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It wasn't any particularly leftist policies that killed them, it was just trying to artificially boost the value of their currency. That policy has been tried

It wasn't any particularly leftist policies that killed them, it was just trying to artificially boost the value of their currency. That policy has been tried across he political spectrum and it's pretty much always ended in tears. >Look at Norway for instance Norway wasn't suffering from a massive level of poverty. When Chavez took over, Venezuela was and he cut it significantly. That's what he "pissed" the money away on.

davidw 11y ago
They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/20/venezuelan-fuel-subsidies-mean-cheap-gas http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/20/venezuelan-fuel-subsidies-... (first link I found, but you can find other less ideological sources as well. I'm not in the reason.com camp, myself). I'm sure they've done a few good things too, but I think the bad has mostly outweighed the good.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. Cheap gasoline is the least of their problems. That is one thing they do have enough of to go around. >I'm sure they've done a few good things too, but I think the bad has mostly outweighed the good. Yeah like cutting the poverty rate in half. Something that apparently stops being laudable once the middle classes have to queue for toilet paper.
  - tptacek 11y ago
    Everybody has to queue for toilet paper! The economy has ground to a halt! Unless you use the (entirely unregulated, utterly laissez-faire) black market, nobody can buy anything. Not toilet paper, not food.
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      I'm on your side of this one, but I think crdoconnor has a bit of a point. I saw somewhere (the original article or a comment, I forget which) that people are limited to buying one chicken a week. That's not good... unless you couldn't buy any before, in which case it's a massive step up. Would getting that much protein in your diet (that you never could get before) be worth being unable to get toilet paper (that you also probably couldn't afford before)? But I'm on your side of this one, because it turned out that chauvismo didn't deliver enough gain to enough people. It promised utopia, but delivered much less, even to the poor, at the price of destroying the economy. But don't minimize the value of what it delivered to the poorest of the poor.
      - tptacek 11y ago
        That's a colorable argument, but my response would be that the likely ultimate outcome of capital and price controls along with a disbelief in the concept of hyperinflation is zero chickens for the poor, because in the absence of a stable economy all commerce will go to the black market, and the black market could give two fucks about the poor.
        AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        Agreed, though that assumes facts that are not yet in evidence. My argument was based on current circumstances; yours is based on the current trajectory.
        tptacek 11y ago
        I take your point.
tptacek 11y ago
Are we reading the same article? Chavez didn't simply subsidize the poor. He also (a) nationalized the oil industry and (b) handed control and management of that industry over to political allies who mismanaged it badly. He did the same with the central bank. There are much more significant criticisms of Chavez than that, but these are the ones germane to the immediate article. Whatever you might think about his overt political objectives, it didn't work: there are long lines for toilet paper, and even the lines are now rationed.
- crdoconnor 11y ago
  >Chavez didn't simply subsidize the poor. He also (a) nationalized the oil industry and (b) handed control and management of that industry over to political allies Yeah, he nationalized the oil industry and redirected that stream of revenues to poverty reduction programs. The US establishment was vehemently pissed at this audacity which is why they supported the coup to oust a (whisper it) democratically elected president and also wrote lots of angry articles about him, some of which you apparently read... >handed control and management of that industry over to political allies who mismanaged it badly The US oil companies who were carting the vast majority of Venezuela's national wealth out of the country prior to nationalization probably did have a more efficient set up, yes. >Whatever you might think about his overt political objectives, it didn't work What part of cutting poverty in half - his overt political objective - was such an abject failure?
  - tptacek 11y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11029049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11029049 --- a reply to another of your comments. That comment, of course, says the same thing that the comment you replied to; it's like you stopped reading at "it didn't work". What's especially insidious about this logic is the fact that poor people in Venezuela have no international voice; if you're hearing complaints, they must be from the relatively well-off. That much is probably true, but look how that logic works to support the ineffective government of Venezuela: the well-off aren't complaining that it's too hard to buy BMW sedans. They're complaining that they can't fucking buy toilet paper. You think that means the poor people can? Or, what, food and toilet paper are bourgeois concerns?
chiph 11y ago
Don't forget the price controls he instituted. The Chavez government mandated a price for televisions that was below the wholesale cost of them. When this went into effect, the stores were cleared of TVs in days (obviously this measure was super popular with the people), and then the shops remained empty, as the store owners didn't have the money to restock. And weren't inclined to do so, as selling below the wholesale price is a fast way to going out of business.

