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Venezuela’s Woes are Mounting as it turns the Lights Off

But big government running everything will work here.:doh

When oil prices were high and they were making money they needed entrepreneurs.:thumbs:

Unfortunately they had government which as usual was a losing situation.:damn
 
Fenton said:
They didn't run out of Supply David.

They defaulted on their debt and started printing and now their importers dont want to be paid with worthless bolivars.

And who said earlier in this thread that they SHOULDNT turn towards Capitalism ?

Lol !
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I thought debt didn't matter that you could just print more money? Wasn't there a 100 page thread that proved that? I guess it only works on paper and in theory.
 
Fenton said:
They didn't run out of Supply David.

They defaulted on their debt and started printing and now their importers dont want to be paid with worthless bolivars.

And who said earlier in this thread that they SHOULDNT turn towards Capitalism ?

Lol !
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Yes they did!
 
PIPEWRENCH said:
I thought debt didn't matter that you could just print more money? Wasn't there a 100 page thread that proved that? I guess it only works on paper and in theory.
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Debt doesn't really matter for a sovereign currency issuer that doesn't have a supply problem.
 
Venezuela is proof positive how governments have NO IDEA how to run economies properly (of course, die hard socialists will strongly disagree - despite massive evidence to the contrary).

It is amazing how socialists like Bernie Sanders distrust government SO MUCH (rightly so) yet are demanding governments become far larger. It is silly.

Sorry folks, there is no way around it...all federal government's are corrupt. And the bigger they are, the more corrupt and inefficient they are.

Socialism - like communism - is a nice thought (everyone sharing the world). But as long as humans are inherently greedy, they will NEVER work.

Governments should look after those who cannot look after themselves and basically leave everyone else and almost everything else alone.
 
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TheDemSocialist said:
Venezuela needs to reform, but not reforms that move back to capitalism. The contradictions of Venezuela's "Bolivarian revolution" existing side by side with large capitalist economy is what we are seeing here. Also we have to factor in that the economy is dominated by oil with prices being incredibly low, and that in the past years as prices were high it gave room for Venezuela to develop under Chavez but at the same time they did not develop more of their economy and instead relied only on oil. They need to develop other parts of the economy such as ag.
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The Soviet's ran a lot of agriculture programs into the ground.

Castro did the same.

No incentives to the farmer, and poor soil management, left millions poor and hungry.
 
RetiredUSN said:
The Soviet's ran a lot of agriculture programs into the ground.

Castro did the same.

No incentives to the farmer, and poor soil management, left millions poor and hungry.
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Plus, while the Soviets (and their post-Soviet countries) were screwing up their crops, they also systematically destroyed one of the world's largest lakes...the Aral Sea.

801x649x5800-004-2EE08E56.jpg.pagespeed.ic.-8YDDlgikr.jpg
 
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David_N said:
Debt doesn't really matter for a sovereign currency issuer that doesn't have a supply problem.
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Wonderful!

Then why doesn't our government just print 1.25 trillion dollars and distribute the $25,000.00 to the 50 million people living in poverty and solve the problem?:thumbs:

It will not happen because debt does matter. :doh
 
Thrilla said:
:lamo

socialism ruining your country?... why, you need more socialism!
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If you think socialism "ruined the country" then how does that explain the millions of people who came out of poverty/extreme poverty during the "bolivarian revolution"
 
iguanaman said:
Isn't agriculture where collectives always fail? Farmers who lose their lands are not likely to bring good harvests especially when that harvest belongs to the State.
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Much of the land in "collectives" in Venezuela dont belong to the state but to the people that work the land. They had/have a land distribution/reform system.
 
FreedomFromAll said:
Chavez's "Bolivarian revolution" was centered on making Chavez the sole ruler and had nothing to do with your pipe dreams.
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Uhhh no. Leader of the movement, sure. "Sole ruler", no.

The "people" are not in control of Venezuela and havent been since a longtime before Chavez's rule.
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And thats why the PSUV lost the recent round of national assembly elections...

All that happened was that the government went from one bad dictatorship to another.
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Actually Chavez was elected by a popular movement and then the cronies from past governments tried to overthrow him in a coup and suspend the constitution and the national assembly.....
 
Fenton said:
Chavez and his Socialist Central planners ran every industry they stole ( Nationalized ) into the ground, Oil included
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Really? How so?

Central planners operating on the tennants of Socialism and not Free markets do not a Market economy make.
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Uh what? English please.
 
RetiredUSN said:
The Soviet's ran a lot of agriculture programs into the ground.

Castro did the same.

No incentives to the farmer, and poor soil management, left millions poor and hungry.
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Comparing the soviets to Castro and both to Venezuela is intellectually dishonest.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
There is a market economy in Venezuela. Much of the economy is still based on the "market". True, there were many reforms brought about by Chavez that mitigated this market such as worker coops, nationalization of the oil etc. But there is still a large "market based" economy along side of the "socialized economy". Also before Chavez came to power there was essentially solely a market based economy with little wealth redistribution, and poverty was sky rocket high.
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Among many, that's one huge flaw with the left: Focus on wealth distribution. As long as a certain floor is reached for the bottom, how successful some may become is irrelevant. If everyone had zero wealth, then the wealth would be perfectly distributed. Who would want a society where everyone is dirt poor?
 
Carjosse said:
They do need to move back to capitalism, they need a market economy for goods.
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They still have a large market economy for goods.

Government control of consumer goods always fails miserably as Venezuela has shown even when it was apparently doing well, they suffer from the same problems as the Soviet Union.
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Depends on how its planned and the level of democratic participation and peoples control.


Use their cheap resources to start a manufacturing goods industry, get something besides oil that can trade for other goods. Let the government control oil but it should be run to make a profit for the country. Unfortunately it looks like the country will have to collapse and wait for a new president for that to happen.
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I would agree to a degree. As I stated earlier they used much of their oil to start up and prop up social programs, the problem was that they failed to use some of that money to start up a manufacturing industry, or expand agriculture (almost all of Venezuelas food is imported, and shortages of certain food goods has been semi-common throughout Venezuelan history), etc.
 
joG said:
What always astounds, is how long it takes for even the worst of policies and socialism of the Chavez brand was really bad, to collapse a country.
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It speaks to how resilient and resourceful the individual is to better themselves.
 
Socialism is wonderful until you run out of other people's money.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
If you think socialism "ruined the country" then how does that explain the millions of people who came out of poverty/extreme poverty during the "bolivarian revolution"
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Those same people are back to miserable circumstances.
 
RetiredUSN said:
Soviet people didn't go hungry?
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This is not about if people are "hungry". Comparing two systems to one that is extremely different in government structure, and economic structure is intellectually dishonest.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
This is not about if people are "hungry". Comparing two systems to one that is extremely different in government structure, and economic structure is intellectually dishonest.
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You said that they needed to lean towards AG.

Their failed agriculture programs are common failures.. Their government structures are very similar in that they do not have local representation or support in any real sense.
 
RetiredUSN said:
You said that they needed to lean towards AG.
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I gave ag as one example to areas they should of invested money into to build up other sectors of their economy.


Their government structures are very similar in that they do not have local representation or support in any real sense.
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This is entirely false.
 
TheDemSocialist said:
I gave ag as one example to areas they should of invested money into to build up other sectors of their economy.



This is entirely false.
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I guess you can call it local "representation" if you mean a neighborhood "snitch" organization such as Cuba's Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR).
 
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