- Joined
- Sep 15, 2012
- Messages
- 28,813
- Reaction score
- 10,027
- Location
- Columbus, OH
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Moderate
Cant answer the question? Venezuela has shortages of even the most basic supplies because Chavez and his inept retarded Socialist Central planners ran every industry they Nationalized ( stole ) into the ground.
They're dependent on imports for everything, even coffee, but importers dont want to be paid with worthless bolivars, so no goods and supplies.
Why are their bolivars worthless ? Because the Venezuala Govt starting printing, first to make a profit and now out of sheer desperation
Its called " Seignoriage", and no Nation is STUPID enough to try and use it as a way of making profit.....unless your Venezuela's Socialist Central planners that is
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-08-28/printing-money-goes-haywire-in-venezuela
No, they weren't " doing great " before oil prices dropped.
Their socialist central planners mismanaged their wealth producing industries into the ground and foolishly built their whole economy around a single volatile commodity and were printing sovereign currency to make a profit.
Those "wealth producing industries" were absolute garbage before he was elected because the only people who ever saw any of that wealth were the oil barons and landed aristocracy. Venezuela had staggering poverty rates spanning decades and the vast majority of the population had very little access to education, healthcare, and even clean water and food let alone toilet paper. The tiny number of people who benefited from those "wealth producing industries" couldn't care less. That is why Chavez was elected in the first place.
The Venezuelan economy has always been built around a single commodity and you are deliberately omitting the tremendous growth in economy and vast improvement in the lives of the majority of Venezuelans created by Chavez in the years leading up to the collapse in oil prices. The accrual of debt that resulted from the decline in oil prices is what prompted the government to start printing money and they tried to mitigate the impacts through currency manipulation. Not a new strategy in Venezuela by any means so making out like any of these things are unique to the socialist government is just a lie. The difference is that Venezuelans now have a government that cares about their quality of their lives in the good times and the bad times rather than being lorded over by a capitalist aristocracy that doesn't care at all.