Since becoming president five months ago, Mr Maduro has routinely cited vague international conspiracies by capitalist plotters, or even cartoon superheroes, for Venezuela’s mounting problems that range from a lack of toilet paper and national electricity blackouts to one of the highest murder rates in the world...
Deflecting blame for domestic problems on external forces is a time-honoured tradition in Venezuela’s so-called 21st century socialist revolution that routinely thumbs its nose at the US.
But that is especially so now that Mr Maduro has made little headway in correcting the economic distortions bequeathed by Hugo Chávez, his charismatic predecessor, a failure that has also left many wondering how much longer the situation can go on.
Well, naturally. This is what happens when a totalitarian regime is propped up by high oil prices. They drop, regime fails.
Global oil price is rather irrelevant if one sells gas domestically at $.02/gal for political power. There is no global price to make that work. Chavez sold the country down the river for fortune and fame.
But I understand the context of an undiversified economy. Chavez's looting of national oil resources for political power took place in the worst possible circumstance.
Bolded: unless you're using your nationalized oil reserves to both sell cheaply to one's people and the rest on a lucrative world market, to make up for both the lost revenue of selling cheaply to please the people and the damage of other poor economic planning decisions. If world market price drops past a point determined by how much economic damage your policies are doing to the rest of your country's GDP, then you've got a problem.
Oil has made up for about 95% of its exports and is about 50% of it's GDP, though I can't quote numbers over specific times.
Watch, VZ will install a President we approve of and oil prices will rise.
Just wanted to say:
Told you so.
Ever think the prices are artificially set? Read post 10, it's all a game, we are set up to lose, so is Vz., either you play by the rules or you get squished.That doesn't make sense. Venezuela's collapse has removed 1.5 million barrels per day from the market. A total collapse would remove another million. If supply drops, prices go up. If supply recovers, prices drop.
Ever think the prices are artificially set? Read post 10, it's all a game, we are set up to lose, so is Vz., either you play by the rules or you get squished.
I gave up on conspiracy theories when the John Birch Society said that the USA would be under Soviet control no later than 1989. I'm still waiting.
One-dimensional economy, steriod injected cult of personality totalitarianism masquerading as confiscatory socialism, compounded by IMF neoliberal engineering, not surprised.
We could help, but it could only be a little bit of help and it would never be enough unless VZ is willing to hit a middle note somewhere.
Of course, that would also require that the IMF hit a middle note, too.
But in the end it's going to take VZ and its people to have the stomach to restart and rebuild.
I agree but the cause is his theft. Prices can drop and a country even more dependent survives. It's not really "naturally" when virtual treason compounds a difficulty to a crisis. Oil prices have recovered yet Venezuela has not.
We could compare any number of similarly dependent countries.
While your characterization of the Chavez regime as "totalitarian" is clearly anti Chavez, your "naturally" seemed to excuse policy.
My problem with IMF strings are not the political ones but the agricultural development strings (centralizing industrial production, foreign inputs and reliance on foreign markets).
I'm pretty dead set against IMF forcing leaders to sign radical currency, lending, wage and social program agreements without even allowing them to be submitted to parliaments or a congress for a vote.
What would Americans think if tomorrow we all woke up and learned that Paul Ryan did NOT arbitrarily shut down the VA, Medicare, Social Security, the US Interstate Highway System and all fire departments and public schools via a series of bills and measures before Congress but instead, that Trump just SIGNED an agreement the night before, and BLAMMO, it was DONE instantly?
Wait, don't tell me, he's already fantasizing about doing that right now, I know...but suppose it was just Jamie Dimon's idea and Trump had no choice but to go along with it? (or any president, for that matter)
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