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

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

#171

Post by AlgorithmicTime »

dredmorbius wrote: post #165
cobbzilla wrote: post #72

Curious American asking any Venezuelans out there: how does this situation get any better? What do you look to for hope? I'm not familiar with the Venezuelan media perspective (any non-state-affiliated stations left?), but from here, it seems like there is no serious effort to change course; on the contrary Maduro seems to be driving ahead with the notion that, somehow, more of the poison will cure the patient. When…

The price of oil increases. Or Venezuela discovers it's sitting on vast undiscovered reserves of Unicorn Poop. What we're seeing is, IMO, far less the Evuls of Socialisum than the end-game of an oil state. There's a similar story playing out through much of the Arab world, as you may have noticed over the past few years.

Eh. It's only end game for them because of their particular style of governance. If they had chosen a more moderate path, they wouldn't be having these problems right now.

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

#172

Post by piva00 »

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…

Sweden spends big on social programs and seems to be producing long-lasting social benefits, what's the difference? Oh yeah, corruption.

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

#173

Post by metaphorm »

brownbat wrote: post #169
metaphorm wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok sure, but I still don't see what that has to do with Communism. suppose their incompetent authoritarian system had been nominally capitalist? or a theocracy? or a monarchy? what difference does it make. my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems.

> I still don't see what that has to do with Communism > my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems A lot of people believe there's a causal road from Communist governing philosophies to incompetent authoritarianism (though you're right, it certainly wouldn't be the only way to get there).

right, so there's many roads to perdition. what style of government is best equipped to avoid these types of problems? Is it democracy? Possibly so. Paraphrasing Churchill "the worst form of government except for all the other ones that have been tried".

All of those other systems I've mentioned also have high functioning, efficient, non-corrupt versions of them as well. Look at Singapore for an example of a high competence, low corruption form of Authoritarian government.

So I'll just say it one more time. Communism is orthogonal to competence/corruption of government. The fact that so many people implicitly believe they're linked is evidence of the century long propaganda campaign against anything socialist that has been waged by the powers-that-be in the capitalist system.

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

#174

Post by metaphorm »

astine wrote: post #142
mikeash wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, it's not all . Still, I don't get why it's even brought up. Seems like authoritarian government, nationalization of industries, and general screwing about with market forces would be far more important. Or are people just equating nationalizing the oil industry and making it illegal to get money out of the country with "social programs"?

"Seems like authoritarian government, nationalization of industries, and general screwing about with market forces would be far more important." I'd agree, though I think you could describe land redistribution as a 'social program.'

I would describe land redistribution as radical revolutionary upheaval of established order. In my view this is not worth the damage to the social fabric it causes. It's an intrinsically violent thing to do, even if no shots are fired. It can only ever occur under conditions of extreme duress. "Give us your land or we kill you". Not a good approach to positive social change.

Taxation is the more reasonable way to do this. It is also confiscatory but it does so in a way where the level of duress is much reduced, and representation, agency, and participation are possible.

I would offer a provisional definition of a social spending program as a program with humanitarian goals that is funded by taxation. Land redistribution is not taxation (just pure confiscation) and so doesn't meet my definition of social program.

Maybe you think I'm just making a semantics argument and splitting hairs but I think its a meaningful difference. Land redistribution is the classic case of "peasant uprising gone bad".

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

#175

Post by jimmywanger »

segmondy wrote: post #160
jimmywanger wrote: post #83

Currency controls and price controls and government nationalization have destroyed Venezuela. Currency controls: there's a 1:10 exchange rate, dollars to bolivars, for essential imports, like food, medicine, etc. The black market exchange rate is about 1:1010. To get the good rate, you need connections. But hey, it's a pain in the ass to actually contact suppliers and get goods through customs, and you're capped at w…

What you quoted for swapping dollars for bolivars doesn't make any sense, especially the back and forth to game the standard and black market rate. This is the reality, when foreign government's peg their currency. It's usually when they are doing bad. So say you live in such a country and want to buy a good from the US or another country because you want to resell or do manufacturing. You need dollars. But all you h…

Ahhh... I think you didn't understand what I'm saying, or didn't add enough corruption and/or personal influence. Let me give you a concrete example.

