6 ms·

Under military rule, Venezuela oil workers quit in a stampede

62 points by tomohawk 9y ago

montrose 9y ago
This must have been what it was like in the late Roman Empire, when successive emperors tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work.
- eesmith 9y ago
  Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US. Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomes_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomes_policy . In the US, Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950, and I recall at least threats of having military take over coal mines both in the US and UK, because of worker strikes.
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    >Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US...In the US, Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950 You're using this as an example of fending off economic decline? > GDP Growth Rate in the United States...[reached] an all time high of 16.90 percent in the first quarter of 1950... https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
    - eesmith 9y ago
      No. The link I gave lists examples of countries which tried to impose nation-wide economic controls, including revolutionary France, Nixon's price controls in the 1970s, and Zimbabwe's price freeze in 2007. The referenced article concerns oil mining placed under military control, so I thought it was relevant to point out that the US has also placed privately owned critical infrastructure under military control. If there's any meaning to my comment, it's the suggestion to look to more recent history for compelling analogies, rather than ancient Rome.
      - jessriedel 9y ago
        You explicitly quoted the part about economic decline, and indeed this was critical to the sort of scenario Montrose was referring to. His comment isn't suggesting that Rome be taken as the best historical case study for understanding Venezuela today, but rather that Venezuala might give us a sense of the on-the-ground human element during the decline of Rome.
        eesmith 9y ago
        We can look to the troubles of almost any country to look for something which "might give us a sense of the on-the-ground human element during the decline of Rome." Where is there notable about Venezuela which makes this comparison insightful? Wouldn't it be more insightful to compare it to, say, the decline of the British Empire? Has Venezuela, like Rome, had a long series of costly wars (including civil wars) which took money out of the government coffers? Has Venezuela, like Rome, lost a revenue source by no longer being able to expand into new territory? Does Venezuela have anything like the Vandal pirates which disrupted Roman trade? Has it undergone a partition like that of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, where the money diverted into strengthening Constantinople meant that Rome was less defended against invasion? Is the Venezuelan military increasingly peopled by foreign soldiers of fortune who have little loyalty to the country and might instead attack it? Because all I get from the comparison is that there's hyperinflation going on caused by poor government and a loss of income. Which has been true of a lot of countries.
        jessriedel 9y ago
        The thing that is notable about the decline of Venezuela is that it's happening now, when we can make direct observations rather than reconstructing things from the historical records. If I am betrayed by a friend and say "this is what Caesar must have felt like", I am not saying that my friend's betrayal is the most like that of Caesar's, nor that Caesar's betrayal is the most similar historical betrayal to my mine. It just means "oh, now I know more about what that feels like".
        9y ago
    - indemnity 9y ago
      Hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good bit of whataboutism...
      - coldtea 9y ago
        Never get looking at all the facts and having a perspective go in the way of complaining against whataboutism...
  - montrose 9y ago
    What Venezuela has in common with the late Empire is that economic controls are pervasive, without the sort of punitive completeness you'd find in the USSR, or China under Mao. While few controls works, and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy), this middle strategy doesn't work well at all.
    - HenryBemis 9y ago
      > this middle strategy doesn't work well at all I will translate your suggestion like this: -Either be a full-on dictatorship OR -Be a modern democratic state
      - ekianjo 9y ago
        And thats basically what we have in the world in terms of relatively stable regimes. Nothing in between.
        deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
        coldtea 9y ago
        If "stable" merely means "persisting over time", then all kinds of between regimes have been very stable...
        ekianjo 9y ago
        Such as what kind of regimes?
        infinite8s 9y ago
        China is in the middle.
        ekianjo 9y ago
  - bmelton 9y ago
    > Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US. > Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950 These seem like non-sequiturs to me. The economy in the 50s was booming. Truman took control of the trains to mitigate the effects of a worker strike during wartime, when it was important that the trains be running efficiently.
    - eesmith 9y ago
      I found the original comment to be a non-sequitur. I gave examples of other historical cases which fit that description to suggest that there wasn't enough detail for it to be useful or insightful.
- zeth___ 9y ago
  And managed to do it for 1000 years until religious extremists destroyed Constantinople in a terrorist attack.
  - oblio 9y ago
