Venezuela's 'socialist paradise' turns into a nightmare: Medical shortages claim lives as oil price

[7962]

Source: TelegraphUK

For Jose Perez, a Venezuelan taxi driver from Caracas, the hardest part about watching his wife die from heart failure was knowing just how easily she could have been saved.
The surgeons at the Caracas University Hospital were ready to operate on 51-year-old Carmen, but because of the shortages of medicines now ravaging Venezuela, they had no stocks of the prosthetic artery that would have saved her life.
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“It’s the government who is responsible for my wife’s death, not the doctors,” Mr Perez, 63, told The Telegraph last week. “Things are very bad in this country, and they are getting worse. I feel that we are in a dictatorship. At the start I believed in Chavez, now I can’t look at him. He is in the best place now.”

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/11385294/Venezuelas-socialist-paradise-turns-into-a-nightmare-medical-shortages-claim-lives-as-oil-price-collapses.html

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[arcane1]

1. If oil prices are to blame, isn't capitalism also to blame?

[Bucky]

3. Because of all the life threatening medical shortages in capitalist countries?

Sorry, but no. Venezuela's statist, authoritarian government has been a bum steer from day one. Texas is flooded with middle class refugees who Chavez and his cronies scared out of the country. It's been a boon to Texas... educated hard working professionals who only add to our community's cultural and ethnic diversity. But you got to wonder how badly their homeland could use their collective talents.

I don't exactly blame socialism either, however. Venezuela's economic problems aren't rooted in socialism. They're rooted in dumb socialism.

[arcane1]

5. And relying on f-ing petroleum can't help matters either.

Sooner or later, that source of revenue will come to an end

[Ken Burch]

60. Fine, they should diversify more.

But that isn't really what your hatred of the democratic socialist government of Venezuela is about. You just hate it that they don't defer to the U.S.(and if things were fine in VZ right now, you'd STILL be bashing them for their lack of subservience).

Venezuela has problems, but overthrowing Maduro and putting the rich back in charge wouldn't solve any of them. Nor would electing Capriles, who's slightly to the right of the average old-time Miami Cuban.

It's sickening that people on a supposedly progressive discussion board would ever want an alternative to greed-based economics to fail.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

159. "You just hate it that they don't defer to the U.S."

Whatever.

Venezuela is doing it their way and their way is manifestly incompetent.

It's sickening that people on a supposedly progressive discussion board would ever want an alternative to greed-based economics to fail.

Want? No. When Chavez and Marxist clown car started seizing foreign owned property, nationalizing industries and appointing political cronies people said it would end in disaster. Now Venezuela has chased away foreign investors while driving its own industries into the ground -- exactly as predicted. What idiot thought foreign property could be seized and then expect foreign investors to refuse to return? What idiot would appoint people to key positions based on political reliability rather than proven managerial experience and expect those industries to produce more than they consume?

The world doesn't run on Marxist platitudes, its runs on being able to effectively produce what is needed for sustainment. The more efficiently done, the better.

It's not a betrayal of progressive values to predict the obvious then say, "See, we told you so," when the predicted comes to pass.

[happyslug]

39. Actually the problem is in what Economists call the "Dutch Disease".

In simple terms Venezuela would be better off shutting down its oil wells and doing without the money from oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease

I wrote the following in June, 2014, just before the price of oil started to drop like a rock. The problem remains the same, but today the problem is the price of oil has dropped so much, that the Government no longer can keep the rest of the economy going. In times when the price of oil is up, the economy is hurt for oil keeps the value of the local currency to high, so high other industries and farmings just die out. In times when the price of oil drops like a rock (as it is doing today), there is nothing else in the economy to keep the economy going. In Coal Mining Regions of the US, you saw a similar situation. When price of coal is high, everyone goes into the mines and NOTHING ELSE IS BUILT UP for no one can compete with the mine when it comes to wages. When the price of coal drops like a rock, the miners are out of a job, but given that nothing else was built up doing the time of high prices, there is no other jobs to take (Jobs that do exist are related to the mines OR to keeping the miners feed and clothed NOT to support any other industry or even farming).

My Article from June 2014:


In many ways Venezuela has been suffering from the "Dutch Disease" since 1900. The term "Dutch Disease" comes from how the finding of Natural Gas in the Netherlands in 1959, lead to a decline in manufacturing in the Netherlands. Prior to the finding of the Natural Gas, Netherlands would export its agricultural and manufactured items to its neighbors in Europe. If exports were higher then imports the affect would be to INCREASE the value of the Dutch Currency, this would increase the value of imports till the value of imports equal the value of exports. If imports were higher then exports, the currency would FALL reducing the cost of items being exported, till the value of exports equal imports.

The finding of Natural Gas upset this system, for the export of Natural gas would be same no matter the value of domestic currency and thus would have the net effect of raising its value to levels that make the exporting of other items to expensive, and the importing of items very cheap. You end up with an economy wrapped around one items and that economy is driven by that one items, to the detriment of the rest of the economy.

Chavez actually was working on solving the problem of the Dutch Disease in Venezuela, then the price of oil climb higher then anyone though it would. This had the effect of encouraging importing of all types of items that could be produced locally, and forcing anyone not tied in with the Oil industry to quit doing anything, including farming and manufacturing.

This has been a problem for Venezuela since at least the 1920s. No one has been able to solve it and the recent increase in the price of oil (and that Venezuela has a HUGE amount of heavy sour oil it can export) has had the affect of keeping the Bolivar high. In many ways Venezuela is one of the most expensive countries in the world to live in, despite the fact it is loaded with slums.

Given that the price of oil increased by a factor of FOUR since 2000, that brought in a lot of Revenue to the Government who tried to use it to relieve a lot of the problems in Venezuela, but the mere bring in the revenue is the problem. In many ways Venezuela would be better off NOT exporting oil, thus no revenue and thus the value of the Bolivar would drop making Farming and Manufacturing profitable.

Notice, the problem is the MONEY coming into Venezuela, NOT how the Government is spending that money. In many ways you saw this in Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya and other OPEC nations, they have high value currency but almost no exports of anything by oil related items (Crude oil and refined oil). Venezuela has had the same problem since the 1920s, yes it pre dates Chavez by decades. The only reason Chavez was able to take over, was do to the drop in the price of oil in the late 1990s, oil revenue dried up in Venezuela and no one knew how to pay the bills with the revenue from oil dropping like a rock in the late 1990 (Remember a $1 a gallon gasoline? and some Americans were paying even less).

Chavez got into power, pushed to higher oil prices in OPEC meetings, did get some price increase then you had the slow but steady increase in oil prices starting about 2002. This was both good and bad for Chavez. It was good, he had the revenue to do the projects he wanted, he reduce the poverty level in Venezuela by amounts unheard of elsewhere. On the other hand, his attempts to improve farming and manufacturing tended to fail for the revenue from Oil kept the value of the Bolivar to high to encourage exports while that same high value encouraged imports.

I do not know how you solved that problem. One of the reason Al Queda is so powerful is the unrest in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States for the same reason. We do not hear of them for those are dictatorships that the US favors. We do hear of Iran and Venezuela, for they are ruled by people we dislike (and that also includes Russia, another exported of oil that we dislike). Russia and Iran are large enough and independent enough from the rest of the world to restrict what is imported and thus protect its farmers and manufacturing, Venezuela is not that thus can not isolate itself from the rest of the world, while exporting oil.

I hate to say this, but this cut off of air flights may be GOOD for Venezuela. It would be good by isolating Venezuela from imports (in the case of air travel people and flowers which tend to be airlifted out of Columbia and Venezuela for resale in the US, Columbia much more the Venezuela do to the Dutch Disease in Venezuela). If further boycotts of importing items to Venezuela occurs, it may encourage domestic production and pull Venezuela out of its Dutch Disease. Only time will tell but maybe this is a good thing for Venezuela.

