeria, Russia, Qatar, UAE, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Angola, Algeria, Venezuela.

All corrupt petro states, Iran Russia & Qatar under sanctions or siege, Iraq occupied by ****ing ISIS yet Venezuela is the only one with an economy in absolute ****. So there's your sample size, bro.

Now some questions for you.

i) What is the sample size of countries other than Venezuela that are in economic collapse like Venezuela (because of falling oil prices or whatever you assign Venezuela's economic performance to)? Please name the countries thank you.

ii) Would you name a few respected, widely cited economists who were in favour, at the time, of Hugo Chavez's economic policies? AFAIK there were zero (because Hugo Chavez: economics is like Climate denial: science) but can you name, say, three?

iii) What is your economic training?

It's a cautionary tale of completely horrible economic policies. Lol at trying to turn it into some kind of right wing failure and wealth distribution problem. The US healthcare failures/wealth inequality are a problem of its own.

Economics is often bull**** and hand-waving but running massive deficit, price-controlling basic products and trying to control the whole economy centrally in already corrupted country... what could go wrong?

I wonder if the no electricity for 1 week is what will break the camel's back.

Apparently the electrical grid problem won't end anytime soon.

There is a chief economist from a NY firm (whos a vocal critic of the Venezuelan government) that pointed out that there's a correlation between US sanctions and the oil prices' failure to stabilize. Obviously it's not the only factor but there's a nice graph showing how Columbia's oil production stabilized and Venezuela's failed about the time the US imposed sanctions and that led to further deterioration.

https://venezuelablog.org/crude-real...omic-collapse/



"But claiming that Maduro’s economic policies have caused a deterioration of living standards in Venezuela is not at odds with accepting the possibility that economic sanctions may have made things even worse. Most phenomena in social sciences have multiple causes. There is no logical reason why Maduro’s incompetence and misguided sanctions cannot both have contributed to the collapse in Venezuelans’ living standards."

"Advocates of sanctions on Venezuela claim that these target the Maduro regime but do not affect the Venezuelan people. If the sanctions regime can be linked to the deterioration of the country’s export capacity and to its consequent import and growth collapse, then this claim is clearly wrong. While the evidence presented in this piece should not be taken as decisive proof of such a link, it is suggestive enough to indicate the need for extreme caution in the design of international policy initiatives that may further worsen the lot of Venezuelans"

Electricity has been out for most of the country since Thursday evening, and it doesn't look to be turned back on anytime soon.

Work and school have been cancelled since Friday.

Access to clean water, which has been rationed for years, has stopped for some of the country due to the lack of electricity.

This article by a Venezuelan reporter also details some of what people are dealing with due to the power outage:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...=.f536dfb3e461

This is a ****ing awful nightmare.

Meanwhile, the Maduro secret police, SEBIN, disappeared one of the most prominent journalists in the country. They are trying to pin the electrical outage on him.

Additionally a renowned and independent law expert, who's done a huge number of reports and investigations for the Un named Alfred-Maurice de Zayas have compared the sanctions to medieval sieges and called them illegal (by international law).

Also: the sanctions cost TWICE AS MUCH, ON A DAILY BASIS as those emergencies that weren't allowed into the country recently.

De Zayas claims that it's cynical of the United states to downright cause an economical crisis through sanctions and blockades and then themselves offer emergency help (which is equivalent to a grain of sand) only to blame the government for not allowing them in (the same government which sponsored more than 120 million cases of emergency food boxes for its people last year.

Also people calling the former election illegimate don't know what's going on. It was the opposition who refused to have UN observers and the EU would only send observers if the two parties could make an agreement about fairness and an equal election, an agreement brokered by the former Spanish prime minister, eventually turned down and not signed by rhe opposition in the end.

Also look up "Orlando figuera, Venezuela" if you want to see oppositional protesters stab and burn people alive, not to mention murdering police officers. (And some of these street fighters have been seen shaking hands with prominent figures from the opposition).

The reality and facts remain that the entire western coverage is extremely biased and right wing. It's a fact. You don't hear these opinions even though they are known and from prominent people (I didn't myself until one of the better national news papers had an independent journalist write a piece). Things were doing well and production of oil was even rising until 2016 when Uncle Sam like so often before decided to shake things up. It's being compared with the faulty coverage of Iraq as a veil for united states strategical purposes.


