
Venezuela Declares Every Friday a Holiday to Save Electricity - lentil_soup
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-07/venezuela-declares-every-friday-a-holiday-to-save-electricity
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DickingAround
Let's never forget what socialism is actually like. Historically speaking,
running an entire economy is very hard to do. The more you nationalize, the
worse it all gets.

They need to just start charging more for electricity. There will be less
waste for sure. If people still use a lot and pay more, it means they need it
and the money goes to building power generation. Very, very basic capitalism.

~~~
Someone1234
> Let's never forget what socialism is actually like.

The term socialism has no clear meaning, and trying to group failures together
is just as unhelpful as trying to group successes.

The key is to find a balance. Europe has had some success with socialising
things that make moral sense (e.g. healthcare) while leaving everything else
to the private industry. That's still socialism, it just isn't absolute
socialism.

Even China is experimenting with the levels of socialism they want. They've
been moving towards a more capitalist-style market and they've found a more
workable balance.

Socialism is a dirty word in the US, but is a complex word everywhere else.
Hopefully with a self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" running for your
highest office we'll see people's understanding of socialism expand.

~~~
danmaz74
A more correct name for what happened in Western Europe is Social Democracy:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy)

~~~
ende
It's also the term Bernie Sanders should be using instead of socialism.
Strange that he doesn't.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Bernie Sanders specifically identifies himself as a Democratic Socialist:

[http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/01/26/Bernie-
Sand...](http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2016/01/26/Bernie-Sanders-Says-
He-s-Democratic-Socialist-Here-s-What-Means)

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eridal
Just saw Maduro on tv telling women to avoid hairdryers, or at least, to use
it in case of _emergency_

~~~
return0
so , you had the _TV_ powered on...

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sj4nz
Bloomberg's headline leaves out the condition "in April and May."

At least it states the reason why in the first paragraph: hydro-generation is
at risk because of a prolonged drought.

~~~
Tloewald
As I understand it, bad government is the reason; the drought just turned it
into a crisis.

The chief reasons are artificially low pricing (it's almost free, so people
have no incentive to conserve power, and the utilities are starved of funds
for maintenance) and poor administration (this has been a long time coming --
brown outs and black outs have been endemic for some time).

~~~
mc32
I think you hit the nail on the head. Mismanagement, driving out the
professionals, lack of investment and corruption have turned a very promising
South American economy into a subsistence economy.

They are simply running the country into the ground thru mismanagement and
negligence.

~~~
zo1
The unfortunate part is that due to the prevailing opinion on 'running a
country', they're essentially forced to assume a "control everything"
position. I.e. Each subsequent failure / worsening of the conditions makes
"control" or intervention _more_ necessary in their eyes.

The option to let things happen (by removing regulation / price-controls,
etc), or for scrapping and starting fresh appear to never be on the table in
any meaningful respect.

~~~
Tloewald
We have a party in the US that thinks "running a country" means cutting taxes
and increasing corporate welfare until the government goes bankrupt.

~~~
mc32
And there is a party that doesn't. And the country is not seeing lines for
basic goods and professionals and the educated class are not being forced out
of the country and we don't have a majority of officials pocketing money and
you're free to express disapproval, etc. etc.

We're not a basket case economy in any stretch of the imagination. Compare and
contrast.

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wicket
What I don't understand is why they are so dependent on hydroelectric power.
Venezuela sits on a shitload of oil and have a history of practically giving
it away to their citizens.

~~~
ansible
That's pretty much exactly the problem. The usage of oil (gasoline) has been
subsidized to ridiculous levels, which has squandered the country's natural
resource wealth.

We all need to view our natural resources as a fixed and limited asset, to be
used to boost ourselves up to sustainable energy production methods. But that
is not politically expedient.

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sigmar
I don't understand the economics of this at all. Can't the country buy power
from a neighbor? Or does that infrastructure not exist? Wouldn't the
productivity supplied by those days recoup the cost of electricity?

~~~
pavpanchekha
Electricity is sold to consumers at a price lower than that at which it can be
bought from other countries. This of course is the source of the overuse and
failing infrastructure.

The country is communist, so the government has direct control over prices,
and of course set them this low because it was politically expedient, not
because it was sane.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
One of the reasons. The other: nationalized industries are rotten with
corruption.

~~~
Jtsummers
Monopolies are rotten with corruption. Nationalized industries are monopolies,
and often headed by non-industry people so the nature of the corruption tends
to be more catastrophic, and correction is much, much harder than in the case
of a corporation with a monopoly.

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return0
Is this all because of the recent oil slump? Even taking that into account,
Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves. How can this happen?

~~~
viggity
the vast majority of their reserves are "heavy" crude. Which is much more
expensive to refine. The oil slump certainly didn't help, but Chavez
nationalizing the oil company and replacing competent engineers with cronies
is what really fucked them. That and the general socialization of most of
private industry.

~~~
protomyth
"competent engineers with cronies is what really fucked them"

That' cannot be emphasized enough. This isn't the type of oil coming out of
Texas or ND. It requires more money, infrastructure, and expertise to refine
properly. Canada has this problem with the oil sands, but they have all three
to deal with it.

~~~
bernardom
They also have all of the professionals that left Venezuela.

When I consulted up there, most of the reliability engineering organizations
were Venezuelans. Canada should send Venezuela a big thank you card for the
amazing people they got due to Chavez driving out professionals.

