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How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

nytimes.com

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Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#61

Post by stale2002 »

currysoup_t wrote: post #42
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having social programs and being a Socialist government are two very different things. We can have Social Security here in the States and not be Socialist. Nordic "socialism" is just taxing the rich to give to the poor. What Venezuela did was textbook Socialism which, like Communism, is a path to economic, social, and political failure as well as massive human rights violations.

I think you'll find textbook socialism are very different to what you think socialism and communism are. Do the workers in Venezuela own the means of production?

OK then, which countries in the world are or have ever been socialist?

The point isn't that the "textbook" definition of socialism is bad. The point is that every single real world attempt at getting to socialism has been bad, so why wouldnt future attempts run into the same problems?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#62

Post by SilasX »

rayiner wrote: post #44
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #26

Venezuela is a failed state at this point. I'm more than happy to personally take them as an example of why spending big on social programs doesn't produce long-lasting social benefits. I understand many people will find a point of disagreement here. This is especially true when corruption is rife. In countries with high corruption, it seems the very best thing to do is to limit as much as possible how much money flo…

That's probably reading too much into it. The #1 problem is the resource curse, which happens also in capitalist economies that are singularly dependent on resource extraction. Imagine West Virginia without federal subsidy amounting to 25% of its GSP. The second problem is nationalizing companies. The government sucks at operations--that's been proven time and time again. But Venezuela's example really tells us nothi…

Wait, what? There are numerous countries with the resource curse; the typical result is, "wow, they're not growing as fast as they could"; it's not "so devastated that people have to hunt for rats in the street".

Even Saudi Arabia -- which does redistribute oil wealth like Venezuela and is far from the enlightened Norweigian policy -- is smart enough not to draw down the seed corn.

And are you seriously claiming the only thing stopping West Virginia from this kind of downward spiral, is free highways from Uncle Sam?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#63

Post by metaphorm »

nnq wrote: post #38
wildmusings wrote: post #11

The wonders of socialism.

Sincere question: HOW? I mean, even if we assume a socialist economy is terribly inefficient, like operating at 50% of the efficiency a capitalist one, it still should be enough for sustaining a resource-rich country. WTF they are doing so wrong?! Are they under intense internal or external sabotage? Corruption is so bad? I mean, this is not some mid-African country with >50% of the population illiterate, bunch of ho…

> A country like Venezuela should "kind of work" even with corruption and inefficient socialism! What the heck is going on there?

its not just a little corruption. it's absolutely stunning batshit off the charts rampant corruption.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#64

Post by jessaustin »

jcoffland wrote: post #23
pweissbrod wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those that own the oil fields

The state owns the fields.

Then GP's explanation makes even more sense. Why would the state treat all enterprises fairly, when its interests are concentrated in particular industries?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#65

Post by adventured »

tim333 wrote: post #32

You wonder how long Maduro will hang in there. With him gone they could return to somewhat sane economic policies.

I keep wondering if Venezuela won't end up somewhat copying Argentina and politically moving away from the numerous failed policies of the Chavez era.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#66

Post by drzaiusapelord »

tptacek wrote: post #27
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialists. I really was getting tired of hearing from the usual anti-US types on how wonderful Venezuela was back in the early 2000s and how Chavez stands up to the US and such, meanwhile it was led by what was pretty much a strongman with socialist policies and industry nationalization that quickly destroyed their wealthy oil-rich country. Now we're selling them oil so they don't starve in the streets. Curious to s…

Everyone sees their own ideological nemeses in the HN user base, which is both a sign that things are working well, and a reason for us all to avoid ideologically-charged political discussions as much as we can. I promise, the "anti-US left" sees HN as stuffed to the gills full of US apologists as well.

My comment is tagged with 'flagged' and set to the lowest score. Obviously these forums lean young and college students which subscribe generally to College identity politics which is very far left.

Meanwhile, extremely low effort posts of "Shut up, Socialism works, there's nothing to see here," are voted up uncritically.

Tell me again how these forums aren't biased?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#67

Post by wildmusings »

hansjorg wrote: post #58
nnq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sincere question: HOW? I mean, even if we assume a socialist economy is terribly inefficient, like operating at 50% of the efficiency a capitalist one, it still should be enough for sustaining a resource-rich country. WTF they are doing so wrong?! Are they under intense internal or external sabotage? Corruption is so bad? I mean, this is not some mid-African country with >50% of the population illiterate, bunch of ho…

High corruption and a very thin fabric of society. Before Chavez came to power an almost apartheid system, which was fine with the (small) elite and of course with the large majority of US commentators. Over ambitious social programs, an owner-class hell bent on sabotaging and completely backed by the US. What do you do when it all starts to slide? Tighten the screw. When that doesn't work, tighten it again. Recipe f…

There's no way you can pin this on anyone or anything but Chavez, his allies, and their policies. They've ruled Venezuela for 20 years and steered it from flawed prosperity to total ruin.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#68

Post by metaphorm »

civilian wrote: post #35
binarray2000 wrote: post #29

Why can't they just ask other more friendly countries (Russia, Norway, maybe China) for the expertise in exchange for oil? Should be an easy solution, or am I missing something in my oversimplification? (And, please, don't blame it on communism/socialism; people have interests and I believe so do people in Venezuela - including those working in the government.)

I'm gonna blame it on communism. It's not that they don't know how to produce oil. It's that the oil company has been so heavily mismanaged and used for political purposes that it has become extremely inefficient. http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21607824-venezuelas-l... > IN 2003 Venezuela’s then president, Hugo Chávez, fired more than 18,000 employees, almost half the workforce, of the state-run oil corporati…

your answer is on target but you're wrong to "blame it on communism." that has nothing to do with communism or any other abstract theory of political economy. that is an explicit example of incompetent authoritarian rule by an unhinged despot with no checks on his power.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#69

Post by hansjorg »

wildmusings wrote: post #67
hansjorg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High corruption and a very thin fabric of society. Before Chavez came to power an almost apartheid system, which was fine with the (small) elite and of course with the large majority of US commentators. Over ambitious social programs, an owner-class hell bent on sabotaging and completely backed by the US. What do you do when it all starts to slide? Tighten the screw. When that doesn't work, tighten it again. Recipe f…

There's no way you can pin this on anyone or anything but Chavez, his allies, and their policies. They've ruled Venezuela for 20 years and steered it from flawed prosperity to total ruin.

Why did Chavez come to power? Who was prosperous?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#70

Post by ZoeZoeBee »

legulere wrote: post #41
matt_wulfeck wrote: post #26

Venezuela is a failed state at this point. I'm more than happy to personally take them as an example of why spending big on social programs doesn't produce long-lasting social benefits. I understand many people will find a point of disagreement here. This is especially true when corruption is rife. In countries with high corruption, it seems the very best thing to do is to limit as much as possible how much money flo…

In Germany the publicly owned savings banks (Sparkasse) and credit unions (Volks-, Raffeisen- and Spardabanks) weren't affected by the financial crisis, only the large private banks were. Does that mean we should declare private banks as a failed system?

The Large Banks are a failed system, evidenced by when they failed and were bailed out and the illegal practices of HSBC, Wells Fargo, Deutsche Bank, JPMC, Goldman etc
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