Venezuela news

[The Conservative]

Not that I agree with socialism but these dudes (even nukedog!) had some better insight than just blanketly calling it socialism. Seems like human error and lack of foresight may share a large burden of the responsibility

Yeah, once the oil price started falling off from $100/barrel, they were left high and dry. Over-dependence on a single resource.

Maduro and Chavez are populist retards, and leveraged all of their gold for loans, to prop up the system. Now they're completely broke.

This is exactly where the US is headed.

Worse yet, they set it up to not only rely on oil, but they put their own cronies in that knew nothing about the oil business, and then topped it off by not reinvesting the oil money into the oil business (maintenance/exploration/development), so now their oil infrastructure is aging/insufficient and when the prices dropped they aren't drilling new wells.

They shot themselves in the foot, and now are trying to blame everyone else even while their hand still has the smoking gun in it.

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Let me give you a hint, it doesn’t matter the underlying reason, everyone who has ever tried it has failed.

[pineapplemike]

Great analysis. That’s why we value your input buddy.

[Zlaxer]

Great analysis. That’s why we value your input buddy.

Commies goona commie.

[Ph64]

Great analysis. That’s why we value your input buddy.

Commies goona commie.

Yup. Thing is I agree with TC, what PM sees as some "insight" is just one small piece of many things wrong... Why did the oil industry fail? Because "socialism" - Chavez confiscated the oil assets from the "evil capitalistic corpirations" to give the people (really govt) "the means of production"... Which turns out drove it into the dirt. Why in a country with tons of prime farmland and a great climate for it were there not entrepreneurial folks stepping up to grow crops, cattle, etc? Because "socialism", the govt kept interfering with price controls so they couldn't make a decent profit to keep/grow businesses, so why bother, the government will feed you.

Everything the government did "for the good of the people" turned to shit at what could've been just a slight "downturn" in one of what should have been many industries if they had gotten out of the way and let people thrive or fail on their own.

[pineapplemike]

I contend that specifics on the oil industry of Venezuela is still better insight on Venezuela than "socialism," even if both are true

[The Conservative]

I contend that specifics on the oil industry of Venezuela is still better insight on Venezuela than "socialism," even if both are true

Read that last bit of your statement... “even if both are true...”

Seriously? If both are true, and socialism killed their oil industry... then the answer is still “socialism”.

[Ph64]

I contend that specifics on the oil industry of Venezuela is still better insight on Venezuela than "socialism," even if both are true

Read that last bit of your statement... “even if both are true...”

Seriously? If both are true, and socialism killed their oil industry... then the answer is still “socialism”.

Yup. Socialism guaranteed the outcome of their oil industry.

Sure, in theory under free markets the oil company could still make the bad decision to forego investing in its own business/future and just hand all its profits to the government for subsidies (food, health, education, etc), and to a degree companies do donate to charities (for tax writeoffs or political leverage like the Clinton foundation), but that's their choice not a government mandate or total government control. Under socialism the government decides where the money goes, which inevitably means it'll be misspent.

[pineapplemike]

I contend that specifics on the oil industry of Venezuela is still better insight on Venezuela than "socialism," even if both are true

Read that last bit of your statement... “even if both are true...”

Seriously? If both are true, and socialism killed their oil industry... then the answer is still “socialism”.

youre like the kid in class that just writes down the answer without showing any of their work. sure youre right but it doesnt show any specific insight. not sure why this is so hard to grasp

[Speaker to Animals]

Reliance on a single export is really bad, but oil prices alone cannot account for what happened there. Lots of nations are basically Arrakis economies and they are not starving and descending into utter chaos.

Even with respect to their oil industry, Venezuelans fucked themselves by stealing assets and resources from oil companies and reneging on contracts whenever they thought it convenient. That fucked them perhaps more than anything else.

What socialists often do not grasp is that a complex society requires trust and reliability. If a nation is likely to just violate contracts whenever it suits them, then who is going to invest in that economy? Nobody in their right mind, that's who.

[The Conservative]

I contend that specifics on the oil industry of Venezuela is still better insight on Venezuela than "socialism," even if both are true

Read that last bit of your statement... “even if both are true...”

Seriously? If both are true, and socialism killed their oil industry... then the answer is still “socialism”.

youre like the kid in class that just writes down the answer without showing any of their work. sure youre right but it doesnt show any specific insight. not sure why this is so hard to grasp

Actually, there is a full amount of reasons why it didn’t work, and has been explained here multiple times. Which can be summed up in one word.

Socialism.