[ND-Dem]

55. you must have missed the drug shortages in the US system, going on since before 2009, and partly

associated with the huge jumps in prices for generic drugs.

One thing is certain. Drug shortages are taking their toll on the cost and quality of health care. "Hospital pharmacies have to devote more time and staff to dealing with shortages," Fox says. "When a generic drug becomes unavailable, the only option may be more expensive name-brand drugs."

Sometimes there are no alternatives. Then doctors and hospitals have to ration what they have, using them only for the sickest patients. When supplies of a drug called leucovorin ran low in 2011 and 2012, for example, cancer doctors around the country had to decide which patients received the dwindling supply and which would be given a less effective (or more expensive) therapy. "That's a tough decision to have to make," says oncologist Thomas Stanton, who practices in California.

University of Pennsylvania oncologist Keerthi Gogineni and her colleagues surveyed cancer doctors around the country in 2012 and 2013 and found that 8 in 10 were having trouble getting the drugs they needed to treat patients. "We were very surprised at how widespread the problem was, and how little guidance there was to help doctors deal with shortages," Gogineni says. Cardiologists have also been hard hit, with supplies of everything from blood pressure medications to heart failure drugs disappearing from pharmacy shelves.

http://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-2014/prescription-medication-shortage.2.html

I remember dealing with drug shortages for some pretty basic stuff circa 2002-3, so it's not a new problem, either.

[Adrahil]

9. No... building your economy around one commodity is STOOPID.

And I do find it amusing that the "anti-capitalist" Venezuela belongs to a cartel... just about one of the mos heinous expressions of capitalism.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

27. Exactly. They 'put all their eggs in one basket', then the basket got dropped.

The problem is not 'socialism' any more than it is 'capitalism'. It's simply being utterly dependent upon a single commodity for income, as you point out. I have friends who live in an area that basically gets most of its income from tourism, and over the course of the Bush depression, that tourism largely dried up, and now everybody down there is in a world of hurt, because everything was predicated upon tourists dropping lots of cash.

[Adrahil]

67. Quite correct.

Building an entire economy around one commodity is asking for trouble. In Venezuela's case, they intended petro-dollars to fund their brand of socialism. There are other problems with how and what they did, but ultimately, if they had used those dollars as reserves, and to fund infrastructure and economic development rather than massive subsidies, they would be doing ok now.

[happyslug]

40. The problem is when you have such an export, it pushes out every other exports

It also drives importation of items rather then local production. See my post on the "Dutch Disease" above.

What Venezuela needs to do is STOP exporting oil, and tell its farmers and workers to get to work farming and starting new businesses and industries. In the short term (20 years or so) this will hurt Venezuela, but sooner or later you will have a more balanced economy and that is what Venezuela has needed since at least the 1920s.

[Adrahil]

65. I mostly agree...

Except I would say that they don't need to stop exporting oil. Use it build reserves and patch up shortages instead of the basis for funding. Venezuela is big enough that it can do as you suggest and build a productive and self-sufficient society, instead of this petro-fueled "populist" nightmare.

[happyslug]

141. The problem is, this problem of non-development of the rest of the economy is decades old

The "Dutch Problem" facing Venezuela is as long as their export oil, it will always be cheaper to import the to develop the internal capacity to produce those items. When the price of oil DROPS (like it has) the profit to BUY disappears, AND there is no excess cash to develop the ability to produce the items locally. West Virginia has this problem, in good times when the mines were going full speed, everyone worked at the mines for it produced the most profit, but when the mines had to close do to drop in prices, all the money had been spent, none of it saved OR invested in developing what in the good times were inferior profitable fields. This lead to the old joke about West Virginia, during good times it was the poorest part of the American Midwest, during bad times, it was the poorest part of the American South.

The government of Venezuela MUST adopt a policy of buying local only, even if it costs twice as much. If it can NOT be produced locally, do without til it can be purchased locally (a high Tariff on imports, including food imports, would accomplish that). The problem is the people of Venezuela wants their share of the oil wealth, and thus want low price goods, including low price food. In simple terms, Venezuela has to drop out of the world economy except for exportation of oil (and even limit the exportation so NOT to push the value of Venezuela currency to high).

The problem is to many people want the problems of Venezuela to be solved TODAY, not 20 years from now. This was a problem even for Chavez and he failed to solve it (For example he failed to bring the local price of gasoline to world wide levels, more to keep the opposition and the upper middle class from objecting even more to the changes he was trying to implement).

Please note I am also avoiding the issue of to many people wanting their share of the oil profits, this includes the opposition as while as the supporters of the President. To many people see the oil as a good thing for the economy and themselves as oppose to the problem it is and will remain till people accept the fact that the oil IS THE PROBLEM and the solution is to shift the economy away from oil.

A good comparison is with Russia. Russia is another country dependent in oil for revenue, but has other industries and produces a lot of items its uses domestically. Russian imports today are way above what they were in Soviet days, but Russia has also used the present crisis to get their people to buy locally and STOP using items that are imported.

If I was the President of Venezuela I would do the following:

1. Increase the price of Gasoline to the world market price, People will complain, but point out oil is sold on the international market and thus its price domestically should be at least at that price.

2. Impose a Tariff on imports so that domestic producers know that as long as their can keep their costs below the Tariff, they can make money. Foreign Companies will see the Tariff and will build factories inside Venezuela to get around that Tariff. Either system builds up the non-oil economy of Venezuela. Yes people will use the example of the poor having to pay high prices for food, but point out the problem is that poor people can not find employment for the food is being imported. This will also cause many farmers to return to farming for the price of the food their raise should be cheaper then any food being imported. Another way to improve the non-oil economy.

3. Other domestic programs to get people working, i.e. constructions of new housing and roads to improve internal trade and thus help the non-oil economy.

The thrust must be to help the non-oil economy, for oil will constantly hurt that part of the economy and it is that part that needs to be built up to get Venezuela out of the "Dutch Trap" it is in and has been since at least the 1920s.

[Adrahil]

143. Good Post. n/t

[Fred Sanders]

144. Introducing a little history into another Socialism bashing thread is going to get noticed.

[happyslug]

149. The problem is NOT Socialism or even Capitalism, but oil and its effect on the non-oil economy.

Chavez tried to work around it, but I do not believe he ever understood what the problem was. Many of his supporters and opponents clearly do not. Both groups see oil as a boom NOT a curse. The problem with exporting an energy producing commodity is how it affects the rest of the economy. Those bad effects have to be addressed and they have not been for the first choice is to subsidize local industry not protect them. At the same time there is a tendency to protect your friends from the bad effects of oil exportation instead of saying that you will protect ALL of the non-oil economy by spending the money on projects that will produce long term good (dams, roads, etc). There is also a tendency to go for the cheapest price possible, even if that means imports that kill off the non-oil economy.

In simple terms, Venezuela has to do things many people dislike and that includes people on the left AND the right. Socialists AND Capitalists will hate what is needed for both are addicted to the profits from oil production. Both have to get off that addiction but money is something a lot of people have problems turning away from, and in many ways turning away from that easy money is want is needed.

[hack89]

147. Why do you assume that foreign companies will build factories in VZ?

they still have to import the raw materials and/or sub-components that they use to put together a final product.

Global companies are truly global with materials flowing to factories from all over the world. They are not going to build a completely separate business model just to sell stuff in Venezuela - there is no way it will be economically viable.

As for more domestic programs, where is the money coming from? The problem with VZ is their economy is not producing the wealth needed to fund existing government spending.

[happyslug]

148. You be surprised what can be made locally with local material

Last edited Wed Feb 4, 2015, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)

Any Tariff has to be against ANYTHING that can be produced locally. The propose of the Tariff would be to compensate for what the exportation of oil is doing to the rest of your economy. Thus the parts have to be imported, the Tariff will apply to them to encourage local development of those parts.