    While the Ottomans were far from perfect (and I learned a lot about the bad things they did back in school in Romania), you might want to crack open a history book. Here, let me get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Administration_and_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Administr...
    - zeth___ 9y ago
      I'm talking about the 4th Crusade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204)
      - oblio 9y ago
        Look back at your comment and tell me with a straight face that it was reasonable for anyone to figure that out on his own :)
- crdoconnor 9y ago
  >decreeing how the economy would work Every country decrees how their economy should work. That's what central banks, laws, regulatory bodies and fiscal spending are all about. Venezuela's economy is tanking because it was so heavily dependent upon oil revenue and because oil prices collapsed. That really is it. This isn't about socialism or capitalism or central planning or markets. This is all about oil, dutch disease caused by oil and political and economic instability caused by the fight over those resources. The same thing happened in the 90s when Venezuela could hardly be called socialist and the resulting economic and political turmoil propelled Chavez in to power. Back then it was all "capitalism's fault". Of the countries 'blessed' with massive natural resources - relative to the size of the economy, I can think of precisely one that hasn't been fucked up by it. Edit: -2 points and 0 counter-arguments. Apparently the idea that Venezuela (along with African and Middle Eastern countries), with vast natural resources get screwed up politically and economically by them is not a popular one, but nobody really wants to say why they think that...
  - rjsw 9y ago
    >Of the countries 'blessed' with massive natural resources - relative to the size of the economy, I can think of precisely one that hasn't been fucked up by it. Norway ?
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      Yes, Norway.
    - danieltillett 9y ago
      What about Australia, although as an Australian we do manage to mess us quite a lot of the natural bounty we inherited.
      - crdoconnor 9y ago
        Australia's economy is not even close to being dominated by natural resources. Your mining boom also isn't that old (only about 10 years). Nonetheless, it doesn't appear to be having a positive effect on your politics. Imagine if people like Gina Rinehart started to dominate.
- coldtea 9y ago
  >tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work. So, a tried and tested way (from the ancient Greek loan relief [1], to laws to suppress the Great Depression, to all kinds of monetary policies used worldwide), except in periods of cultural and political decline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia
pista 9y ago
Meanwhile we're complaining about open floor offices. "You're posting too fast, please slow down"... for an hour. OK, let's make it a year.
- dazc 9y ago
  Fair comment but if enough people complain about open floor offices it might actually make a difference (eventually). With Venezuela, what can we actually do that's going to change anything?
  - pista 9y ago
    I didn't mean complaining is bad, on the contrary, these people just can't complain. I was thinking that if less dramatic circumstances can ruin your productivity, this dramatic situation must be hell.
  - HenryBemis 9y ago
    It will get darker and darker, it may/will (unfortunately) cost more lives, but I hope that once clean elections take place (and a couple of government terms down the road) normality and calm will be established, and all that will be a thing of the past. Judging from Argentina's problems - I know, not the same source of problems - things are now better off than 10-15 years ago. Still in recovery mode, but the darkest days are a thing of the past. Edit: adding the below (apologies) timeline -Big Oil corporations tried to do business in Venezuela. -Having a massive public sector, I bet there was A LOT of bribery involved. -Big corporations then played the greed-game. -Someone decided to have a revolution and bit the hand that was feeding him (bribes/public sector). -Then then got caught in a Oil-price-power-game that hurt Russia and some other satellite countries. -Been unable to cope with the lack of 'free-oil-money' they got caught unprepared to go through the financial challenges - no savings, no FX. -As a country, Venezuela was living on the respective 'salary-loans', they went bust on the first hiccup. -And it all went downhill after that. It took Venezuela a decade to get where it is now, it will take another 20 years to fix things. Root Cause Analysis: oh so many things.. huge public sector service, very little privatization, plenty of bureaucracy, centralization of decisions (central government)
  - 9y ago
swarnie_ 9y ago
When this eventually falls apart which superpower is going to own the country? USA, China or Russia? Who has the most influence here?
- JBReefer 9y ago
  Russia is not a superpower, they just think they are. They'll probably be put back together by Colombia, who's in pretty good shape these days. The US will probably see another batch of very conservative Hispanics like we saw with Cuba. The Venezuelans I've met lately don't exactly love socialism.
- roymurdock 9y ago
  Whoever owns the most Venezuelan debt: Q. Who are the major holders of Venezuela and PDVSA bonds? A. These securities are popular among funds that invest in emerging market bonds. Their high yields - which are close to 10 times higher than those of neighboring Colombia - help increase the overall profitability of the portfolios. Institutional investors with big holdings include T Rowe Price Associates Inc (TROW.O), Ashmore Investment Management Ltd (AGOL.L), and BlackRock Investment Management Ltd (BLK.N). Q. What would be the consequences for Venezuela of default? A. Creditors could seek to seize assets Venezuela owns in other countries, including refineries such as those operated by PDVSA’s U.S. refining and marketing subsidiary Citgo. Article also discusses role of chinese and russian financing https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-q-a/implications-of-venezuelas-proposed-foreign-debt-restructuring-idUKKBN1D3250 https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-q-a/implic...
