End Stage Socialism

[beerftw]

Try again.

Not only has Saudi Arabia had a powerful economy for decades, they're the reason for the fall in oil prices. Aramco deliberately increased production, to reduce the price of oil, to drive competitors out of business. They are also putting a lot of effort into diversifying their economy.

Venezuela wasn't doomed. If they had made the same choices as Bolivia, they'd be in much better shape now -- e.g. enforcing fiscal discipline, refraining from antagonizing foreign governments and corporations.



Try again.

Russia is very heavily dependent on fossil fuel production; although it's slowly improving, they've been in a recession for about 2 years now. If oil prices don't recover, 2017 is likely to be tough as well.



That's part of it, but not all of it. The bigger issue is that the government started spending money at the time that oil and other revenues fell. Chavez also mismanaged PDVSA, which further restricts revenues. Maduro increased the spending spree, and printed money to pay for it -- which of course caused massive inflation.

"Socialism" doesn't mean "government spending so much that it jeopardizes the entire economy," and fiscal irresponsibility is hardly exclusive to leftist governments.

Saudi arabia is putting alot into diversifying their economy, but that is because they are hemoraging money with prices being down. Yes saudi was the one pushing the lower costs, they were trying to drive american and russian natural gas off the market, problem is their economy is still entirely oil driven, and diversifying their economy takes decades, and they need oil around 130 a barrel just to maintain the countries expenses.


2 russia does have a diverse economy, not a strong one but it is diverse. They also export timber, fertilizer, machinery armaments etc.

 

[eohrnberger]

....no, it's that the "jihadis" are not the major problem in either Sudan or Libya.

Libya's problem is not that there are hundreds of thousands of Dahesh fighters trying to establish a caliphate. It's that when the Gaddafi regime fell, it left a power vacuum, and there are (to make a long story short) numerous groups vying for control, some little better than warlords.

Dunno, but this sounds like it would in fact leads to government instability, when the government has to expend resources in combating an opposing force that wants to establish a caliphate.

Sudan's major issue right now is that they are on the verge of a major famine, a legacy of years of civil war and other unrest. What little government remains there has actually been working with the US to tamp down terrorism, and they have largely been successful. Most of the terrorism there is connected to Sudan's civil war.

And again... The problem facing the economies in those states is not "jihadis." It's that they are wracked by civil wars and their aftermath, and their governments have difficulty establishing the basic necessities for an economy to function -- e.g. rule of law, effective taxation, and so forth.



That depends on how you define "socialist."

That's fair. I've conceded that it's a spectrum between socialism and other economic forms.

Most are democratic nations with socialist outlooks and fairly strong socialist political parties. So we're probably looking at nations like:

Bolivia
Nicaragua
Vietnam
Laos
Denmark
Sweden
Norway
France
Italy
Spain
Mexico

China is technically still Communist, with elements of both market and command economies.

Bolivia is notable in this discussion because it's very similar to Venezuela. Its leader is a socialist and was an ally of Chavez; it's an oil-dependent nation; and yet, Maduro made far better decisions than Chavez.

In the end, I'm still coming down to the excess of government control over, and intervention in the lives of, the population of those nations. Sweden sure has a mess on their hands after their liberal mandates forced them to accept so many immigrants whom are given pretty much everything, and yet are unsatisfied, and demand even more concessions from their host countries, a distinct lack of cultural assimilation. Seems rather totally unreasonable.