Remember the propose of the Tariff will be to protect the NON-oil parts of the Economy. Global companies are truly global but they also work around local laws all the time. You will be surprised at what is produce where to satisfy local requirements and if the supplier do not, a local supplier will fill in for that local supplies can rely on higher prices do to the protection of the Tariff.

As to your third argument, the answer is simple, the Tariff itself AND the profits one makes by not having to pay the Tariff because you are producing locally. Your argument is a variation of the Chicken and Egg debate i.e. which comes first?? The answer is one leads to the other thus both come first and both comes last. From the Egg comes the Chicken, from the Chicken the Egg,

The same with where will the money come from. As to local non-oil economy booms, it will lead to more expansion of the non-oil economy, which in turn produce more profits, which in turn expand the internal non-oil economy. Profits lead to more profits. The problem with oil, is the rest of the Economy ends up losing money and losing money leads to more losing money and pretty soon you are like West Virginia in the middle of a coal slump. On the other hand if the Government protects local industry by use of a Tariff, profits will lead expansion, which leads to profits, which leads to expansion.

You have to accept the unpleasant fact that oil has a tendency to kill off the non-oil economy in region (just like coal did so in the late 1800s and while into the 1900s and to a degree today in the coal mining areas of the US). You have to protect the non-energy related parts of the economy from the negative effects of the energy producing parts. Regulation including Tariffs are one way to protect the non-energy parts of the economy, and that has to be done unless you economy is so large that energy production and exportation is a minor part of your economy (as is the case in the US).

One of the advantages of a Tariff is you can still import any item you want, but the price is high. Thus if you really need it, you will pay for it.

[hack89]

150. VZ has not have the regulatory infrastructure in place to attract massive foreign investment

Last edited Wed Feb 4, 2015, 04:09 PM - Edit history (1)

they are ideologically opposed to capitalism and have a history of nationalizing and seizing the assets of foreign companies that they get into disputes with. So how does the government of VZ create a business friendly environment that makes global companies willing to invest billions of dollars building factories and other infrastructure? The government is seen as incompetent, corrupt and capricious - it is hard to see companies willing to take the risk.

[christx30]

151. Well said.

No business is is going to risk billions to build a factory when there is a huge chance it's going to be taken from them the at the first opportunity. They are going to go for a safer bet. Nothing says that a business HAS to invest in anything in Venezuela. And the Maduro government isn't giving any reasons to do so.

[happyslug]

152. First Global Companies go where they can make profits....

And there are profits to be made in Venezuela. The present government is NOT Cuba, it has always permitted Capitalism to thrive. We have heard from some companies that the Government has accused of exploitations, but even in those cases those stores were NOT Nationalized, just subject to some very strict regulations.

While the Heritage Site and the Wall Street Journal both claim that Venezuela has the weakest property rights in the world. Ford, Toyota and GM all have Factories in Venezuela and still producing cars in they own names. Homes have been confiscated, but compensation paid:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11756492

Thus investments have been made and investments are still being made in Venezuela. The problem appears to be that with the price of oil dropping, the amount of money Venezuela has access to has been reduced and it is a lot easier to adjust to an expanding economy then a shrinking economy. Venezuela's economy is so tied in with Oil, the the drop in the price of oil will do massive damage to its economy. The present government has to shrink with the economy and that is one of the problems when you become to dependent on oil to keep your economy up.

[hack89]

153. I guess it will depend on who is in charge when the present crisis is over

it is hard to imagine companies getting involved until the crash is over and the dust has settled.

[AtheistCrusader]

12. Maybe. Corporatism can get in on it too.

Normally, a capitalist system does indeed seek to extract as much wealth as possible from the target customer audience, but it can also take into account the sustainability of that cash flow, and running a country directly into the ground isn't terribly sustainable.

On the other hand, you also have the complexity of multiple international markets, where a foreign market might just go cut-throat all the way against the rival foreign producer/nation, and not care, because all their customers are actually in a different market.

It gets complex quick.

So, I don't know I'd lay the blame at the feet of capitalism on this one, but I would venture that capitalism has little to no inherent built-in protections to prevent that sort of financial fiasco.

This is why a mixed-market economy, I would argue is the best. You have the productivity of a capitalist engine, with socialist regulations and controls protecting people. That's a good combo. Where ours has gone awry, is the corporatist interest/lobbying money flowing into politics from corporations. The Koch's are just one example of that. There are many. Most of them pulling at the supports of government in the same directly, trying to get it to fall in such a way that benefits them.

It's a complex issue. Hard to assign clear blame any one particular place.

[Dustlawyer]

19. You mentioned "sustainability." I think that they used to look at sustainability and long term

growth of markets, but now everything is about quarterly profits and squeezing every penny out of their assets. Refiners here where I live used to maintain their plants, spend money to make money. Now, a mid-level manager may be over two or three units and his bonus, raises, and promotions are dependent on whether those units are making huge profits in the 1-2 years he will be over them. If those units needed all new piping because the x-Rays show them to be too thin, or some other expensive vessel needs to be replaced, he is going to wait. Once he is promoted those pipes will be the next guys problem. If he replaces them then he gets little to no bonus and may get demoted or worse. This is what happened in the BP Texas City plant explosion in 2005, that killed 15 and injured thousands.
The greed is out of control! Everyone wants to make CEO pay right freakin now! For the heads of these corporations, it has to be record profits every time, everything else is unimportant! People and the environment do not matter anymore. With limitations and caps on most lawsuits now, and jurors brainwashed to believe that every plaintiff in a lawsuit is someone who is a fraud, corporations don't have to worry much about safety or the EPA. The regulatory agencies have been gutted, starved, and headed by industry whores fresh from the revolving door.
The real root problem is that the Capitalist have been able to bribe the politicians of both parties to gain control over the government. They have been allowed to consolidate into oligarchies while we were watching their media networks blind us to the truth of what is happening. We no longer have a Representative Democracy, we have Fascism!

[Adrahil]

66. I think it's pretty easy, really....

There a&e lots of countries in the world heavily dependent upon oil as an export. Venezuela is the worst off by far, right now. And despite Maduro's rankings, that has nothing to do with the U.S., and everything to do with their fevered imaginations.

The Maduro government is incompetent, and so was the Chavez government before them. It's one thing to "stick it to the man" and promise free shit for everyone, but it's another to build a functioning, sustainable economy.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. Only if it also gets the credit for propping up their economy when prices were high.

[Archae]

2. Maduro phanbois in 3-2-1...

"Because Maduro can do no wrong and it's all the CIA's fault and yargle blargle..."

[Calista241]

24. I'm sure there's some school somewhere that existed in the 1950's that taught people how to protest

these authoritarian jackoffs.

[Ken Burch]

61. Wrong-It's because none of Maduro's opponents in Venezuela act out of progressive intent.

If there was a decent opposition party, one that cared about Venezuela's working-class multiracial majority, it would be
different.

You don't care about the poor or the workers there. You just want the old light-skinned wealthy elite running the show again.

The people who bash the PSUV now are the same ones who cheered on the contras and UNO in Nicaragua and broke out the bubbly when Pinochet ended democracy and socialism in Chile.

[Marksman_91]

155. Umm, did you hear about former Minister Giordani recently saying that they're in trouble?

He was the guy who handled Venezuela's budget and planification during pretty much all of Chavez's presidency, and the first year under Maduro. Now that he got sacked by the Nincompoop, he's claiming Venezuela has almost become the laughingstock of Latin America. Even Heinz Dieterich sees Maduro as an incompetent fool.

[yurbud]

4. and turning the country back over to neoliberal sociopaths would help people like her how?

[COLGATE4]

6. For starters the stores would be full of such luxury items as

soap and toilet paper, the hospitals would have exotic things like surgical supplies and pharmacies would have - gasp - pharmaceutical products for sale. You know - like Venezuela before Chavez.

