Venezuela has complex cause. You aren't doing anyone any favors by simplistically reducing it to your favorite contributing factor, nor are you arguing honestl

Venezuela has complex cause. You aren't doing anyone any favors by simplistically reducing it to your favorite contributing factor, nor are you arguing honestly when you conflate progressive income taxation with socialism, or in this specific instance, Chavismo--which is rooted in socialism, with a lot of extra features, including populism. Committing to give people someone else's money is every government expenditure that is paid for by taxation. It's the welfare state. It's the military-industrial complex. It's infrastructure projects. It's corruption. It's operating funds for regulatory agencies. It's foreign adventurism. Everything. Most governments have budgets that are funded entirely by "somebody else's money". You have made several unspoken assumptions in this discussion, and I think it may be best for you to make them explicit before continuing. People aren't leaving Venezuela because taxes are high. And Venezuela's problems aren't a result of rich folks fleeing to Miami and Madrid. They are all leaving--the non-government rich, the middle-class, and the poor--because price-fixing creates shortages, and there is no such thing as a free lunch. If one pays for the party with oil money, one also has to turn off the music when the international commodity price for Venezuelan crude oil goes down. But they didn't turn it off; they turned it up. Can you provide any details on Venezuela's progressive income tax? All I could find was a flat 34% tax on income for nonresidents, and that the lowest rate for residents might be 6%. Which Venezuelans left specifically because they didn't want to pay 34%?