Edit: and im obviously not trying to say Maduro is a great guy and it's all the usa's fault, I'm just pointing out there is DESPERATE need for nuance in the debate about Venezuela because what is being reported by most western media is unbeliavly narrow and biased.

Venezuela didn't run massive deficits. They were generally inline with similar countries, lower than the US, and much lower than some socialdemocracies like France. (All relative to GDP) Maybe this is where sanctions hurt them so much though. Everyone else runs deficits and can borrow money abroad.

Maybe price-controls are the big economic problem. I'm not sure how unique they were to Venezuela. Maybe just done badly

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but I think you have confused oil prices and oil production. Perhaps you could clear this up.


AMDZ is not a good source. A few months ago he claimed there was no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. He also said Fidel Castro would go down alongise Gandhi and Mandela. And Holocaust deniers love him.

Even if AMDZ was reputable (he is not), you should ask why he's the only go to "reputable" source for the pro-Maduro/Maduro-isn't-that-bad crowd. For instance when 43 advocated for the Iraq war dozens of (genuinely) well respected figures from different countries and political leanings said it was a bad idea. Similarly for the idea of war with Iran, invading Venezuela etc. But for the "U.S is significantly/entirely to blame for Venezuela's woes" the same people who oppose(d) war with Iraq/Iran/Venezuela are mostly crickets. Why is that?

These questions weren't directed at you but I'd be interested in the answers of you and/or any poster who thinks the U.S/"West" bears significant blame for Venezuela's economy.

Nothing you're saying here lines up with reality. You are posting propaganda.

Inflation ramped up significantly in 2013 and 2014, as did the scarcity of food. This led to nationwide protests in 2014. Thus began Venezuela's economic recession, which turned into an economic depression (and now virtually all economic activity has ceased).

Production of oil was constant for 10 or so years, not rising, until around 2016 when it began to freefall. But the first significant US sanctions weren't until August 2017, so your cause/effect are completely backwards.

Also, those sanctions were limited and the US was still Venezuela's largest trading partner -- we were importing tons of Venezuelan oil. That only ended 45 days ago, by which point Venezuelan oil production had fallen by over 50%.

Oil production decline was not due to the US, who was sending them large amounts of cash for the oil, but country-scale theft and corruption. The military "runs" virtually every aspect of Venezuelan life, including the oil sector.

It's unclear what you are talking about here, but I assume the "120 million cases of emergency food boxes" are CLAP boxes? If so, you are wildly confused. This is basic sustenance, not some sort of aid. CLAP is also notorious for corruption.

The Venezuelan government has long denied allowing humanitarian aid into the country. Only within the past few months has the Red Cross and WHO been able to trickle in supplies, nowhere near enough.

This is why Venezuelans have been losing weight; this is why there are penniless refugees showing up by the hundreds of thousands in Colombia and Brazil; and this is why Venezuela is dealing with the spread of diseases that have been previously cured from the continent.

The stance of the Maduro regime on declining medical and food aid is that the country does not need any of it.

Nope. You do not know what is going on.

The last free-ish and fair-ish election was in 2015. There were observers there. Maduro got the **** kicked out of him in the National Assembly vote, and his party was made into a small minority.

That ended Maduro's dalliance with democracy. After that embarrassing defeat, he stuffed the Supreme Court with loyalists, prevented a recall vote on himself, effectively deleted the National Assembly by replacing it with another body, and then banned the opposition from running against him in the 2018 "election."

For someone who professes not to think Maduro is a great guy, you sure are doing a phenomenal job of copy and pasting Maduro propganda into the thread. There's actually a term for that: "useful idiot."

I don't claim to know the truth, I'm just telling what I've read from independent sources that aren't connected to mainstream media, but that automatically qualifies as propaganda I get it.

When the oil prices tumbled in 2014 by 70% they began to suffer, yes. My point is that where for example their neighbors in Columbia's oil prices stabilized, the sanctions kept Venezuela down. It's the government's fault largely that things went south, but it has only been made significantly worse than it needed to be because of these sanctions.