gaius 9y ago
The silence from Jeremy Corbyn is deafening
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  Because its not real socialism.
  - duncan_bayne 9y ago
    Which is why socialists around the world mourned Chavez' election at the time, right? /s Venezuela, like Cuba, North Korea, China and the USSR were feted by socialists the world over, right up until their failings (often in the form of millions of people starving to death) became visible to the world. Then of course they ceased being real socialists.
    - pavlov 9y ago
      It’s the other way around: the vast majority of socialists never “feted” Chavez, but your strawman argument depends on the premise that those people are not real socialists.
      - duncan_bayne 9y ago
        Come off it. Socialist groups were still fawning over him and his "success" as late as 2013. http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=2202 http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?Articl... Not all, of course. Socialism is a broad camp. But many. Edit: and in fact they're still at it in Australia, where I live: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-solidarity-grows-australia https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-solidarity-gr... Edit:... and how about Castro? Is he your idea of a real socialist? https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/hugo-chavez-and-fidel-castro-a-father-son-bond-until-death-515293 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/hugo-chavez-and-fidel-castro...
  - kingofhdds 9y ago
    It's seems like a permanent feature of any socialism-building effort: first, it "gives hope", then breaks economy, and inevitable proclamation "not real socialism" ends the cycle.
zeth___ 9y ago
Venezuela will surely fall apart any day now. American economists have said every day since 1999.
- simonh 9y ago
  Venezuela has fallen apart, both economically and socially. This is what a country that has fallen apart looks like.
  - zeth___ 9y ago
    Much like the child that cried wolf, calls that Venezuela is doomed any day now, have lost all potency. If the media hadn't discredited themselves in the 00's with the coverage of how terrible the place was we could actually believe them today. Unfortunately going from "it's hell on Earth" in 2004 to "it's hell on earth for reals this time" doesn't inspire confidence in the message.
    - pp19dd 9y ago
      Eight years ago I was on a commuter train from DC to Baltimore and a strange woman sat next to me and started asking all sorts of questions about the train and Baltimore. By strange, I meant that she was talking: no one talks on a commuter train, we're all zombies. Turns out she was from Venezuela and was visiting her young niece being treated at Johns Hopkins after being severely injured by a family pet down there. Let that sink in for a moment. Child was injured in Venezuela, and Kaiser flew her all the way up to JH in Baltimore for treatment back in 2010. The Venezuelan family, obviously on the affluent side back in those days, had purchased a health insurance policy made available from Panama because they felt the socialized health care system run by Venezuela was grossly inadequate, and as they discovered, it was. Fast forward to today and you have two major government-run systems collapsing beyond recovery. First one is oil- state income is beyond a systemic collapse: oil workers simply don't have enough calories to work the actual jobs. There had been a longstanding incentive to work in the oil field because there were oil cafeterias feeding the workers and they've now run out of supplies to sustain that. Now, oil workers are fleeing in unrecoverable numbers. Latest news here is that the military has taken over policing this function out of desperation. The second system is healthcare. These are old articles (hospital one is two years old) but very germane to the discussion. Beyond a soft paywall, so open in incognito windows. Also steel yourself before looking at the photo gallery, as outdated as it is. 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-venezuelan-workers-are-collapsing-so-is-the-oil-industry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-ve... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infa... So what's happening now? Venezuela stopped paying its debts and is in default. Foreign embassies are closing and leaving the country due to instability. Official currency has cratered to a point of you needing a dump truck of cash to pay for a loaf of bread, if you can find it, so black market currencies are being used for transactions instead. Elites running the country are messaging that everything is fine and pitching some make-believe cryptocurrency tied to a physical oil barrel (which they won't be able to produce with the oil industry labor drain) as a way to save the country. Venezuelan citizens have fled in vast numbers (Colombia by way of Miami Herald alone estimates 600-800k, wiki entry has it at 4 million), and though that effect slowed the food crisis from worsening in mere places, overall effect is unstoppable because neighboring countries are tightening the borders. I didn't even get to mention rising violence and neighbors fighting over contents of garbage cans. I just don't see how you can call this an exaggeration. Venezuelan government cronies couldn't squander the money fast enough fifteen years ago, and here's the end-result of their mismanagement.