[Bacchus4.0]

7. yep, like the rest of latin america whether right, left, or center. n/t

[COLGATE4]

8. Shhh. You're waking them from their delusion. nt

[MADem]

10. Dishwashing liquid! TOOTHPASTE~!!! Baby food~! Chickens!! Oh, those high living snoots! nt

[COLGATE4]

21. Bunch of goddamn oligarch capitalistic pig wannabe's. Imagine.

[MADem]

57. Yeah, expecting to strut into a grocer or pharmacy and find things like baby diapers

and deodorant! Such insane expectations~!

[yurbud]

11. And would a taxi drivers wife be able to afford medical care?

[Bacchus4.0]

14. Sure why not? Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, and ostensibly Venezuela

all have universal coverage. However, what those countries have that Venezuela doesn't have are medicine and supplies.

[7962]

20. That gave me a good laugh! Thanks nt

[LiberalLovinLug]

41. So...if they go back to a strict right wing Koch Brother friendly government...

...suddenly stores would be overflowing...like "before Chavez"? Despite the price of oil?

uh....wouldn't that give credence to the theory that these items have been purposely squeezed out?

[EX500rider]

50. "wouldn't that give credence to the theory that these items have been purposely squeezed out?"

No, that would be due to terribly thought out price and currency controls.....you can't get dollars to import what you need and you can't sell at a profit when you do. 60%+ inflation also in the mix.

[COLGATE4]

51. No, it would give credence to there being an exchange rate

that isn't being manipulated by the government so that the new 'boligarchs' can enrich themselves at the cost of the Venezuelan people.

[Fred Sanders]

104. Most of Latin America used to be a Capitalist's paradise, milk and honey flowed freely, remember?

[Bacchus4.0]

135. Milk and honey are very common in Latin America with the exception of Venezuela n/t

[Adrahil]

13. It doesn't have to be either/or

a nice social-democracy can balance the needs of the people with the power of the market. This quasi-Marxist populist nightmare is all rainbow drippings and unicorn farts... based on nothing with no real plan... and it's bearing its fruit.

[sulphurdunn]

15. What puts the lie to all this bull shit

is in understanding why Venezuela's number one trading partner hasn't sent so much as an aspirin or a loaf of stale bread to alleviate any of the suffering there.

[Bacchus4.0]

16. the US exports billions of dollars of agriculture and food to Venezuela each year n/t

[EX500rider]

18. Wasn't like they had a natural disaster..

....it's not our fault they shoot themselves in the foot with bad economic policies.

This article is from 2011 but it outlines some of the problems:

After 12 years of unproductive economic policy, Venezuela has spent more than $517 billion in oil income and increased its total debt from $31.3 billion in 1998 to an estimated $96 billion at the end of 2010.

Economic policies over the past 12 years have amplified the natural resource curse: low growth, high volatility, Dutch Disease, accusations of fiscal greed and corruption, inequality and poverty, and weak institutions. Since 1998, and despite the oil windfall, Venezuela has grown on average 2.3 percent per year. In contrast, the seven largest Latin American countries grew on average by 3.2 percent. Within this period, Venezuela experienced five years of negative growth with an average contraction of 5.6 percent and seven years of positive growth with an average expansion of 8.4 percent. Venezuela is an extreme example of Dutch Disease: in nominal terms, oil exports have grown 410 percent since 1998, while imports have grown 130 percent. But in real terms, exports have fallen 40 percent, with imports more than doubling.

At the same time, Venezuela’s institutional development lags behind its Latin American peers. Using the World Bank Governance Indicators for 2009, Venezuela’s percentile rank for control of corruption is 8 percent; the regional average is 47 percent. Similar selective comparisons are as follows: rule of law (3 percent Venezuela, vs. 43 percent regional); quality of regulation (4 percent vs. 45 percent); government effectiveness (19 percent vs. 50 percent); political stability (11 percent vs. 38 percent); and accountability (26 percent vs. 49 percent).

Venezuela has the world’s cheapest gasoline. But what does this subsidy mean for Venezuelan society? Assuming 17.6 billion liters of annual domestic consumption, the total gasoline subsidy amounted to $9.4 billion, or 4.6 percent of GDP, in 2010.

http://www.americasquarterly.org/node/2436

[ND-Dem]

56. Venezuela's debt to GDP ratio was higher before Chavez than it is today.

as you can see if you enter the dates into the chart (I can't get it to publish at DU with 1994-2015, but if you enter those dates you can see the chart)

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/government-debt-to-gdp


While our own debt to GDP ratio is nearly double what it was in 1994.

[7962]

62. A lot of folks here will tell you our debt doesnt matter.

Happens every time I mention that we need to do something about it.

[ND-Dem]

98. i don't know that it does; just saying, vz's was was worse pre-chacez & ours is worse than theirs.

[COLGATE4]

22. Yep. It's all our fault. It's all a US/CIA/Colombian/

NWO/Capitalist (have I missed any?) conspiracy intended to deprive the Venezuelan people of the 'benefits' of the Grand Bolivarian Revolution. That's what Maduro believes, anyway.

[sulphurdunn]

25. Why not just keep it simple, and call it what it is:

another failed attempt by people who actually gave a shit to lift millions of people out of abject poverty against the wishes of global capital. We can also dispense with the "it must be all our fault or it can't be any of our fault" false dichotomy and all the other fallacies we use to wash our hands of messes we want to believe are none of our fault, we being the city on the hill and all that kind of imperialist claptrap.

[Tarheel_Dem]

29. And it didn't work. Now what?

[sulphurdunn]

34. That's easy,

the oligarchs return. The money flows. The economy recovers, riot police, the army and rightist death squads drive these mostly brown people back into the barrios and let them starve until they can find a way to make a buck off of them again for which they will come hat in hand, just like its been since the Conquest.

[7962]

44. "back into the barrios"? The whole country has become a barrio!

Did you even watch the video you responded to?

[COLGATE4]

52. Let's keep it simple and call it what it is:

It's boring hearing over and over again- ad nauseam- the ridiculous claim that the disaster that is-Venezuela's economy is really due to dark, sinister forces conspiring against the beleaguered and outgunned revolutionary heroes who are staunchly defending the downtrodden masses against everyone and everything else in the world.

This colossal screw-up is in fact only due to the stark ineptitude of a bunch of pathetic clowns who have managed to take a country which enjoyed a standard of living which was the envy of most of Latin America and in 15 short years managed to turn it into third world country with shortages of the most basic items seen only in places like Cuba. The people these defensores de la patria most give a shit about lifting out of poverty seem to be those Chavex acolytes who have enriched themselves at the expense of the entire country by buying dollars at the official rate of 6Bs=$1 and then selling them on the black market at 180Bs=$1. Now that's patriotism.

[Adrahil]

77. I'll give the Chavistas this:

I think they really wanted to make things better. I think they were not just some profiteering con artists ala the Sandinistas (who seized private estates, and then distributed them to party officials).

But good intentions can not govern a nation. And constantly looking for some scapegoat as the latest boogeyman is destructive.

There are successful social democracies in the world. Follow THAT model, instead of the failed Cuban or Soviet models.

[7962]

32. you forgot the Jews!!

[sulphurdunn]

35. Be careful!

Are you some kind of anti-Semite? Why do you hate Jews?

[7962]

45. Just going along with the previous post. Many here blame the Jews for anything that goes wrong.

[COLGATE4]

53. Yep. Chavez liked his anti-semitism, too. nt

[Manifest Destiny]

17. It was a nightmare too

when western corporations raped the land and extracted all the money made from resources. The Telegraph is being quite one -sided.

[COLGATE4]

23. You are (at least I assume) aware that Venezuela

nationalized all its oil many years ago, long before Chavez, so, unfortunately for your thesis, western corporations haven't been "extracting all the money made from resources". Makes for good polemics, though. And the touch about "raping the land" is classic. Thanks for playing.