Let's say you have a connection in the government, maybe your uncle is high up in politics. So the 10:1 bolivar to dollar rate is given by the government for essential supplies (who has hard currency reserves), but you need to know somebody to get it.

So your uncle hooks you up, and gives you 100 dollars for 1000 bolivars, cause you want to import 100 pounds of flour, because flour is an essential supply.

You turn around, buy 10 pounds of flour for 10 dollars, and then on the black market exchange 90 dollars for 90,000 bolivars. You have just made an incredible profit for doing nothing except exploiting your contacts. And since you still have the flour contract you can do this indefinitely, until your uncle gets tired of your leeching ass and kicks you out.

Does that make more sense?

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

#176

Post by dllthomas »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #144
dragonwriter wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which, really, does nothing. The problem is that the country's economy is dependent on a single extracted resources for export, making it do well when prices for that resource are high and badly when they are low. Whether its privately extracted by firms paying taxes on income and leases for extraction rights or publicly extracted by the government, the same fundamental problem remains (and the same broad economic re…

Well, it does some. They're still dependent on a single extracted resource, and the price is still low, but they could actually produce more of it. It wouldn't be a magic fix, but it would be better than the current situation.

Although really they're not producing it, they're extracting it. Selling more when the price is low might not be the best idea.

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

#177

Post by AnimalMuppet »

dllthomas wrote: post #176
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it does some. They're still dependent on a single extracted resource, and the price is still low, but they could actually produce more of it. It wouldn't be a magic fix, but it would be better than the current situation.

Although really they're not producing it, they're extracting it. Selling more when the price is low might not be the best idea.

Depends on how bad you need the money now vs. how bad you'll need it later.

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

#178

Post by dllthomas »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #177
dllthomas wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although really they're not producing it, they're extracting it. Selling more when the price is low might not be the best idea.

Depends on how bad you need the money now vs. how bad you'll need it later.

Very much so.

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

#179

Post by brownbat »

metaphorm wrote: post #173
brownbat wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don't see what that has to do with Communism > my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems A lot of people believe there's a causal road from Communist governing philosophies to incompetent authoritarianism (though you're right, it certainly wouldn't be the only way to get there).

right, so there's many roads to perdition. what style of government is best equipped to avoid these types of problems? Is it democracy? Possibly so. Paraphrasing Churchill "the worst form of government except for all the other ones that have been tried". All of those other systems I've mentioned also have high functioning, efficient, non-corrupt versions of them as well. Look at Singapore for an example of a high com…

> All of those other systems I've mentioned also have high functioning, efficient, non-corrupt versions

I can't readily think of an example of a high functioning authoritarian Communism, but maybe there's one out there like those other forms... but I'm not sure counterexamples would go very far anyway.

I maybe said "cause" earlier, but I'm thinking "cause" in the sense that smoking causes lung cancer. You can smoke and not get cancer, and you can get cancer without smoking, but we still say they're causally related.

> The fact that so many people implicitly believe they're linked is evidence of the century long propaganda campaign

Eh, I dunno. Mostly the smart people I know who have studied economics and 20th century history seem to think there's a strong relationship, and they can provide plausible theories to explain why Communism would be particularly prone to these sorts of disasters.

Namely feedback systems... in democracies, when things go horribly wrong, the officials tend to lose power. In capitalism, when there's horrible mismanagement, those responsible tend to lose most of their capital, reducing their influence in turn. They might not always lose proportionate to the damage they caused, but the feedback is comparatively sharper than under authoritarian communism.

There are some other bits about the theory of prices as an information system, but I think feedback systems are the main issue.

Maybe those people that I think are smart are really part of a global disinformation campaign, but it seems pretty unlikely. And if all my friends are loading me up with propaganda, I'm probably screwed anyway.

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

metaphorm wrote: post #173
brownbat wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still don't see what that has to do with Communism > my point is its the incompetence and authoritarianism that caused the problems A lot of people believe there's a causal road from Communist governing philosophies to incompetent authoritarianism (though you're right, it certainly wouldn't be the only way to get there).

right, so there's many roads to perdition. what style of government is best equipped to avoid these types of problems? Is it democracy? Possibly so. Paraphrasing Churchill "the worst form of government except for all the other ones that have been tried". All of those other systems I've mentioned also have high functioning, efficient, non-corrupt versions of them as well. Look at Singapore for an example of a high com…

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