62 points by tomohawk 9y ago

This must have been what it was like in the late Roman Empire, when successive emperors tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work.

eesmith 9y ago
Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US. Eg, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomes_policy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incomes_policy . In the US, Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950, and I recall at least threats of having military take over coal mines both in the US and UK, because of worker strikes.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  >Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US...In the US, Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950 You're using this as an example of fending off economic decline? > GDP Growth Rate in the United States...[reached] an all time high of 16.90 percent in the first quarter of 1950... https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/gdp-growth
  - eesmith 9y ago
    No. The link I gave lists examples of countries which tried to impose nation-wide economic controls, including revolutionary France, Nixon's price controls in the 1970s, and Zimbabwe's price freeze in 2007. The referenced article concerns oil mining placed under military control, so I thought it was relevant to point out that the US has also placed privately owned critical infrastructure under military control. If there's any meaning to my comment, it's the suggestion to look to more recent history for compelling analogies, rather than ancient Rome.
    - jessriedel 9y ago
      You explicitly quoted the part about economic decline, and indeed this was critical to the sort of scenario Montrose was referring to. His comment isn't suggesting that Rome be taken as the best historical case study for understanding Venezuela today, but rather that Venezuala might give us a sense of the on-the-ground human element during the decline of Rome.
      - eesmith 9y ago
        We can look to the troubles of almost any country to look for something which "might give us a sense of the on-the-ground human element during the decline of Rome." Where is there notable about Venezuela which makes this comparison insightful? Wouldn't it be more insightful to compare it to, say, the decline of the British Empire? Has Venezuela, like Rome, had a long series of costly wars (including civil wars) which took money out of the government coffers? Has Venezuela, like Rome, lost a revenue source by no longer being able to expand into new territory? Does Venezuela have anything like the Vandal pirates which disrupted Roman trade? Has it undergone a partition like that of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires, where the money diverted into strengthening Constantinople meant that Rome was less defended against invasion? Is the Venezuelan military increasingly peopled by foreign soldiers of fortune who have little loyalty to the country and might instead attack it? Because all I get from the comparison is that there's hyperinflation going on caused by poor government and a loss of income. Which has been true of a lot of countries.
        jessriedel 9y ago
        The thing that is notable about the decline of Venezuela is that it's happening now, when we can make direct observations rather than reconstructing things from the historical records. If I am betrayed by a friend and say "this is what Caesar must have felt like", I am not saying that my friend's betrayal is the most like that of Caesar's, nor that Caesar's betrayal is the most similar historical betrayal to my mine. It just means "oh, now I know more about what that feels like".
        9y ago
  - indemnity 9y ago
    Hey, never let the facts get in the way of a good bit of whataboutism...
    - coldtea 9y ago
      Never get looking at all the facts and having a perspective go in the way of complaining against whataboutism...
- montrose 9y ago
  What Venezuela has in common with the late Empire is that economic controls are pervasive, without the sort of punitive completeness you'd find in the USSR, or China under Mao. While few controls works, and being a police state sort of works (if there are free-market economies whose products you can copy), this middle strategy doesn't work well at all.