[Tarheel_Dem]

28. When did that happen in Venezuela? Link please?

[Manifest Destiny]

30. US-Venezuela Patron-Client Relations 1960’s -1998

During the 40-year period following the overthrow of the Dictator Perez Jimenez (1958) and prior to the election of President Hugo Chavez (1998), Venezuela ’s politics were marked with rigid conformity to US political and economic interests on all strategic issues.[9] Venezuelan regimes followed Washington ’s lead in ousting Cuba from the Organization of American States, breaking relations with Havana and promoting a hemispheric blockade. Caracas followed Washington ’s lead during the cold War and backed its counter-insurgency policies in Latin America . It opposed the democratic leftist regime in Chile under President Salvador Allende, the nationalist governments of Brazil (1961-64), Peru (1967-73), Bolivia (1968-71) and Ecuador (in the 1970’s). It supported the US invasions of the Dominican Republic , Panama and Grenada . Venezuela ’s nationalization of oil (1976) provided lucrative compensation and generous service contracts with US oil companies, a settlement far more generous than any comparable arrangement in the Middle East or elsewhere in Latin America .

During the decade from the late 1980’s to 1998, Venezuela signed[10] off on draconic International Monetary Fund programs, including privatizations of natural resources, devaluations and austerity programs, which enriched the MNCs, emptied the Treasury and impoverished the majority of wage and salary earners.[11] In foreign policy, Venezuela aligned with the US, ignored new trade opportunities in Latin America and Asia and moved to re-privatize its oil, bauxite and other primary resource sectors. President Perez was indicted in a massive corruption scandal. When implementation of the brutal US-IMF austerity program led to a mass popular uprising (the ‘Caracazo’) in February 1989, the government responded with the massacre of over a thousand protestors. The subsequent Caldera regime presided over the triple scourge of triple digit inflation, 50% poverty rates and double digit unemployment.[12]

Social and political conditions in Venezuela touched bottom at the peak of US hegemony in the region, the ‘Golden Age of Neo-Liberalism’ for Wall Street. The inverse relation was not casual: Venezuela , under President Caldera, endured austerity programs and adopted ‘open’ market and US-centered policies, which undermined any public policies designed to revive the economy. Moreover, world market conditions were unfavorable for Venezuela , as oil prices were low and China had not yet become a world market power and alternative trade partner.

[Tarheel_Dem]

31. WTF does any of that have to do with Maduro's mismanagement of a government controlled resource?

[Manifest Destiny]

36. You may want to reread your question

to my post. Why is it necessary to be so rude?

[GGJohn]

37. Why was it necessary to post a comment that has nothing

to do with the gross and criminal mismanagement of Maduro?

[Manifest Destiny]

48. It has to do with context and the past.....

they were previously raped by corporations and the IMF.

[GGJohn]

49. But that's not what's happening now is it.

What's happening now is the gross ineptness and criminal mismanagement of the economy, plus a reliance of a single commodity to support the economy instead of a diverse economy.

[Manifest Destiny]

82. Those who don't learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to repeat them.

[GGJohn]

88. That would apply to the Maduro govt continuing the failed

policies of the Chavez regime.

[NoJusticeNoPeace]

26. And capitalism American style is a huge disaster and failure...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

[7962]

33. Yet we all can still easily use real toilet paper to wipe ourselves!!

[GGJohn]

38. And our hospitals aren't suffering from scarcity of medicine. eom.

[daleo]

42. No, but plenty of poor and working class people are

[GGJohn]

43. And this has what to do with Venezuela?

[7962]

46. Nothing! You think that matters? nt

[christx30]

58. It doesn't matter how bad things are in Venezuela.

They could be resorting to mass cannibalism, and because there are still some poor people here in the US, they are still going to say that things aren't so bad down there. And if the greedy people here in the US were just willing to pay $10 per gallon of gas, things down there would improve.
And everything else is our fault.

[Manifest Destiny]

83. Your concern for the people of Venezuela is noted.

Not. You are so obviously see through. Is this the new US meme, first crush them with oil price manipulation to weaken their economies and then put out a media barrage and hammer comment sections to convince everyone that they themselves are at fault for the tanking economy?

[GGJohn]

86. The US is crushing them with oil price manipulation?

Where have you been?
I thought it was Saudi Arabia doing the oil price manipulation.

Your agenda is so transparent, first, blame the US for something it isn't doing, them try to ostracize anyone who attempts to place the blame where it belongs, at the feet of the corrupt Maduro and his govt.
Enjoy your stay.

[Manifest Destiny]

96. The oil price manipulation began the day after John Kerry left Riyadh.

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/10/24/the-secret-stupid-saudi-us-deal-on-syria/

The details are emerging of a new secret and quite stupid Saudi-US deal on Syria and the so-called IS. It involves oil and gas control of the entire region and the weakening of Russia and Iran by Saudi Arabian flooding the world market with cheap oil. Details were concluded in the September meeting by US Secretary of State John Kerry and the Saudi King. The unintended consequence will be to push Russia even faster to turn east to China and Eurasia.

One of the weirdest anomalies of the recent NATO bombing campaign, allegedly against the ISIS or IS or ISIL or Daash, depending on your preference, is the fact that with major war raging in the world’s richest oil region, the price of crude oil has been dropping, dramatically so. Since June when ISIS suddenly captured the oil-rich region of Iraq around Mosul and Kirkuk, the benchmark Brent price of crude oil dropped some 20% from $112 to about $88. World daily demand for oil has not dropped by 20% however. China oil demand has not fallen 20% nor has US domestic shale oil stock risen by 21%.

What has happened is that the long-time US ally inside OPEC, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has been flooding the market with deep discounted oil, triggering a price war within OPEC, with Iran following suit and panic selling short in oil futures markets. The Saudis are targeting sales to Asia for the discounts and in particular, its major Asian customer, China where it is reportedly offering its crude for a mere $50 to $60 a barrel rather than the earlier price of around $100. [1] That Saudi financial discounting operation in turn is by all appearance being coordinated with a US Treasury financial warfare operation, via its Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, in cooperation with a handful of inside players on Wall Street who control oil derivatives trading. The result is a market panic that is gaining momentum daily. China is quite happy to buy the cheap oil, but her close allies, Russia and Iran, are being hit severely.

- See more at: http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/10/24/the-secret-stupid-saudi-us-deal-on-syria/#sthash.VpA1P8MH.dpuf


And what does "enjoy your stay" mean? Does it mean because I have a differing viewpoint I will be kicked off this message board? That is not very democratic if thats the case. I also don't see things as black and white as you do. I believe that it is more noble to help the United States by exposing our hypocrisy than to go along with the nefarious things our government does. That, to me, is true patriotism. I dislike bandwagons, bullying and subservient sheep. It is quite obvious what is going on in our country. I can't say that you work for them but I can say that it is a fact that the US government is now employing people to shape debate in online comment sections. Nice avatar, by the way.

[GGJohn]

100. Sorry, but Ven. economy was tanking long before any

crude price drops, this is wholly due to the widespread corruption of the Ven. govt, which started during Chavez regime and continuing after he croaked.
It's very easy to blame the US for Ven. problems when your in the tank for Ven.

Again, your agenda is very transparent here, defend the Chavista's at all costs and blame the US for all of Ven. problems.

[Manifest Destiny]

140. I admit I have a different view opposite to you

and do fault the US and crony corporatism for Venezuelas problems. Does that mean I am not tolerated here? How is that you get to tell me to 'enjoy my stay' (implying I will be kicked off the board) for having a differing viewpoint? Where is the democratic discussion in that?

[daleo]

160. When you lead off with "our hospitals"

You changed the subject from Venezuela to "our hospitals", so you can't logically criticize someone from extending your own conversational device.

