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Venezuela Declares Every Friday a Holiday to Save Electricity
- sj4nz 11y agoBloomberg'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 11y agoAs 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 11y agoI 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 11y agoThe 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.
- mc32 11y agoUnfortunately, their politics won't allow them to consider any sensible alternative. The US is the devil, Columbia is devil junior and they certainly can't give in to capitalist cretins. Afaik even Cuba have pulled out their assistance (physicians, etc.) It's like they try to run the country on ideals alone and that ideals will carry the day.
- Tloewald 11y agoWe have a party in the US that thinks "running a country" means cutting taxes and increasing corporate welfare until the government goes bankrupt.
- mc32 11y agoAnd 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.
- toyg 11y ago> the utilities are starved of funds for maintenance That's all it is, tbh, without resorting to hyperbole. This happens even in capitalist economies -- companies have little incentive for maintenance at the best of times. IMHO, when 40% of energy for the whole country is provided by one single plant (regardless of plant type), things will go wrong at some point. To overcome a situation like that you need money and vision to build a redundant system. Clearly the Venezuelan government lacked them.
- protomyth 11y ago"That's all it is, tbh, without resorting to hyperbole. This happens even in capitalist economies -- companies have little incentive for maintenance at the best of times." Have you actually looked at the maintenance budget of US utility companies?
- _lce0 11y agoJust saw Maduro on tv telling women to avoid hairdryers, or at least, to use it in case of emergency
- DickingAround 11y agoLet'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.
- jszymborski 11y agoThis is not about electricity. This is about giving everyone a day of the week off to distract keep the people happy(-ish) in the face of a rapidly decreasing quality of life. This isn't about socialism. This is about what is a dictatorship in all but name.
- jeffdavis 11y agoSincere question: is there a way to implement socialism without major centralization of power and a disregard for the rule of law?
- bmm6o 11y agoDo you consider Sweden to be socialist?
- cmdkeen 11y agoSweden is at best Social Democratic, and not all of its political parties subscribe to that. It certainly hasn't been through mass nationalisations of industry or utilities. Socialism is the workers controlling the means of production, not anything deemed vaguely left wing by American standards.
- bmm6o 11y agoFair enough. It's hard to remember the actual definition of "socialism" when in the US it's used to slander whatever vaguely progressive policy someone don't like, even when you know they're not using the word correctly.
- sigmar 11y agoI 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?
- MrPatan 11y agoThat's imperialist and counterrevolutionary! Proceed to the nearest reeducation booth. Have a nice day.
- vtlynch 11y agoAn ironic thing to say given how staunchly you are defending capitalism.
- ceejayoz 11y ago> Can't the country buy power from a neighbor? If they have good credit, which Venezuela doesn't.
- dcu 11y agoI think neighbors are in the same situation regarding to electric energy because of the "El Niño".
- pavpanchekha 11y agoElectricity 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 11y agoOne of the reasons. The other: nationalized industries are rotten with corruption.
- supremeanger 11y agoVote bernie sanders for free college and holidays every Friday in the united states!
- return0 11y agoIs 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?
- dogma1138 11y agoBecause they nationalized their energy sector and bet everything on it.
- viggity 11y agothe 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 11y ago"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.
- dogma1138 11y agoAlso if they would've sold the development rights to private companies those contracts would usually have a flat fee that is independent of production viability that the companies have to pay to maintain the rights, this alone would've been enough to keep them afloat.
- bernardom 11y agoThey 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.
- jayess 11y agoVenezuelans are really feeling the Bern.
- wicket 11y agoWhat 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 11y agoThat'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.