
Venezuelans Skeptical of Maduro's Latest Measures to Salvage Economy - crypto-jeronimo
https://www.wsj.com/articles/venezuelans-skeptical-of-maduros-latest-measures-to-salvage-economy-1534860108
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csomar
How come the society has yet to collapse if the salaries can't cover a few
days of spending. I mean this reaches a critical point, as far as I see it: At
some wage, the employee will bail out. Because it cost more to do the job
(transportation/food) than the job pays.

Apparently, this is not the case. As the workers are still going for work. The
equation is certainly bad (I have no doubt about that) but it has not reached
a critical point where everything collapses (Examples could be Libya and
Syria).

To see for yourself, go to Caracas on Google maps and turn traffic on. Try
that on Damascus.

~~~
jose_zap
The one thing that I learned being a Venezuelan is that things can always get
worse. It is easy to thing that there is a bottom for how bad things can go,
but clearly that was just hopeful thinking.

The situation is a thousand times worse than when I left 6 years ago, an I
would certainly consider what they are living now as a total collapse of
society, yet I'm also sure that it could get even worse.

~~~
csomar
I’d say disintegrating but not collpased yet. The government is still
sustaining itself. There is still Internet and cars driving around.

Yes, it can get way worse. The possible bottom is way deeper. I hope the US or
UN intervene before that.

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LarryDarrell
The situation in Venezuela makes my heart hurt. Reading about how Hugo Chavez
destroyed PDVSA through ignorance and incompetence is a real life example of
how much damage a populist strongman can do.

~~~
crocal
Me too. I worked on some good projects there a few years ago and now this. Is
there somewhere a “for dummies” analysis / explanation of the chain of events
and decisions that led to the current situation in Venezuela? I can’t fathom
how it is possible even in the most corrupt place in the world to reach such a
sorry state.

~~~
scythe
The crucial mistake was the firing of tens of thousands of employees of the
state oil company, PDVSA. Eviscerating the state oil business in an economy
that depends on oil exports is, um, bad. With half of their employees replaced
by Chavez yes-men, PDVSA made poor strategic decisions that left them with
(almost) no new oil wells when the ones they had been using ran dry. To be
specific, money that should have been used to dig new oil wells was diverted
to poverty-reduction initiatives by the central government. Venezuela today
has the world's _largest_ proven oil reserves (thanks to recent offshore
discoveries) and yet ranks low by exports.

~~~
wonthegame
The firing wasn’t the issue. It was a controversial move but it is not what
caused the ongoing collapse. The exchange rates being in their favour is how
the govt paid for the social programs. Now that the rate is not in their
favour and oil prices have crashed... now it makes it difficult to pay for
your debt.

The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding
sanctions. This increased the cost of their debt. Maduro is attempting to
avoid further economic harm with the petro coin.

~~~
scythe
> _The firing wasn’t the issue. It was a controversial move but it is not what
> caused the ongoing collapse. The exchange rates being in their favour is how
> the govt paid for the social programs. Now that the rate is not in their
> favour and oil prices have crashed... now it makes it difficult to pay for
> your debt._

The "exchange rates" never could have made the government's pilfering of PDVSA
revenues sustainable. Any properly-run business would save money for the
possibility of a change in commodity prices. PDVSA under Chavez did not.

Exchange rates did _not_ cause the collapse of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez's
decision to ignore economic reality and substitute his own is what caused the
collapse of Venezuela. No other oil-based economy got hit as hard as Venezuela
by the oil price collapse because they maintained sustainable business
practices.

> _The US smelled blood and decided to help speed up the inevitable by adding
> sanctions_

This is a joke, right? The US did not even sanction Venezuelan businesses,
only the officials involved in looting the oil industry revenues. From Wiki:

> _On March 9, 2015, the United States President, Barack Obama, signed and
> issued a presidential order declaring Venezuela a "threat to its national
> security" and ordered sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials.
> Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro denounced the sanctions as an attempt to
> topple his socialist government. Washington said that the sanctions targeted
> individuals who were involved in the violation of Venezuelans' human rights,
> saying that "we are deeply concerned by the Venezuelan government's efforts
> to escalate intimidation of its political opponents"._

The notion that US sanctions played _any_ role in the collapse of Venezuela is
an utter fantasy promulgated by the Venezuelan government and perpetuated by
credulous Western champagne socialists.

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neurotech1
Non-Paywall: [http://archive.is/R57av](http://archive.is/R57av)

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woodandsteel
I wonder what is going to happen over the next year or two. Will there be a
coup or revolution to overthrow the government, a bloody civil war? Or perhaps
Maduro will crack down and turn the country into a full-scale Stalinist
dictatorship in order to prevent this from happening. It seems there will be
some sort of radical change, the question is what.

A key question here is if the security forces will remain loyal to the
government. I wonder how they are making out, like are they getting enough
food, and do the leaders think the present regime can be sustained over the
long term.

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prolikewh0a
PSUV really needs to replace Maduro with someone more competent.

~~~
alacombe
Why would you blame the head of the system rather than the underlying ideology
?

~~~
prolikewh0a
What underlying ideology? Socialism? There's nothing that says socialism or
some form of it can't work.

~~~
rayiner
There's little-s socialism and big-s socialism. Social democracies like
Sweden, etc., have social welfare systems bankrolled by an underlying market
economy. A company in Sweden may pay high taxes, but it doesn't have to worry
about being nationalized, price controls, or central planning:
[https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the-
new-...](https://www.economist.com/special-report/2012/10/13/the-new-model).
Capital will put up with high taxes. It won't put up with those other things.
And without capital generating surplus to bankroll social welfare programs,
your system collapses.

~~~
prolikewh0a
Social Democracy != Socialism. Socialism moves to take full ownership of the
means of production, and Social Democracy only places regulations on business
that are often demolished years down the line and workers get screwed at the
benefit of the few.

Every system has failed throughout history, so there's no reason a
Capitalistic system cannot fail as well, and we see the global collapse of
Capitalism happening right now in front of us.

~~~
lucio
Have you seen the Hans Rosling talks?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8t4k0Q8e8Y)
There's a few on TED talks. It's a must see.

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jayess
Looking at Maduro and the clowns he surrounds himself with makes it clear that
it's really just a bunch of idiots running things. Chavez was a died in the
wool marxist, but the failure of that ideology (as it always does fail) has
lead to a massive brain drain. Now the tenth-tier morons are in charge,
nominally supporting socialism but really it's just a narco/klepto state.