  - HenryBemis 9y ago
    > this middle strategy doesn't work well at all I will translate your suggestion like this: -Either be a full-on dictatorship OR -Be a modern democratic state
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      And thats basically what we have in the world in terms of relatively stable regimes. Nothing in between.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - coldtea 9y ago
        If "stable" merely means "persisting over time", then all kinds of between regimes have been very stable...
        ekianjo 9y ago
        Such as what kind of regimes?
        infinite8s 9y ago
        China is in the middle.
        ekianjo 9y ago
- bmelton 9y ago
  > Many countries have "tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work." Including the US. > Truman placed the railroad under US military control in 1950 These seem like non-sequiturs to me. The economy in the 50s was booming. Truman took control of the trains to mitigate the effects of a worker strike during wartime, when it was important that the trains be running efficiently.
  - eesmith 9y ago
    I found the original comment to be a non-sequitur. I gave examples of other historical cases which fit that description to suggest that there wasn't enough detail for it to be useful or insightful.
zeth___ 9y ago
And managed to do it for 1000 years until religious extremists destroyed Constantinople in a terrorist attack.
- oblio 9y ago
  While the Ottomans were far from perfect (and I learned a lot about the bad things they did back in school in Romania), you might want to crack open a history book. Here, let me get you started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Administration_and_culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehmed_the_Conqueror#Administr...
  - zeth___ 9y ago
    I'm talking about the 4th Crusade: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Constantinople_(1204)
    - oblio 9y ago
      Look back at your comment and tell me with a straight face that it was reasonable for anyone to figure that out on his own :)
crdoconnor 9y ago
>decreeing how the economy would work Every country decrees how their economy should work. That's what central banks, laws, regulatory bodies and fiscal spending are all about. Venezuela's economy is tanking because it was so heavily dependent upon oil revenue and because oil prices collapsed. That really is it. This isn't about socialism or capitalism or central planning or markets. This is all about oil, dutch disease caused by oil and political and economic instability caused by the fight over those resources. The same thing happened in the 90s when Venezuela could hardly be called socialist and the resulting economic and political turmoil propelled Chavez in to power. Back then it was all "capitalism's fault". Of the countries 'blessed' with massive natural resources - relative to the size of the economy, I can think of precisely one that hasn't been fucked up by it. Edit: -2 points and 0 counter-arguments. Apparently the idea that Venezuela (along with African and Middle Eastern countries), with vast natural resources get screwed up politically and economically by them is not a popular one, but nobody really wants to say why they think that...
- rjsw 9y ago
  >Of the countries 'blessed' with massive natural resources - relative to the size of the economy, I can think of precisely one that hasn't been fucked up by it. Norway ?
  - crdoconnor 9y ago
    Yes, Norway.
  - danieltillett 9y ago
    What about Australia, although as an Australian we do manage to mess us quite a lot of the natural bounty we inherited.
    - crdoconnor 9y ago
      Australia's economy is not even close to being dominated by natural resources. Your mining boom also isn't that old (only about 10 years). Nonetheless, it doesn't appear to be having a positive effect on your politics. Imagine if people like Gina Rinehart started to dominate.
coldtea 9y ago
>tried to stave off decline by decreeing how the economy would work. So, a tried and tested way (from the ancient Greek loan relief [1], to laws to suppress the Great Depression, to all kinds of monetary policies used worldwide), except in periods of cultural and political decline. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seisachtheia