[ND-Dem]

54. not quite true, actually.

Dangerous Drug Shortages

Dozens of essential medications are in critically short supply. Here's what you need to know

http://www.aarp.org/health/drugs-supplements/info-2014/prescription-medication-shortage.html

http://www.ashp.org/DrugShortages/Current/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3278171/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22282871

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24582195

National tracking of drug shortages began in 2001. However, a significant increase in the number of shortages began in late 2009, with numbers reaching what many have termed crisis level. The typical drug in short supply is a generic product administered by injection. Common classes of drugs affected by shortages include anesthesia medications, antibiotics, pain medications, nutrition and electrolyte products, and chemotherapy agents.

The economic and clinical effects of drug shortages are significant. The financial effect of drug shortages is estimated to be hundreds of millions of dollars annually for health systems across the United States. Clinically, patients have been harmed by the lack of drugs or inferior alternatives, resulting in more than 15 documented deaths. Drug shortages occur for a variety of reasons. Generic injectable drugs are particularly susceptible to drug shortages because there are few manufacturers of these products and all manufacturers are running at full capacity. In addition, some manufacturers have had production problems, resulting in poor quality product.

SHORTAGES OF PHARMACEU-ticals are suddenly occurring frequently in medical practice, and represent a bewildering situation for clinicians—one that most have never encountered. The shortages appear primarily among generic drugs, reliance on which is the main mechanism that health systems in the United States use to constrain pharmaceutical costs. According to the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) report on drug shortages of October 31, 2011, the number of annual drug shortages had tripled from 61 in 2005 to 178 in 2010.[1] As of July 2012 there were more than 200.[2] What is it that has changed in the pharmaceutical market that has caused these shortages? What will it take to solve the problem? Once we better understand the underlying reasons for the shortages, remedies can be sought.

The shortages are occurring in all therapeutic categories. Although early reports noted the high incidence of shortages of sterile injectible drugs[3] —often those used for cancer treatment— subsequent observations have pointed out that the problem is far more widespread than that.[4,5] In fact, one report in 2008 studied the sudden shortage of heparin, the drug widely used for surgery patients.[6]

The shortages are the result of a sort of "perfect storm" involving 3 phenomena:

1.A consolidation of the market for generic drugs, with reduced numbers of both buyers and manufacturers;

2.An increased penetration of generic drugs in the overall pharmaceutical marketplace; and

3.An increased dependence on outsourced drug products, either chemical ingredients or manufactured drugs, coming from countries where inspections are more difficult to conduct.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/804536

This is why the prices for some generics have recently skyrocketed, and there's speculation that the system is being gamed for profit.

[Ken Burch]

59. A link from a Thatcherite rag that has cheered on every right-wing coup in Latin American history

And that backed Franco and Mussolini in the Thirties.

[7962]

63. Yeah, I'm sure the stories are all false. Thats why everyone else is reporting the same thing

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/09/venezuela-drug-shortage-hiv/8897051/
http://www.local10.com/news/hospitals-in-venezuela-virtually-closed-for-lack-of-materials/27610660
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/rest-of-world/Venezuela-authorities-probe-drug-store-chain-amid-shortages/articleshow/46102552.cms

etc etc

[Nye Bevan]

68. Actually, some of the very best DUers cite that "rag" as a source.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113422516

[Ken Burch]

112. That was once. Three years ago. I've learned since then. n/t.

[Fred Sanders]

106. The Op-eds everywhere cheering for a return to crony capitalism in Venezuela are penned by pathetic Wall Street shills.

[snooper2]

110. Have you been down there to give Maduro some advice?

Maybe every business should be turned into a co-op!


Or, they can find new local materials to process into toilet paper and start growing wheat for flour!

Be self sufficient...they just need somebody to train them! DO IT FRED!

[Fred Sanders]

111. I am already Minister of Propaganda so why would I accept a demotion, silly?

Someone has to point out the crony American capitalism-apologizing journalists.

It was at the top of my to-do list for President Maduro, right after his recent election.

[Scuba]

64. Nationalize your oil and TPTB will undermine you at every turn.

[Nye Bevan]

69. And the US will infect your president with cancer (according to Maduro):

Conspiracy theorists who wonder about aliens at Roswell and Nasa faking the moon landings have a new issue to ponder: did the CIA murder Hugo Chávez?

The claim has acquired supporters since Venezuela's vice-president, Nicolas Maduro, floated it after announcing Chávez's death on Tuesday following a two-year battle with cancer.

.....

Maduro, who as Chavez's designated heir is favourite to win an upcoming election, said his chief had been "attacked" by the country's "historical enemies". He called for a scientific investigation. A US State Department spokesman called the claim "absurd".

Since Chavez revealed his cancer in June 2011 the exact nature of the disease, which was in the pelvic area, was treated as a state secret. Chavez claimed he was cured last year. Those who doubted that were called liars and traitors.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/mar/07/maduro-alleges-chavez-cancer-plot

[hack89]

70. That makes no sense. The TPTB gets all the VZ oil they want at they price they set.

Besides, VZ nationalized their oil in 1972. Kind of a slow undermining considering it took 43 years to work.

[christx30]

72. More like steal from people,

and no one is going to trust you enough to do business with you.

[Scuba]

73. I can only assume you mean stealing from the owners of the oil companies ...

... because the oil in the ground belongs to the people, not those oil companies. The oil companies don't steal it, they just corrupt government officials to give them sweetheart deals on oil rights.

Too bad you have such an unenlightened view of this.

[hack89]

74. But when you lack the capital and expertise to manage and expand your oil industry

then it does not pay to piss off the people that can provide them. Venezuela has seen a steady decline in oil production due to mismanagement and a failure to invest in oil infrastructure. Now they have an antiquated and inefficient oil infrastructure and no means to fix it.

There are ways to work with multinational oil companies and still ensure that the benefit returns to the people - look no further than Norway and Statoil.

[Scuba]

76. When you have oil, you have access to capital. How could you miss that?

[hack89]

80. But not enough - why do you think their oil production has been declining for a decade?nt

[Scuba]

84. If they don't have access to enough capital, it's because the banking ....

... industry, hating/fearing nationalization, refuses to lend them money despite having the ever-profitable oil.

[hack89]

87. Banks and companies don't invest in countries that break contracts and can't be trusted

they expect to make money. If the risk of not making money is high then they invest elsewhere.

Would you loan money to someone who has stiffed you in the past?

[Scuba]

89. Banks do business with drug and arms dealers and anyone else who can pay ...

... If they don't do biz with Venezuela you can bet that their reasons have everything to do with making any country that nationalizes an industry suffer for it.

[hack89]

93. It makes them money. VZ does not.

I notice you are not addressing the other factors that have crippled VZ's oil industry here is a list:

1. Brain drain of skilled workers.
2. Political appointees instead of oil industry experts put in charge.
3. Spending oil money on government programs instead of infrastructure modernization.

Is it so hard to admit that some of their problems are self inflicted?

[Scuba]

94. I did notice that you think "oil industry experts" should be put in charge. Not surprising.

[hack89]

99. Doesn't VZ have oil industry experts that can run an oil company?

They used to until they were replaced by political appointees.

Can you admit that some of their problems were self inflicted? Is it really that hard?

[Scuba]

102. Can you admit that TPTB might not look favorably on any nation that nationalizes their oil?

[hack89]

105. VZ nationalized their oil industry 43 years ago.

and the TPTB happily purchased as much oil as VZ was willing to sell them. The TPTB cares about profits - they set the price and control the global oil market so why would they care about an event that happened in 1972? They adjusted to the new reality along time ago and have been making money in VZ ever since.

[Scuba]

107. TPTB understand the long game. Chavez held them off for a while, dramatically improving ...

... conditions for the poorest in his country.

But TPTB do indeed understand the long game.

