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The Suicide of Venezuela
- mc32 10y agoSome of the main issues are: Driving out professionals and putting cronies in to run infrastructure. People who don't care about "capital equipment maintenance" and things get run into the ground. Political oppression. Controlled economy, setting prices which create black markets. Over reliance and lack of contingency planning vis a vis petroleum prices. Overreliance on being "anti-imperialists" to be the antidote to their ills. Etc, etc.
- tim333 10y agoDunno if it's suicide so much as being killed by Chavez / Maduro. If they could just get someone mainstream who understands economics to at least a passing high school exams level then things could turn around.
- digi_owl 10y agoRight into the arms of Wall Street...
- aetherson 10y agoYes, well, say what you will about Wall Street, but it does typically have power and running water.
- digi_owl 10y agoBecause they own, by hook or by crock, the spigots...
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoThey get paid when we use the spigots, true. But for that exact reason, they care that the spigots deliver pretty much all the time...
- coliveira 10y agoSeriously? Where were you during 2008?
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoEnjoying water and electricity that worked. Where were you?
- coliveira 10y agoWatching wall street going through the pipes.
- hyperbovine 10y agoMeaning? This sounds sort of profound. Initially.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoMeaning that if you're suffocating it could be because you've got a noose around your neck, not because you've forgotten how to breathe.
- hyperbovine 10y agoThat's an interesting point which has very little relevance to the guy who just wants some oxygen.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- chimeracoder 10y ago> Because they own, by hook or by crock, the spigots... Same could be said about Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro, and 'electricity and running water' are still a problem there.
- mempko 10y agoWall Street gas running water. Flint and many towns in California don't. Strange
- coliveira 10y agoThe palace of Venezuela's president also has running water. So what?
- eudox 10y agoVenezuela has free, fair, open elections. Why shift blame?
- pmelendez 10y agoBecause they are not either free nor fair nor open. The list of reason about why is not the case is large but when violent pro-government groups start shooting at poll lines and the police won't do anything then you can't called open or free. When the campaign tv time is limited for anyone else but the president or when other candidates have to resign their positions (like governors or majors) but the president is allowed to keep it, then you can't call it fair either.
- eudox 10y agoChavez was elected in 1998 in a clean election[0]. He was re-elected in 2000, in an election the Carter Center found satisfactory[1]. He was once again elected in 2006, in an election EU observers found to be free and fair[2]. After three elections, I'd say the good people of Venezuela deserve to live in a filthy dump. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_election,_1998 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_presidential_electi... [1]: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/297.pdf http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/297.pdf [2]: http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2006/venezuela/index_en.htm http://eeas.europa.eu/eueom/missions/2006/venezuela/index_en...
- nickbauman 10y agoThat's been working so well in Brazil...
- jpatokal 10y agoMost people would not credit Dilma with "passing high school exams level" understanding of economics. But Ms Rousseff and her left-wing Workers’ Party (PT) have made a bad situation much worse. During her first term, in 2011-14, she spent extravagantly and unwisely on higher pensions and unproductive tax breaks for favoured industries. The fiscal deficit swelled from 2% of GDP in 2010 to 10% in 2015. http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21684779-disaster-looms-latin-americas-biggest-economy-brazils-fall http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21684779-disaster-loom...
- jacobolus 10y agoKilled by collapsing oil prices, just like other big oil-dependent nations. (Russia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, ... or in the US, look at Alaska, Louisiana, etc.) Before Chavez, Venezuela was nominally a democracy, with two parties, AD and Copei, but in practice, for 2–3 generations, both parties colluded to keep state power in the hands of party officials, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punto_Fijo_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punto_Fijo_Pact – several of the presidents immediately preceding Chavez were hugely corrupt (even doing prison time for it), and the Venezuelan people were entirely fed up with the longstanding political order, which was why Chavez as an outsider was so popular. The general economic problems throughout Latin America in the 1980s – cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis – and the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_banking_crisis_of_1994 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_banking_crisis_of_1... didn’t help. I find Chavez’s particular brand of populism deeply problematic, but he doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and Venezuela’s main challenge at the moment isn’t lack of “high school economics” understanding.
