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I agree with scast. 95% of the issue is oil prices. Chavez would be strung up just as bad as Maduro right now if he were not already dead. The 'free money' s

• aclsid 10y ago
  I believe the problem here, more than oil prices, is mismanagement of an epic proportion. In Venezuela way too many things are either free or subsidized. You get free college for kids arriving on fancy SUVs, public hospital infrastucture rotting away and the never ending public servant attitude of not showing to work, arriving late, stealing stuff, etc. Extremely cheap gasoline, and the list goes on and on. At the current prices, countries like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela can still turn a profit on their production, as opposed to the UK with their deposits on the North Sea or the US/Canada with shale oil. But of course, there is always the question of who created Maduro, and Chavez is fully responsible for that disaster.
  • edblarney 10y ago
    Clearly the underlying problem is total fraud and incompetence, but you paper over that with free oil money as long as it lasts ... Chavez was able to paper over his incompetence. Maduro can't. So the plebes revolt.