[hack89]

113. But it was Chavez that drove VZ's oil industry into the ground

he made many of the decisions that undermined their ability to modernize and expand. Yes - lots of oil revenue went to social programs that helped the poor. But it was at the expense of reinvesting into their oil infrastructure. Now they can't pump enough oil to fund those social programs. It was pure mismanagement.

[Scuba]

119. The asset remains intact, not given to foreign investors at discount prices.

There was no doubt some mismanagement, but any reasonable person can understand that TPTB have been meddling in Venezuela's affairs for decades. I can't understand why anyone would try to deny that unless they were promoting big oil's cause.

[hack89]

121. VZ is a member of the largest capitalist cartel in the world

they have been able to sell oil at a price they help to manipulate with no hindrance. Doesn't that make them part of the TPTB?

They had the means to improve their infrastructure and maintain oil production levels. So tell me exactly how the TPTB is to blame here. Can you give some specific example beyond some hand waving generalities?

[Scuba]

122. No, Venezuela disengaged from TPTB when they nationalized their oil.

Here, for your edification ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110813322

Venezuela: WikiLeaks shows US use 'NGOs' to cover intervention

Venezuela: WikiLeaks shows US use 'NGOs' to cover intervention
Monday, April 15, 2013

By Ryan Mallett-Outtrim, Merida

In the week leading up to Venezuela’s April 14 presidential elections, whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks published a classified cable indicating that US-based aid organisations were working to overthrow the government and defend US corporate interests in the Andean country.

Sent from the US embassy in Caracas on November 2006, the cable details how dozens of non-government organisations (NGOs) are financially maintained by US government-funded US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI). This includes “over 300 Venezuelan civil society organizations”, ranging from disability advocates to education programs.

Many of the initiatives sound well-intentioned, such as ones supporting an environmental lobby group and a garbage collection program in Caracas.

However, USAID/OTI support for these benign-sounding groups was part of a larger, four-pronged project.

The ultimate aims of the embassy were described by then-US ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield as “penetrating Chavez’s political base ... dividing Chavismo ... protecting vital US business ... isolating Chavez internationally”.

and here ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x751175

Chavez supporters in the United States recently obtained documents through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act showing that the National Endowment for Democracy, which is partially supported by U.S. government funds, gave about $2 million to opposition political groups in Venezuela.

then of course, there's this towering disappointment ...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/110827681

Joe Biden says Venezuela lacks basic respect for human rights

US Vice-President Joe Biden described as "alarming" the social and political situation facing Venezuela.

The top official stressed that the Venezuelan government lacks the basic responsibility to respect the universal human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, prevent violence and engage the opposition in a true dialogue, in a deeply-divided country. His remarks came in an interview published on Sunday in Spanish with Chilean daily newspaper El Mercurio, AP reported.

This, from the VP of a country that shows absolutely no respect for human rights either here or abroad.

[hack89]

124. What about the 30 years after nationalization before Chavez came along?

nationalization didn't seem to bother the TPTB then.

And what does your post have to do with the VZ oil industry? We know they had the resources to modernize and expand their oil infrastructure. Did the US force them to spend the money on other things? Mind control machines perhaps?

[Scuba]

129. Please return the goalpost to its original position.

[hack89]

131. You want to put the blame solely on the mythical TPTB

despite evidence that TPTB didn't give a rats ass when VZ nationalized their oil industry 42 years ago. And despite evidence that VZ had all the resources they needed to maintain oil production but instead decided to spend the money elsewhere.

You refuse to accept that most of their problems are self inflicted - starting with their moronic currency control laws which are at the root of their economic crisis.

That is fine - I should have learned from years in the 9/11 forum that arguing with conspiracy theorists is a waste of time. It is like arguing with anti-vaxxers.

[Scuba]

132. Please provide evidence that the meddling is a new phenomenum.

[hack89]

133. Spoken like a true conspiracy theorist: "Prove that I am wrong."

No - how about you prove you are right. It is your claim after all.

Please provide evidence of meddling in the VZ economy right now. Showing that something happened in the past is merely proof that something happened in the past. It is not evidence of anything happening right now.

On the other hand, I can (and have) provided specific examples of how VZ has mismanaged their economy with no help from the TPTB.

[Scuba]

136. No, it was you who implied that there was no meddling for 4 decades. And I have provided ...

... specific examples of how TPTB have meddled in Venezuela's affairs, but then you moved the goalpost asking for earlier examples.

[hack89]

138. No - I said that the TPTB didn't give a rats ass about VZ nationalizing their oil industry in 1972

you are the one that went back to 2006 for "proof" of meddling. Which means that the TPTB ignored VZ's oil nationalization for 30 years. Which makes sense - they are part of the TPTB. Membership in the world's largest capitalist cartel in is automatic membership

And you have still to present evidence that meddling is taking place right now.

[Scuba]

139. Your conclusion that meddling in 2006 means that TPTB ignored nationalization for 30 years ...

... strongly suggests that you need to take a Logic 101 course.

[hack89]

146. So lets see your hard evidence of ongoing meddling

you do have some don't you?

[Bacchus4.0]

134. Venezuela gives oil to other countries who turn around and sell it for a profit

They also subsidize gasoline domestically for about 2 cents a gallon. Unsustainable and little wonder why they don't have cash. Venezuela has done nothing to diversify the economy.

[christx30]

126. Would you invest in Venezuela,

knowing there would be a very good chance that you would lose everything? I'm sure if you wanted to, you could buy 10, 20, 30 year bonds, just like we do here in the US.
And if you wouldn't invest, why should anyone else?

[hack89]

81. Venezuela’s Oil Industry Exodus Slowing Crude Production

another problem is that skilled oilfield workers can work anywhere in the world.

Fernandez, 33, is part of a growing exodus of skilled oilfield workers from Venezuela, where real wages for engineers have fallen to the equivalent of less than $400 a month, about 9 percent of the global average. The world’s worst inflation, swelling crime rates and a plunging currency are prompting others to move abroad, dragging down oil production at a time when slumping crude prices threaten the country’s export revenue.

While Venezuela’s foreign affairs ministry has declined to provide emigration data, job websites show surging interest. The number of Venezuelans with active resumes on Rigzone.com, a Houston-based oil and gas research company with an employment database, jumped 22 percent this year through October, and is up 68 percent over 2011. Daily page views on MeQuieroIr.com, which helps Venezuelans looking to emigrate, reached 180,000 to 200,000 in September and October, compared with an average of 60,000 for the past four years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-04/venezuela-s-oil-industry-exodus-slowing-crude-production-energy

[christx30]

79. I'm talking about the drilling equipment

that Venezuela was supposed to be making payments on, but instead they just said, "mine" and took it.
I'm talking about the currency controls, which means that the airlines want to get paid in dollars, but they can only get useless bolivars. It's why airlines have cut flights to Venezuela.
I'm talking about the price controls. If I sell a TV, I might get 1/3 of what the TV is worth down there. Or I can sell it here for the price that it's worth. It's one of the reasons why the Venezuelan people can't get stuff.
Call it an unenlightened view if you want. But the fact is that Venezula needs those businesses more than the businesses need Venezulea.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

92. Hmmm.

If I sell a TV, I might get 1/3 of what the TV is worth down there. Or I can sell it here for the price that it's worth.

What if you have 31 tv's and people here only want to buy 30? Are you going to simply 'not sell' that 31rst TV simply because you can't get nearly as much profit from it? Or are you going to say, 'It's more profit than I would have made by not selling it' and go ahead and sell it? Personally, if I ran a country, I'd take demand from wherever I could get it. Sure, I'd sell to the higher paying people first, but I wouldn't simply turn my nose up at making an additional lesser profit vs not making any further profit because I'd saturated the wealthier markets.