- unchocked 10y agoAgreed. I don't suspect democratic polities elect dictatorial strongmen unless the nation has largely ceased to function at a political level. Then you get a Chavez, a Khomeini, a Castro, a Hussein, an al-Maliki, and in some weird alternate future that's too close to our own... a Trump. * Edit, some of those guys appeared in countries with no history of democracy, but I think the point stands.
- tobltobs 10y agoNever attribute to collapsing oil prices that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- tim333 10y agoVenezuela hit #1 on the global misery index in 2013. Oil didn't fall below $90 before Sept 2014. Thus the stupid done it. Especially the "Economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro government." It was never quite that bad under Chavez.
- acqq 10y agoIf you are interested in possible bias and the background of the author, he worked for USAID from 2004 to 2010 first in Venezuela then in Uganda, before he was a humanitarian relief worker with World Vision and Food for the Hungry: http://www.cfr.org/staff/b16446 http://www.cfr.org/staff/b16446
- ghufran_syed 10y agoI guess this would be a DH1 response.. http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- acqq 10y agoNo. I'm not "attacking" the author in any way (read again my post!), instead, I'm merely pointing to his background, since it's valid to know the context of the article, he even writes explicitly in it: "I helped Uganda recover after a 25 year civil war" "I helped return democracy to Mali." So it's reasonable to discuss what's behind these claims, which sound quite "big" at the first, and a little differently once the background is known. Shouldn't both the claims and his background be allowed to be discussed?
- ktRolster 10y agoShouldn't both the claims and his background be allowed to be discussed? Sure, but it's still a DH1 level response.
- nkurz 10y agoPersonally, I read 'acqq' as showing that Hirst's credentials do match his claims, and that instead of being a typical armchair pundit, he is someone who could be considered intimately familiar with the situation in Venezuela. In retrospect, I suppose it could have been intended to be just a neutral statement of fact, but it doesn't look at all to me like an 'ad hominem' attack. Unless you have outside knowledge of 'acqq' and are interpreting this in a context not visible to others, I think you are projecting a prejudice that does not exist.
- maverick_iceman 10y agoAll standard consequences of socialism. Bernie fans take note.
- AnimalMuppet 10y agoThat doesn't seem to be the consequences of socialism in Scandinavia (at least so far). It seems to be the standard consequences of extreme socialism, though, of socialism disconnected from economic reality. (There is a difference between the socialism of Sweden and that of Venezuela or Zimbabwe.)
- slagfart 10y agoHaving just spent 8 months in Sweden, I can assure you that their Socialism is purely 'children's creche' socialism, and not 'free bread' socialism. There are some goods that have positive externalities and high fixed costs - the government should subsidise these. Education, defence, roads. There are some goods that do not have positive externalities - the government should let the free market provide these. Bread, personal firearms, petrol. Sweden subsidises the former, not the latter. Venezuela has subsidised the latter, often at the expense of the former.
- RoutinePlayer 10y agoBy "socialism", do you mean like the rest of the developed world? Blame the implementation, not the model.
- nickbauman 10y agoThe term socialism applies to dictatorships and democracies worldwide. As does the term republic. It's become a meaningless label. Venezuela's problems center around something known as the resource curse. Brazil, which has had a conservative democratic republican (little 'r') government in power, also has problems that stem from the same issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- guard-of-terra 10y ago"This is what people will say in a hundred years, a thousand years about Caracas, Venezuela" I don't think so. Will people disappear? Where to? They'll mostly stay and figure out how to live. People are good at that.
- cubano 10y agoSure, and who cares how much they, their children, and their children s children have to suffer during that time, right? Bullshit. Maduro is destroying the proud people of that country with his Marxism that is turning him and his cronies into billionaires while completely destroying the economy for the rest of his unpolitically-connected "peasants."