pista 9y ago

Meanwhile we're complaining about open floor offices. "You're posting too fast, please slow down"... for an hour. OK, let's make it a year.

dazc 9y ago
Fair comment but if enough people complain about open floor offices it might actually make a difference (eventually). With Venezuela, what can we actually do that's going to change anything?
- pista 9y ago
  I didn't mean complaining is bad, on the contrary, these people just can't complain. I was thinking that if less dramatic circumstances can ruin your productivity, this dramatic situation must be hell.
- HenryBemis 9y ago
  It will get darker and darker, it may/will (unfortunately) cost more lives, but I hope that once clean elections take place (and a couple of government terms down the road) normality and calm will be established, and all that will be a thing of the past. Judging from Argentina's problems - I know, not the same source of problems - things are now better off than 10-15 years ago. Still in recovery mode, but the darkest days are a thing of the past. Edit: adding the below (apologies) timeline -Big Oil corporations tried to do business in Venezuela. -Having a massive public sector, I bet there was A LOT of bribery involved. -Big corporations then played the greed-game. -Someone decided to have a revolution and bit the hand that was feeding him (bribes/public sector). -Then then got caught in a Oil-price-power-game that hurt Russia and some other satellite countries. -Been unable to cope with the lack of 'free-oil-money' they got caught unprepared to go through the financial challenges - no savings, no FX. -As a country, Venezuela was living on the respective 'salary-loans', they went bust on the first hiccup. -And it all went downhill after that. It took Venezuela a decade to get where it is now, it will take another 20 years to fix things. Root Cause Analysis: oh so many things.. huge public sector service, very little privatization, plenty of bureaucracy, centralization of decisions (central government)
- 9y ago

swarnie_ 9y ago

When this eventually falls apart which superpower is going to own the country? USA, China or Russia? Who has the most influence here?

JBReefer 9y ago
Russia is not a superpower, they just think they are. They'll probably be put back together by Colombia, who's in pretty good shape these days. The US will probably see another batch of very conservative Hispanics like we saw with Cuba. The Venezuelans I've met lately don't exactly love socialism.
roymurdock 9y ago
Whoever owns the most Venezuelan debt: Q. Who are the major holders of Venezuela and PDVSA bonds? A. These securities are popular among funds that invest in emerging market bonds. Their high yields - which are close to 10 times higher than those of neighboring Colombia - help increase the overall profitability of the portfolios. Institutional investors with big holdings include T Rowe Price Associates Inc (TROW.O), Ashmore Investment Management Ltd (AGOL.L), and BlackRock Investment Management Ltd (BLK.N). Q. What would be the consequences for Venezuela of default? A. Creditors could seek to seize assets Venezuela owns in other countries, including refineries such as those operated by PDVSA’s U.S. refining and marketing subsidiary Citgo. Article also discusses role of chinese and russian financing https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-q-a/implications-of-venezuelas-proposed-foreign-debt-restructuring-idUKKBN1D3250 https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-bonds-q-a/implic...