Additionally the sanctions aren't exclusively from 2016:

"In the first place, the so-called economic war against Venezuela, which eventually included the Trump-imposed sanctions, preceded everything else. Washington almost from the beginning of Hugo Chávez’s presidency in 1999 did not stand by idly while he defied the neoliberal Washington consensus as well as U.S. hegemony. Washington’s hostility seriously harmed the economy in multiple ways.

For instance, the George W. Bush administration banned the sale of spare parts for the Venezuelan Air Force’s costly F-16 fighter jets in 2006, forcing the country to turn to Russia for the purchase of 24 Sukhoi SU-30 fighter planes. Furthermore, the international sanctions did not begin with Trump, but rather Obama in 2015 which were justified by his executive order calling Venezuela a threat to U.S. national security. That order was followed by an avalanche of pull-outs from Venezuela by multinationals including Ford, Kimberly Clark, General Motors, Kellogg’s and nearly all the international airlines."

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14334

"the opposition denies that Maduro’s re-election in May of last year was legitimate because the election was called for by the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), whose existence allegedly has no legal basis. One of the nation’s foremost constitutional lawyers, Hermann Escarrá, has defended the ANC’s legality, while others formulate plausible arguments to the contrary. Again, the mainstream media has failed to present both sides or to objectively analyze the issue. Nearly all the opposition parties that refused to participate in the presidential elections in 2018, however, did participate in the gubernatorial elections of the preceding year that were convened by the same ANC. The justification for Juan Guaidó’s self-proclamation as Venezuelan president on Jan. 23 was predicated on the illegitimacy of the ANC."

Inb4 Escarrá is corrupt: he's challenged decisions by Chávez in the past and insisted on thorough due processes in the government organs.

Steve Ellner who wrote this piece is an expert and professor in politics and economics, but I guess you're gonna invalidate all these points because he's idiot commiescum.

I don't really see the disagreement. The Venezuelan government is authoritarian and corrupt and the US has been making its own moves that was going to have some effect of harming the Venezuelan people and the combination is a terrible situation in Venezuela. They're really not coequal though. The downward slide for Venezuela has primarily been because of mismanagement, corruption, and authoritarian policies. The US could do nothing and the ship wouldn't right itself.

Of course whatever the US is doing right now isn't out of the goodness of its heart or even a remote care about the Venezuelan people, it's geopolitical power plays.

I agree completely. My point is related to biased media coverage and the fact that US intervention only made the problems worse, not that they directly caused them.

You are copy and pasting propaganda and are too ignorant to know the difference between reality and fiction.

You don't even know how to spell the Colombia.

No. Stop.

The economic downfall began BEFORE oil prices collapsed.

For instance, the protests took place in early 2014, when oil was around $100/barrel. Corruption had already began to take its toll on the country in a serious way, with shortages of very basic goods like food and toilet paper, etc. Venezuela led the misery index in 2013 (and every year since). High oil prices in 2013 and until the middle of 2014 prevented the country from falling sooner and faster.

There are no sanctions from 2016, so no clue what you are talking about.

This propaganda about 2015 is also wrong.

In 2015, the US sanctioned 7 INDIVIDUALS who helped kill protesters in 2014.

US businesses left because the country had become increasingly unstable/totalitarian, because the economy was crashing, because Maduro was nationalizing industries (he lost a $7b World Bank case just days ago for stealing equipment) and because there was the inability to access basic supplies.

Repeating myself: the United States was the LARGEST TRADING PARTNER of Venezuela from the time Chavez stepped into office until 45 days ago. The idea that the US sanctions crippled the regime prior to January 2019 -- rather than giving them what became their only source of cash -- is nonsense. But it appeals to a certain subset of people who are too stupid on Venezuela to know the difference.

This is getting ridicilous.

https://vaaju.com/chileeng/maduro-is...-in-venezuela/

This site has a picture of Venezuelan voting card.

wikipedia: What you're posting is selected propaganda.

It doesn't really matter what the issue is. If you have on the one side China, Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Turkey and on the other side Not-China, Cuba, Iran, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Turkey I am going to default to the latter's judgement.

Maybe the Venezuelan's are taking a page out of the Russian playbook and setting up troll farms?