- guard-of-terra 10y agoI'm not arguing with that. WRT "who cares how much they have to suffer" - surprisingly few people do. A lot of people are ready to give some free advice, but I doubt you are lining up to provide material aid. In the end those people will have to figure out their lives because no help will come.
- ktRolster 10y agoI doubt you are lining up to provide material aid. I would if there were a way to help.
- guard-of-terra 10y agoFind a random Venezuelan online and send some funds (skype credits, bitcoin and plain old money should do). It doesn't have to be much by your standards. When the same thing was happening in ex-USSR, wages fell to $10/mo due to inflation and you could feed a family for a week on $10.
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
- pessimizer 10y agoOil prices dropped. Venezuela is a petrostate. To date the problems there from the dawn of Chavez is strictly ideological.
- guard-of-terra 10y agoNot every petrostate is born equal. Norway fares better than Russia, Russia better than Venezuela. Can't say about Saudi Arabia.
- pessimizer 10y agoBefore Chavez, Venezuela was falling apart because of a crash in oil prices, instituting price controls, raising new taxes, tariff-rich, and socialism-free. "In 1995, Venezuela adopted the Andean Price Band system to replace a similar national scheme in place since 1991. The Andean system applies to imports of certain agricultural items (including meat, dairy products, sugar, and various cereals, fats and processed foods) originating outside the region. Its stated objective is to stabilize the domestic price of those products in a manner consistent with the implementation of the Common External Tariff by all Andean Group countries. The system operates by adding an ad valorem levy to the CET rate whenever a reference price falls under a floor, or subtracting from such rate if the reference price exceeds a ceiling; floor and ceiling prices are linked both to the moving average and the spread of prices prevailing in world markets during the previous five years. As under this system applied rates could increase, in principle, beyond bound levels, questions arise about the predictability of such a form of border protection which exhibits many of the properties associated with variable levies. "In May 1995 customs clearance fees were abolished. Since April 1992, tariff surcharges have been applied to imports of 15 ten-digit NANDINA agricultural products, including certain types of cheese, maize and mineral waters. According to the authorities, these surcharges were to be eliminated by January 1996. "Since September 1994, a VAT-type wholesale and (luxury) consumption tax has been applied at rates ranging from 12.5 to 32.5 per cent on all goods, except some basic foods; on services; and on royalties from the exploitation of all types of intellectual property rights. Additional internal taxes on alcoholic beverages exclusively affect imported items; details of applied rates were not available to the Secretariat at the time of completion of its report." https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp26_e.htm https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/tpr_e/tp26_e.htm "While the oil boom appeared to be a tremendous blessing to Venezuela, it did have some negative consequences, such as chronic inflation and, paradoxically, an increasing indebtedness. These problems were exacerbated when, in the mid-80’s the price of oil began to plummet, due to OPEC members’ breaking of their production quotas. By 1998, the price of oil had reached a new historical low of $3.19 per barrel (in 1973 prices). This decline in oil prices had a significant impact on Venezuela’s economy, particularly on per capita income, which had been in a steady decline between the mid-80’s and the present." http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/74 http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/74
- lazyjones 10y agoNo mention of the harsh sanctions against Venezuela. I wonder why? Perhaps because the conclusion without so much ignorance would have been: death by lost economic war against aggressive capitalist countries.
- eudox 10y agoParanoia is medically treatable these days.
- chillwaves 10y agoDetestable comment.
- eudox 10y agoDetestable replies to detestable people :)
- dang 10y agoPersonal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. Both of your comments in this thread have been uncivil and unsubstantive. We ban accounts that do that, so please don't do that; instead, please (re)-read and follow the site rules. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html
- pmelendez 10y ago"harsh sanctions against Venezuela."? I don't know if you have lived or ever visited Venezuela, but the ones that got born there would tell you a very different story... Talking about economic war is even more disingenuous when you take in consideration all the money that Venezuela received (and gave it away) during the first decade of this millennium. What is happening is the collapse that many of us were predicting since 10 ago, unfortunately few listened and now we are paying the karma
- ktRolster 10y agoShortages are the natural result of price controls. If someone asked me what Venezuela should do, I would say "get rid of price controls and stop the inflation." The inflation would be a little painful because it would mean the government would have to stop printing money to pay its bills, but the pain will continue to deepen until they fix the economics.