gaius 9y ago

The silence from Jeremy Corbyn is deafening

swarnie_ 9y ago
Because its not real socialism.
- duncan_bayne 9y ago
  Which is why socialists around the world mourned Chavez' election at the time, right? /s Venezuela, like Cuba, North Korea, China and the USSR were feted by socialists the world over, right up until their failings (often in the form of millions of people starving to death) became visible to the world. Then of course they ceased being real socialists.
  - pavlov 9y ago
    It’s the other way around: the vast majority of socialists never “feted” Chavez, but your strawman argument depends on the premise that those people are not real socialists.
    - duncan_bayne 9y ago
      Come off it. Socialist groups were still fawning over him and his "success" as late as 2013. http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=2202 http://www.socialistinternational.org/viewArticle.cfm?Articl... Not all, of course. Socialism is a broad camp. But many. Edit: and in fact they're still at it in Australia, where I live: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-solidarity-grows-australia https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-solidarity-gr... Edit:... and how about Castro? Is he your idea of a real socialist? https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/hugo-chavez-and-fidel-castro-a-father-son-bond-until-death-515293 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/hugo-chavez-and-fidel-castro...
- kingofhdds 9y ago
  It's seems like a permanent feature of any socialism-building effort: first, it "gives hope", then breaks economy, and inevitable proclamation "not real socialism" ends the cycle.

zeth___ 9y ago

Venezuela will surely fall apart any day now. American economists have said every day since 1999.

simonh 9y ago
Venezuela has fallen apart, both economically and socially. This is what a country that has fallen apart looks like.
- zeth___ 9y ago
  Much like the child that cried wolf, calls that Venezuela is doomed any day now, have lost all potency. If the media hadn't discredited themselves in the 00's with the coverage of how terrible the place was we could actually believe them today. Unfortunately going from "it's hell on Earth" in 2004 to "it's hell on earth for reals this time" doesn't inspire confidence in the message.
  - pp19dd 9y ago
    Eight years ago I was on a commuter train from DC to Baltimore and a strange woman sat next to me and started asking all sorts of questions about the train and Baltimore. By strange, I meant that she was talking: no one talks on a commuter train, we're all zombies. Turns out she was from Venezuela and was visiting her young niece being treated at Johns Hopkins after being severely injured by a family pet down there. Let that sink in for a moment. Child was injured in Venezuela, and Kaiser flew her all the way up to JH in Baltimore for treatment back in 2010. The Venezuelan family, obviously on the affluent side back in those days, had purchased a health insurance policy made available from Panama because they felt the socialized health care system run by Venezuela was grossly inadequate, and as they discovered, it was. Fast forward to today and you have two major government-run systems collapsing beyond recovery. First one is oil- state income is beyond a systemic collapse: oil workers simply don't have enough calories to work the actual jobs. There had been a longstanding incentive to work in the oil field because there were oil cafeterias feeding the workers and they've now run out of supplies to sustain that. Now, oil workers are fleeing in unrecoverable numbers. Latest news here is that the military has taken over policing this function out of desperation. The second system is healthcare. These are old articles (hospital one is two years old) but very germane to the discussion. Beyond a soft paywall, so open in incognito windows. Also steel yourself before looking at the photo gallery, as outdated as it is. 1: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-venezuelan-workers-are-collapsing-so-is-the-oil-industry https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-22/hungry-ve... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infa... So what's happening now? Venezuela stopped paying its debts and is in default. Foreign embassies are closing and leaving the country due to instability. Official currency has cratered to a point of you needing a dump truck of cash to pay for a loaf of bread, if you can find it, so black market currencies are being used for transactions instead. Elites running the country are messaging that everything is fine and pitching some make-believe cryptocurrency tied to a physical oil barrel (which they won't be able to produce with the oil industry labor drain) as a way to save the country. Venezuelan citizens have fled in vast numbers (Colombia by way of Miami Herald alone estimates 600-800k, wiki entry has it at 4 million), and though that effect slowed the food crisis from worsening in mere places, overall effect is unstoppable because neighboring countries are tightening the borders. I didn't even get to mention rising violence and neighbors fighting over contents of garbage cans. I just don't see how you can call this an exaggeration. Venezuelan government cronies couldn't squander the money fast enough fifteen years ago, and here's the end-result of their mismanagement.