Things are not looking good in Venezuela.

[BlackLabel]

It appears that Venezuela's prolonged experiment in socialism has almost ruined their nation.

Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro declares state of emergency

Food shortages and soaring black market prices are making life a misery for people across the country

Venezuela Is Falling Apart. Scenes from daily life in the failing state

[Hosenbugler]

Its what socialism does, rounds people down to be equally destitute, aside its practicioners of course.

I read something earlier in the year, where it estimated the average Venezulans standard of living was expected to fall by 50%

[essayer]

Looks like Corbyn doesn't blame Chavez -

http://labourlist.org/2013/03/thank-you-hugo-chave...

"[Chavez] brought in a new constitution, improved the lives of the very poorest in his country, and forged a very special place on the world stage for Venezuela"

[loafer123]

essayer said:

Looks like Corbyn doesn't blame Chavez -

http://labourlist.org/2013/03/thank-you-hugo-chave...

"[Chavez] brought in a new constitution, improved the lives of the very poorest in his country, and forged a very special place on the world stage for Venezuela"

Translation:

[Chavez] improved the lives of the very poorest in his country by redistributing the oil wealth, but failed to make structural reforms and invest for the future, so when oil revenues dropped, the country collapsed.

Sounds a bit like Scotland.

[Otispunkmeyer]

Sounds grim. And $45 million a year to keep Pastor Maldonado in F1 sounds like fantastically poor value. Jeez.

[chris watton]

http://order-order.com/2016/05/18/hard-left-silent...

Seems like Diane Abbott, Owen Jones and a few other hard lefters have gone quiet on this, after fully supporting President Maduro when he came into power.

Socialism - the trouble with that is they always run out of other people's money..someone once said..

Edited by chris watton on Thursday 19th May 18:37

[wc98]

the way some of the eurozone members are going it might not be too far off closer to home.

[dudleybloke]

It's a mess over there.

[Mr GrimNasty]

Trying to exist on 'green' energy when you have pots of oil you could be using is at the root of the stupidity.

[Gandahar]

UK right wingers on PH who mostly have never been to the country cast their expertise over the matter ...

To be fair most countries in South America, run from right or left, are pretty poorly done by their politicians. In this case the collapse in oil prices is giving them a good kicking, unsurprisingly.

Of course the 1982 right wing Junta of Argentina are seen as stalwarts of good government on here of course. ho ho....

Interlude over, back to your reds under the beds diatribe.

[anonymous-user]

Hosenbugler said:

Its what socialism does, rounds people down to be equally destitute, aside its practicioners of course.

I read something earlier in the year, where it estimated the average Venezulans standard of living was expected to fall by 50%

Isn't Venezuela more of a communist country than a socialist one?

[Dr Jekyll]

Have we had the 'but it wasn't really socialism' excuse yet?

[Axionknight]

Dr Jekyll said:

Have we had the 'but it wasn't really socialism' excuse yet?

No doubt the USA will be blamed at some point, the CIA in particular.

[Mr GrimNasty]

Gandahar said:

UK right wingers on PH who mostly have never been to the country cast their expertise over the matter ...

To be fair most countries in South America, run from right or left, are pretty poorly done by their politicians. In this case the collapse in oil prices is giving them a good kicking, unsurprisingly.

Of course the 1982 right wing Junta of Argentina are seen as stalwarts of good government on here of course. ho ho....

Interlude over, back to your reds under the beds diatribe.

Yes, it's all the oil price's fault.

Just like it's all the climate's fault for not filling the dams.

Mismanagement, corruption, stupidity, brain-dead leftist ideology, NEVER to blame, natch.

I've been commenting on the impending situation in Venezuela for months, so if it's come as a surprise to you, WAKE UP AT THE BACK.

[spaximus]

I may be wrong however I think the West have used oil as a weapon against Putin, forcing prices down. The problem is that it has hit every oil producing country. Saudi and Venezuela have been hit hard, Saudi had a cushion but others have not. Were Scotland independent now they would be struggling.

The big question is how far will this go? Millions being pumped into green technology, whilst we still have reserves of oil and gas to extract and now a country in turmoil?

[dudleybloke]

Don't forget the land reforms that gave farmland to people who don't know how to farm.

[greygoose]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Sounds grim. And $45 million a year to keep Pastor Maldonado in F1 sounds like fantastically poor value. Jeez.

I don't know I quite like seeing spectacular crashes.

[FredClogs]

What countries like this demonstrate is not really a failure in political ideology but a success in cronyism and corruption which can occur under the guise of any sort of revolutionary politics, left, right or even centre as seen across most countries that were given or won freedom from colonialism and other developing nations. It's sad but the reality of the matter is that democracy and good governance is still a rarity on world level and we should be thankful for what we have, it took many hundreds of years and failed attempts to get around to and even now our own system is far from being perfect, we must be vigilant at all times for cronyism and corruption as they're base human instincts.

[anonymous-user]

FredClogs said:

What countries like this demonstrate is not really a failure in political ideology...

Nothing at all to do with socialism, nothing at all, nothing to see here folks, move along. If it weren't for all the crooks running the place it would be right up there with all the other revolutionary Marxist countries. They can't even get socialism to work with almost unlimited oil wealth!

[Guybrush]

Socialism / communism doesn't work. Economies always end up that way under such dictatorship. Once they've been in for long enough, it can be near impossible to get rid of them.