- utternerd 10y agoSadly, the concept that capital controls are deleterious is foreign to entirely too many people, and not just in Venezuela.
- crdoconnor 10y agoThe high fixed overvalued exchange rates were the main problem, not price controls. It exacerbated Venezuela's Dutch disease, killing off all export industries apart from oil. Essentially the opposite approach was taken in China (fixed undervalued exchange rates), which led to staggering levels of growth.
- Retric 10y agoChina peak growth was far slower than several other Asian countries post WWII. That was intended as steady growth was intended to reduce political instability. But, it also slowed down there overall growth significantly. EX: Japan went from 2T to 3T in just 2 years. That's completly unsustainable.
- crdoconnor 10y agoAll the Asian tigers suppressed the value of their currencies by loading up on US treasuries. Venezuela instead tried to fix the value of its currency at a far too high level.
- WalterBright 10y agoFixed exchange rates are just another form of price controls.
- pascalxus 10y agoDoes anyone else see parallels between what's happening there and some of the housing development in SF/ democratic cities? Of course, the rest of our economy doesn't have these price controls, so we're doing fine. What scares me, is the lack of basic economic education in the US, and what that means for the future of the US. There's a lot we can learn from what's happening in Venezuela.
- Shivetya 10y agowhat happens in US cities is not comparable because your not stuck there. the many suburbs of cities like SF do have affordable housing its just not located where some want to be. IOW, NIMBYs aren't socialist, they just aren't social with people they don't want living next door
- LanceH 10y agoThey are worse than socialist because they destroy other's ownership for personal gain.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- slantaclaus 10y agoNIMBYs just want their property values to go up faster.
- afarrell 10y agoI think many people in SF have been introduced to the law of supply and the law of demand, they just don't believe in them. Many people also don't believe in anthropogenic climate change, but have certainly been introduced to the concept.
- ktRolster 10y agoI think many people in SF have been introduced to the law of supply and the law of demand, they just don't believe in them. Or they like the way things are, because new housing would driver their property values down.
- solarengineer 10y agoI sometimes feel that Lord Vetinari (Patrician of Ankh Morpork, Discworld) got governance right, thought I often find myself yearning for "things to improve". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Vetinari#Vetinari.27s_golden_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Vetinari#Vetinari.27s_gol...
- janus 10y agoArgentina dodged that bullet. It was heading the same way.
- gtirloni 10y agoHopefully Brazil will too.
- wmil 10y agoThe fundamental issue is fairly simple. Chavez was pushing a sort of ethnic nationalism for the mestizo majority. But his supporters just didn't have the technical skills to run an advanced economy. Instead of trying to fix that his government kept appointing people with degrees in Marxist Studies. Bad decisions were chronically made and the country decayed. The infrastructure will continue to decay unless the voters find technocrats they trust. Eventually buildings are going to start collapsing.
- zzleeper 10y agoChavez was more like the poison pill or the neck around the rope. The next question is how did Venezuela drove itself to a point where people elected him? They had a lot of money from oil, almost no taxes (or no taxes at all??), and still had a larger poverty rate that similar but oil-less countries of South America (that still had its own issues such as corruption, terrorism and drugs)
- lumberjack 10y agoNobody wants to go that far back in history and ask the questions you are asking because if they did they would not be able to arrive to the same conclusion about whatever it is they deem socialism.
- mc32 10y agoWell... He did make a few coup d'ètats precipitating a period of uncertainty which exacerbated a deteriorating economy, dissent and fomenting division, a string of ineffective leaders and voila, the "commandant" to the rescue!