[hack89]

101. In VZ you lose money when you sell that TV

because you have to buy it in dollars and sell it in Bolivars. That is the problem in a nut shell for their economy - they have to import everything because their economy is not diversified yet there are not enough dollars to buy goods to import and if you do import anything inflation will ensure you make no profit.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

108. Then I'd think there would be an opportunity to take those bolivars and

buy something else with them to export. But I realize that would be a different sort of business. It wouldn't be manufacturers selling product there directly, but import/export companies essentially doing more commodities type work. Tricky, and probably would require some start-up investment work to establish the production of whatever it was you wanted to export.

[hack89]

116. Export what? 96% of their exports is oil

they do not have a diverse economy - they don't produce anything that the world really wants to buy. They are not self sufficient - they have to import damn near everything including food. But you can't buy things on the global market without dollars.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

117. Which is why I suggested you'd have to invest in setting up production

of something else worth exporting.

[hack89]

118. Makes you wonder why the government didn't do this a long time ago.

they gambled that oil prices would remain high and now the people of VZ are paying for their incompetence.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

120. Wel, you have to admit, it seemed like a pretty safe bet.

Historically, oil prices HAVE remained high, and OPEC has always worked to make sure they did. But someone, somewhere along the line, should have pointed out that oil reserves are finite, and that even if prices DID remain high until the oil ran out, there would come a day when it was gone completely. If prices go back up, let's hope they learned from this and start shifting what they use the profits for to set up a more sustainable future beyond oil.

[christx30]

103. Look at the long lines

of people trying to buy dish soap, diapers, and toilet paper and tell me if anything like that is happening. With rationing and shortages and people smuggling items from nearby countries just to survive, maybe a different approach is warranted.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

109. Waitasec, I was replying to something YOU said.

From your prior comment

I'm talking about the price controls. If I sell a TV, I might get 1/3 of what the TV is worth down there. Or I can sell it here for the price that it's worth

Now you're saying that the problem is NOT that people aren't willing to buy product, but point to the lines to show that demand is high?

Or are you just saying 'Corporations are greedy and don't want to even bother with smaller profits, and would rather simply ignore markets that don't provide 'enough' profit'. In which case, ok, that's possible. Stupid of them, but possible.

[christx30]

114. Those lines aren't high demand.

Long lines for staples means that imports aren't coming in at all. The companies don't trust the government to not just up and steal their stuff. Best to just not do business there than to risk having it confiscated for whatever BS technicality Maduro comes up with.
You might call it greed. But companies like to be paid for what they do. If you thought, based on past expirence, your boss wasn't going to pay you, you would raise hell. I know I would. I wouldn't just accept a smaller check as the cost of having a job. I'd either complain to the Labor department or I'd quit.
As soon as conditions more favorable to business shows up there, I'm sure the businesses will too.

[7962]

154. And the airlines and every other foreign company

Remember the money stolen from them that caused them to stop doing business in the country?

[MohRokTah]

71. Chavez was and Maduro is not much different from any other political huckster.

What are you going to do?

[Sunlei]

75. It is never to late to diversify, only takes 2-4 months for a domestic crop harvest!

They still have plenty of 'very easy' quality crude oil, pre sell 5-10 years worth at the best/lowest global price and grab more of the current market.

[COLGATE4]

78. Except Venezuela's oil is a very low quality grade

that requires a whole lot of extra (expensive) refining. People won't buy it unless it's super cheap.

[Sunlei]

90. they have quality crude aswell as gas and tarsands. one of the largest reserves in the world.

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves, and the eighth largest natural gas reserves in the world, and consistently ranks among the top ten world crude oil producers.[111] Compared to the preceding year another 40.4% in crude oil reserves were proven in 2010, allowing Venezuela to surpass Saudi Arabia as the country with the largest reserves of this type.[112] The country's main petroleum deposits are located around and beneath Lake Maracaibo, the Gulf of Venezuela (both in Zulia), and in the Orinoco River basin (eastern Venezuela), where the country's largest reserve is located. Besides the largest conventional oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves in the Western Hemisphere,[113] Venezuela has non-conventional oil deposits (extra-heavy crude oil, bitumen and tar sands) approximately equal to the world's reserves of conventional oil.[114] The electricity sector in Venezuela is one of the few to rely primarily on hydropower, and includes the Guri Dam, one of the largest in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#Petroleum_and_other_resources

[COLGATE4]

91. I don't see anything that says that their crude is

"quality". To the contrary, it is consistently low grade oil which requires much more refining.

[GGJohn]

95. Their crude oil has to be shipped to the US for refining because

Ven. doesn't have the capacity, nor the refinery's to be able to do it.
They have very low grade crude full of sulpher that requires a certain expertise, something they don't have.

[Bacchus4.0]

97. yes, they import gasoline from the US because they lack refining capacity

and natural gas from Colombia.

[Sunlei]

115. their citizens have a benefit of gasoline about 10 cents a gallon. so cost of refining must be r

rolled into export price of crude.

They need refineries in their own country for an even more profitable domestic use of their most abundant resources. They have abundant domestic gas for their own use and export.

[COLGATE4]

123. One of the reasons their economy is swirling the

bowl right now is that these incompetent idiots haven't even been able to keep their oil production at normal levels. Production is actually decreasing due to 1) appointing political cronies rather than trained technical people to run the State Petroleum Company PDVSA 2) failure to invest in infrastructure, leading to repeated breakdowns in tired old equipment and 3) total lack of any new exploration. In other words the Venezuelan economy is currently a one-trick pony that is dying of malnutrition and lack of medical care. Highly unlikely that they will think about opening costly refinieries in Venezuela when they can't even maintain their only source of revenue.

[Sunlei]

128. perhaps they can make a deal for a refinery with another country. It's a beautiful country,

and the people are resourceful. It doesn't take very long at all for a first massive harvest of food.

[COLGATE4]

137. You know, before Chavez that might have been a possibility.

However, thanks to the glories of the Bolivarian Revolution large tracts of productive farmland were broken up in order to provide small, uneconomically viable parcels of land to rural inhabitants. Since then Venezuela's ability to provide foodstuffs for its population has actually diminished. And, with the draconian 'land reform' decrees in place no one would invest in it in Venezuela.

As to a 'deal with another country', you are aware that most Venezuelan crude is refined here in the US.

[Bacchus4.0]

85. Venezuela National Guard beating people in line waiting for food

[COLGATE4]

125. At least they're not shooting them - yet. nt

[outside]

127. It's said that in

Socialism people wait for bread. With Capitalism bread waits for people. Venezuela was just a pyramid scheme and when the crooks at the top who were looting the oil money got too big we see this. I know we will find the leaders and their families living large in Aruba, Grenada, Houston and Miami next year.

[Bacchus4.0]

130. It won't be in the US. More likely Nicaragua or Bolivia. n/t

[Fred Sanders]

142. Yeah, that never happens when crony capitalists are in charge......funny stuff.

You forgot the sarcasm emoticon, though.

[hughee99]

145. Clearly, this is Joe Biden's fault. I believe I heard Maduro say so the other day.

Why would he lie to me?

[sabbat hunter]

156. at least part of the problem is

That Maduro will not deviate from anything that Chavez said or laid down. There is a cult of Chavez in Venezuela, and that is never good. Even now in China Mao is revered as a near god by many, just like Chavez in Venezuela. But by refusing to change anything from what he did, adjust to the times, you run in to problems.

You need to be flexible in how you run things. I am not talking about turning things over to oligarchs, but just realizing that everything that Chavez did and said is not infallible.

[Marksman_91]

157. It's the general problem that stems from cult of personality

Same shit in N. Korea. When you develop a culture of fanatism, it's hard to deviate from it, even when it makes sense, without pissing off a lot of people.

[christx30]

161. It's why I get nervous

when I see anyone with a picture of a world leader or politician in their home.

[hack89]

158. It is the only way he can avoid a coup from the left. nt