The Venezuela socialism death spiral thread

You mean like Communism? :grin:

The monster has just gotten bigger and bigger. And actually, many changes, positive changes, came after the tragedy of teh Great Leap. Not saying it was a good thing or anything, but there was some course correction there.

yes, if you “correct” a country by killing dozens of millions of people, suddenly there are more resources for the rest of them.

Russia you mean!

Them too. Better natural gas prices.

It’s an interesting comparison. I can’t remember where I read this, but I recall something about dealing with messed-up family members. The author had a brother who would occasionally turn up in a drug-addled state, profess remorse, beg charity, crash on the floor for a few weeks, and then go off on another bender. The author’s chosen strategy was to make it clear that help was conditional: if he didn’t make some attempt to sort his life out while he was mooching off her, he was out. This wasn’t an immediate cure, but apparently the intervals between going off the rails were getting longer and longer (at the time of writing).

It seems to me there needs to be an international protocol for that sort of thing to deal with failed states, and everyone should know what the rules are. It’s a pity you have to treat grown adults in powerful positions like naughty six-year-olds, but on the rare occasions it’s been tried, it does seem to work.

1 Like

After the killing. And the dying. And the we better do something or we will die.

Yes, when there were more resources for everyone and it was easier to run a centralized system.

I really do not like people calling us failed. Someone came into our land, called themselves lords over it for divine grace, killed raped pillaged in teh name of such god and made themselves rich. This started a general pillaging of other parts of the world, with the excuse of bringing civilization, education, technology, and it made others very rich while in us it installed the elites that benefit from taking all and not working. At least during teh Mayans the ones who did not work did not eat and the kings had religious use.

The same excuse of bringing advancement and development was used dutring the banana/rubber/product du jour republic years. Yet a lot more was taken than given there was little to none technology transfer and eventually, all we had left was internal wars from elites trying to uphold an export oriented model at all costs. The colonies needed no supervision to keep on behaving.

Now we hand over 60% of our national gross product to “loan agencies”, loans given at loan shark rates. But that is the way of the world because, well, it is a jungle out there and only the stronger survives.

1 Like

Dwelling on the past isn’t really helpful. At some point Latin America needs to stop blaming everyone but themselves and own their dysfunction. That’s the only way things will ever improve.

2 Likes

Welcome to planet Earth. Every region on the globe has been subject to this, often repeatedly. There isn’t a single country (or village) that hasn’t had its ass kicked by somebody over the past 100 years. They picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and got on with the job of survival. So why isn’t this happening in South America?

1 Like

The wounds left the dysfunction. The therapy has not even started because we are still getting bled.

As teh current meme goes, when they say US only wants Venezuelan oil: so what, China, Rusia and Cuba only want the arepas?!

See previous reply. You cannot get better from an infection when you still have the friggin bacteria inside.

Unfortunately, the U.S. doesn’t even need Venezuelan oil anymore. Good luck with those other customers.

And looking further into the future: what about the day no one needs oil anymore? -hopefully the sooner the better. What is going to happen to all those countries that depend on it and only it? This was actually a good thing if it awakes Venezuela finally from its slumber and realizes it cannot have just that one leg to stand on.

There is a better future in arepas.

1 Like

Yes, Venezuela needs to get its act together and become a major aprepa exporter.

1 Like

I don’t really buy that argument. The US interferes everywhere. As do several other influential countries. And yet life goes on, despite that. To continue your analogy, a healthy body is far less likely to get the infection in the first place, and will heal a lot quicker.

It might be US customers buying the drugs, but it’s still Mexicans and Colombians selling them. It might be the CIA arranging the coups, but they find a ready supply of disgruntled locals to carry them out. It might be the US exporting the guns, but it’s the locals who point them at their neighbours and pull the trigger.

Good point about oil becoming obsolete, though. It’ll be needed for some years yet for applications that demand high energy density (eg., aircraft) but I’m fairly sure other forms of personal transport will go electric within 50 years or so. It’ll be interesting to see how that pans out.

1 Like

Mt2Sm4I

It’s stunning that mostly other tyrants support Maduro! I guess they have tyrants membership club.

I mean the leak of funds. There is no capital accumulation. Same with labor, brain drain, etc.

The big bucks from drugs is in US and European banks. In Latin America, you do not keep the dollars anywhere but under the mattress.

As to teh shooting, that´s what teh oppressed do: turn against their own, not the oppressor. Their oppresor ain´t the US, BTW. The elite that is sucking the life out of them and bringing the capital abroad is.