- wildmusings 10y ago>Chavez was pushing a sort of ethnic nationalism for the mestizo majority. But his supporters just didn't have the technical skills to run an advanced economy. It has nothing to do with skills. Chavismo is a fundamentally broken agenda. Socialism (the real deal, not capitalist welfare states) does not work. Nationalizing industries does not work. Price controls do not work. Central planning does not work. The most skilled leader in the world couldn't make this program work. And no discussion of this monster is complete without mentioning the political prisoners, extrajudicial killings, and pro-government militias spreading terror just like the Brown Shirts. And look at the company they keep. Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Russia, China, and the various Chavez-imitators in Latin America. Chavez was an evil man.
- jazzyk 10y ago“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.” -- Margaret Thatcher In this case, they managed to run even out of petro-money. Takes some skill.
- coldcode 10y agoIt's not socialism, it's dictatorism. It's graftism. It's simple thievery. It's everyone's worst nightmare that your country is a madhouse that no hospital can cure. You may as well blame mothers for having children who ruined the country. But the country still has oil in the ground but not the will to use it wisely. There is still hope just no idea of how to make it happen.
- jazzyk 10y ago"Socialism" is rarely actual socialism. There are usually good intentions in the beginning, but then "some animals become more equal than others".
- coliveira 10y agoCapitalism is also rarely actual capitalism. It is frequently just a system where friends help each other to continue increasing their fortunes. This is true specially in third world countries.
- slantaclaus 10y agoCapitalism + Nepotism = Capitalism
- jeffdavis 10y agoThat's the problem: it's fundamentally unimplementable. First, on even a moderate scale, you quickly find out that democracy is not well suited to make the zillions of decisions needed to run an economy. Voters will be making too many decisions about things they know too little about. So, they have to delegate the power. Under capitalism, government powers are somewhat limited, so delegating has some checks and balances. But under socialism, you have to delegate power over every aspect of the economy, which is basically everything. In other words, you've just delegated arbitrary power, which has a bad history. Even if that all works out, now you have an information flow problem. Prices no longer reflect supply and demand, so how do you deal with shortages and surpluses? What if you have 10000 people applying to be "beer taster" and zero people applying to be nurses?
- peterwwillis 10y agoI don't find this tragic, or suicide. Tragedy requires some kind of eventual catharsis or recovery. Suicide is intentionally causing your own death. This is neither. This is the slow rot that comes from not being able to take care of yourself, like a mentally disabled person, except it's an entire nation. They can't fix it and they can't stop it. And there's no recovery to be had. What lessons can we learn from the leadership of the country over the past 18 years? One, maybe don't trust someone who tries to take over the government by force, rather than by popular decree. Two, maybe don't have unlimited presidential terms or rule-by-decree. Three, maybe don't try to force economic, industrial or social change. Fourth, maybe don't let your country's leadership be best friends with countries that have terrible human rights violation records, and especially if they kick Human Rights Watch out of the country and are constantly criticized by other organizations. Fifth, maybe it's time to revert controversial social and economic policies if your country actually stops producing crime data (and it's not because the crime rate is so low). And sixth, though this is controversial, it would be nice to have a national constitution that puts safeguards in place that will root out institutional corruption by the coordination of an organization which isn't appointed by an executive. I don't know much about politics, though, so take that with a grain of salt.
- powera 10y agoYou have a very unusual definition of tragedy, if you feel <something bad has happened so it can't be a tragedy>.
- vonnik 10y agoTwo things: 1) In this piece, Joel Hirst makes a reference to Ayn Rand as though she had something relevant to say about Venezuela, civilization, or for that matter, anything. That alone raises a red flag for me. He's declaring himself on the side of the Objectivists. Who is John Galt? The embodiment of selfishness and much of what is wrong with capitalism. 2) Joel Hirst is a "Fellow in Human Freedom" at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. http://www.bushcenter.org/people/joel-hirst.html http://www.bushcenter.org/people/joel-hirst.html I'm not sure there is a single title in America that denotes greater intellectual fraudulence or moral bankruptcy than that. You can trace a straight line from Kissinger, the Argentine Junta and Reagan's Contras down to George W. Bush and his fellows in human freedom. So Joel is firmly on the side of oppression in Latin America. Remember that when you read his fairly shallow analogy between Venezuela and fallen civilizations. I do not support Chavez or his politics, but I do recognize that America and US allies have presented very few palatable choices to the peoples of Latin America, and the Joel Hirsts of the world will not save the Amazonian peasants with their visions of John Galt.
