11 ms·
Yellow Water, Dirty Air, Power Outages: Venezuela Hits a New Low
- Kinnard 10y agoI thought this might be about Flint, Michigan when I began reading the title.
- masterleep 10y agoAre these the promised glories of socialism, comrades?
- golergka 10y agoOne of so many. Seems like they've ran out of other people's money indeed.
- dmix 10y agoSince we're sharing platitudes, another one that's relevant: "The road to hell is paved with good intentions". This demonstrate a serious road block in addressing the rise of (authoritarian) socialist policies in developing economies is the fact that they usually start from honest good intentions. Such as diminishing class-systems and inequality. But like many attempts at centrally planning massive human activity, it's built on faulty assumptions that the system is sustainable in the long run. Ultimately resulting in a slowly dwindling ponzi scheme. Only made worse when it happens in a petro-state like Venezuela where the scheme can last long enough with the appearance of success to persuade other nearby countries to buy into the illusion.
- golergka 10y agoYou assume that eliminating inequality is a good thing? People aren't equal in their abilities, talents and their moral judgement. I was born in a country made artificially equal, and it was one of the most depressing things about it: the fact that (unless you pursue a party career), no matter how good you are at what you do, you will be roughly at the same level as a lazy worthless alcoholic at a factory plant. This kind of failed state is a natural consequence of line of thinking that prompts you to say that erasing inequality is a good thing.
- dmix 10y agoI said it was well intentioned not that it was right. Since you asked, I believe in compensating ability via markets while providing basic income to all parties. Instead of trying to apply some kind of centralized reverse meritocracy to social support systems, or worse, via tax rebates and business development programs.
- harrumph 10y ago>Seems like they've ran out of other people's money indeed. No, the nationalized oil wells are still owned by the Venezuelan people. What they ran out of is the era of high oil prices. Most of their economy hinges on oil prices. They're a lot like Detroit in that a single industry overdetermines their outcome. On the plus side, Venezuela is nothing like Detroit in that there is no private capital flight leading a rush for the exits taking that industry with them. Detroit: now THERE'S a case of running away with other people's money. And livelihoods. And clean water. Of course, Bloomberg won't be spending a lot of time chest-beating about that.
- bpodgursky 10y agoVenezuela's oil production capacity collapsed after nationalization. It's not just prices. The nationalization destroyed foreign investment, talent fled the country, and cronyism put incompetent people in charge of factories and industries they didn't understand. It's dishonest to pretend this is only due to oil prices.
- harrumph 10y agoCongrats: you've echoed the same argument against people owning their resources that boardrooms have been using against populations since Iran in 1953. "They're far too dumb to survey, drill and pump their own oil." Yeah, no.
- golergka 10y agoIn your eyes, "public ownership is ineffective" = "they're too dumb"? Yeah, no.
- harrumph 10y ago>In your eyes, "public ownership is ineffective" = "they're too dumb"? Yeah, no. The former is corporate-speak annual-report, think-tank framing, the latter is paternalistic, cigars-on-the-golf-course framing, but both are identical messages: colonialist horseshit used -- for centuries now -- to justify looting and extraction from populations. Adults should be able to see through this stuff by now.
- F2468 10y agoIt's not real socialism™
- bwanab 10y agoThat, or the revenge of capitalists at the temerity of the poor working class wanting a slightly better life. Your answer will probably be determined by your preexisting political leaning.
- dang 10y ago> Are these the promised glories of socialism, comrades? Ideological boilerplate has no place on HN. Please stop posting it. We've asked you this before, but you've continued to do it. That's a problem. A comment like this has two effects: it genericizes the discussion and inflames it. Those are bad things on HN, and the combination worse still.
- nikolay 10y agoYeah, Venezuela is the new target of the media that brown-noses with Washington...
- Jtsummers 10y agoHow is Venezuela a new media target? They've been in the US news media rather frequently since at least 2005 or so (when I first noticed an uptick in Venezuela specific coverage, from primarily US-mainstream sources at that time like CNN).
- user_0001 10y agoProbably a bit before IIRC. Just after the CIA sponsored coup and kidnapping of the democratically elected leader. Imagine the reversal. Venezuelan secret services kidnapped the US president to install a more friendly regime so they could profit more from the US natural resources.....
- diego_moita 10y agoLatin-American left-wing are exactly like North-American right-wing: all inconvenient facts or reality are mainstream media fault.
- nikolay 10y agoWell, before you being wasting "paper" bashing other countries, look into your backyard first!
- coldcode 10y agoThey still have a enormous amount of oil in the ground but not the government to use it wisely. Despite the disaster the country is with the resources in the ground it is still possible to turn the country around, but clearly not with the present leadership. Sadly South America doesn't have a good track record with coups actually improving things.
- emodendroket 10y agoIs there somewhere where military coups do have a good track record?
- totoroisalive 10y agoDoes the world war II counts?
- monknomo 10y agoI think a coup is necessarily internal. Wars aren't generally considered coups
- bpodgursky 10y agoAll are contentious, but solid cases could be made for - Turkey (it could use another one about now, if the military wasn't neutered) - Thailand (providing stability currently) - Egypt (removed Muslim Brotherhood)
- Ftuuky 10y agoPortugal had a peaceful military coup in 1974. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
- joe_the_user 10y agoThe only country where the possession of oil hasn't been more of a curse than a bless is arguably Norway. Venezuela's economic situation is more of a product of having oil than it is a product of the so-called socialism of the previous government. Free money from extractive industries has normally served to let whatever government keep power through handouts to the populace. Saudi Arabia, as another example, may not be an economic disaster but the regime broadly is a disaster for the foreign workers it abusively employs and the nearby areas it exports its reactionary ideology to.
- totoroisalive 10y agoIf you think socialism is cool and awesome just poorly implemented, come to Venezuela and live here a year and hopefully you will hate Chavez/Maduro and his death legacy. If want to read more about go to http://www.caracaschronicles.com/ http://www.caracaschronicles.com/
- collyw 10y agoThe Scandinavian version seems to work a bit better. Maybe it is just an implementation problem.
- wrong_variable 10y agoMaybe Venezuela is the MySpace to Norway's Facebook :)