davidw 11y ago

They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/20/venezuelan-fuel-subsidies-mean-cheap-gas http://reason.com/blog/2015/01/20/venezuelan-fuel-subsidies-... (first link I found, but you can find other less ideological sources as well. I'm not in the reason.com camp, myself). I'm sure they've done a few good things too, but I think the bad has mostly outweighed the good.

crdoconnor 11y ago
>They have some terrible policies, like massive gasoline subsidies. Cheap gasoline is the least of their problems. That is one thing they do have enough of to go around. >I'm sure they've done a few good things too, but I think the bad has mostly outweighed the good. Yeah like cutting the poverty rate in half. Something that apparently stops being laudable once the middle classes have to queue for toilet paper.
- tptacek 11y ago
  Everybody has to queue for toilet paper! The economy has ground to a halt! Unless you use the (entirely unregulated, utterly laissez-faire) black market, nobody can buy anything. Not toilet paper, not food.
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    I'm on your side of this one, but I think crdoconnor has a bit of a point. I saw somewhere (the original article or a comment, I forget which) that people are limited to buying one chicken a week. That's not good... unless you couldn't buy any before, in which case it's a massive step up. Would getting that much protein in your diet (that you never could get before) be worth being unable to get toilet paper (that you also probably couldn't afford before)? But I'm on your side of this one, because it turned out that chauvismo didn't deliver enough gain to enough people. It promised utopia, but delivered much less, even to the poor, at the price of destroying the economy. But don't minimize the value of what it delivered to the poorest of the poor.
    - tptacek 11y ago
      That's a colorable argument, but my response would be that the likely ultimate outcome of capital and price controls along with a disbelief in the concept of hyperinflation is zero chickens for the poor, because in the absence of a stable economy all commerce will go to the black market, and the black market could give two fucks about the poor.
      - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
        Agreed, though that assumes facts that are not yet in evidence. My argument was based on current circumstances; yours is based on the current trajectory.
        tptacek 11y ago
        I take your point.

tptacek 11y ago

Are we reading the same article? Chavez didn't simply subsidize the poor. He also (a) nationalized the oil industry and (b) handed control and management of that industry over to political allies who mismanaged it badly. He did the same with the central bank. There are much more significant criticisms of Chavez than that, but these are the ones germane to the immediate article. Whatever you might think about his overt political objectives, it didn't work: there are long lines for toilet paper, and even the lines are now rationed.

crdoconnor 11y ago
>Chavez didn't simply subsidize the poor. He also (a) nationalized the oil industry and (b) handed control and management of that industry over to political allies Yeah, he nationalized the oil industry and redirected that stream of revenues to poverty reduction programs. The US establishment was vehemently pissed at this audacity which is why they supported the coup to oust a (whisper it) democratically elected president and also wrote lots of angry articles about him, some of which you apparently read... >handed control and management of that industry over to political allies who mismanaged it badly The US oil companies who were carting the vast majority of Venezuela's national wealth out of the country prior to nationalization probably did have a more efficient set up, yes. >Whatever you might think about his overt political objectives, it didn't work What part of cutting poverty in half - his overt political objective - was such an abject failure?
- tptacek 11y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11029049 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11029049 --- a reply to another of your comments. That comment, of course, says the same thing that the comment you replied to; it's like you stopped reading at "it didn't work". What's especially insidious about this logic is the fact that poor people in Venezuela have no international voice; if you're hearing complaints, they must be from the relatively well-off. That much is probably true, but look how that logic works to support the ineffective government of Venezuela: the well-off aren't complaining that it's too hard to buy BMW sedans. They're complaining that they can't fucking buy toilet paper. You think that means the poor people can? Or, what, food and toilet paper are bourgeois concerns?

chiph 11y ago

Don't forget the price controls he instituted. The Chavez government mandated a price for televisions that was below the wholesale cost of them. When this went into effect, the stores were cleared of TVs in days (obviously this measure was super popular with the people), and then the shops remained empty, as the store owners didn't have the money to restock. And weren't inclined to do so, as selling below the wholesale price is a fast way to going out of business.