- Eliezer 10y agoVenezuela is being run by Atlas Shrugged villains. If there was ever in history an appropriate time to reference Atlas Shrugged, it's there.
- vonnik 10y agoFine. But what I'm saying is that "Atlas Shrugged villains" is not a particularly useful allusion, for a couple reasons. Rand neither invented nor perfected those villains' depiction in literature. Orwell did it better and sooner. Second, any criticism of the populist kleptocracy currently in power in Venezuela needs to take into account the bourgeois kleptocracy that came before it, or it is criminally incomplete. Randians and Bush fellows in human freedom have keen eyes for the former, and are conveniently blind to the latter.
- nikdaheratik 10y agoI think the reference was actually pretty good. And I disagree with most of Objectivism, or whatever you want to call it. The issue with Atlas Shrugged is that the villains were kind of real, it's the "heroes", and their motivations, that were pretty unbelievable. For that matter, the ordinary bystanders were kind of given the short shrift too.
- youngButEager 10y agoWhen Barack Obama told students in Argentina "Capitalism and Socialism are about the same" -- the part that is true is: - in Socialism, there is an Elite group who get special rewards and at the very top, the money from the country's resources (Kim in N. Korea; Chavez; and Maduro, who recently sent hundreds of millions of gold out of the country to 'pay the country's debts') - in Capitalism, there is an elite at the top who get special rewards There are 3 kinds of people who want Socialism: 1) those in the citizenry who want the elite to share the money more, and manage the country so that it produces benefits more equally; 2) those in the elite who want the perks that come at the top of society and want to force the wealthy to spend their wealth on helping everyone 3) those in the elite who know Socialism fails but there's plenty of time to loot the country before that happens In capitalism, the elite don't lie to you and say "we're doing this all for you." It's understood that if you add value (like Facebook, Tesla, Google) you get handsomely rich. In socialism, at least part of the elite know damn well that the removal of incentives in Socialism (redistribution of wealth) will eventually cause an economic crash, and they lie to the population "this will all work!" to get the votes to redistribute wealth. Meanwhile, they have time to ship gold out of the country. The crux is there will ALWAYS be a jealousy-inspiring Elite. This is true in Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism. When Barack Obama said ‘There’s Little Difference Between Communism and Capitalism. Just choose from what works' to an audience of Argentinian youth a few weeks ago, he may have been referring to this issue. No system will result in equally shared wealth. Those at the top will do anything to retain their perks. In Communism, the leadership kills those who threaten the leadership. In Socialism, the leadership jails those posing serious threats to leadership. In Capitalist democracies, we have mind-bending, emotionally-charged elections, and peaceful transfer of power.
- apo 10y agoAnd this from the country with more proven oil reserves that's any other - including Saudi Arabia. http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-largest-oil-reserves-by-country.html http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-largest-oil-r...
- Rodeoclash 10y agoAlso see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- dingo_bat 10y agoThe description towards the end is horrifying and quite frankly, it scares me. In my country (India), we have a population which is very diverse. Maybe because of that reason we have not proved vulnerable to such kind of single-minded stupidity. The impact is constrained to a state and/or time-period. This also ensures that even good ideas do not gain much traction, so we continue in this limbo of poverty and growth, sprawling malls and garbage on the streets, farmer suicides and billion dollar unicorns.
- slantaclaus 10y agoVenezuela feels the Bern!!
- cplease 10y agoLost me at: But like Dagny Taggert I found there was nothing to push against – it was all a gooey mess of resentment and excuses.