Venezuela has been spiraling out of control with no hope on the horizon. it is terribly sad. is there any hope for this to stop and a rebirth and trajectory towards a functioning/ advancing country?
if this is what the leader of your country thinks needs to be done…if it was not real it would be comical!
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-energy-crisis-president-tells-women-to-stop-using-hairdryers-and-go-with-natural-style-to-a6976246.html
And yet a small vocal subset of Americans still idolize Chavez? It’s mind-boggling.
fragbot–
on that note and not much of a surprise
It’s interesting to contrast South America’s two socialist leaders - Chavez vs Evo Morales - and the different economic effects they’ve had on Venezuela and Bolivia, respectively.
Atlas shrugged in Venezuela
Venezuela just keeps repeating its mistakes. They can’t seem to learn and it’s the people who suffer for the greed and bungling of their officials…
“Venezuela just keeps repeating its mistakes. They can’t seem to learn and it’s the people who suffer for the greed and bungling of their officials…”
meanwhile in the last 15-20 years(and before that too at a slower rate)a massive brain drain has occurred…Venezuelan’s business people,engineers,doctors, etc etc have fled. they will not be going back…even if the country sheds its corrupt oppressive chains tomorrow. it maybe forever broken.
I had a native Venezuelan visit recently. He described the very circumscribed conditions of life there for his extended family. Crime rampant.
great lakes mom, I talked to a guy who I worked with…his family I guess is all here now in the united states , he told me how he would never go back ,he remembers his childhood and that is always a part of him but,he is an american now and how grateful he is to be here. Venezuela is so broken (for lack of a better term) and dangerous .
Venezuela is a very common story. A poor country, faced with a lot of issues like lack of education, entrenched property and for many years was one of the countries caught in the cold war, unstable governments, and the tug of war of both the US and USSR fighting to gain power or keep it for their sphere of influence. Plus is was a country where a well off elite, especially with oil revenue, maintained a grip on the economy. Worse, oil was all they had, and commodities are not a long term economy builder, prices fluctuate, and when the bottom dropped out of the oil market they lost a main piece of their economy. Chavez claimed the answer was a socialist revolution, but what it turned into was another dictatorship and where the money, supposedly ‘clawed back’ for the people, went mostly into the hands of the government and those aligned with it, they did some window dressing for the people, but in some ways it was the same story, different group.
Happydad grew up in Venezuela, and after we married, we lived there for eight years and Happykid was born there. All of the family is now in the US and many friends are scattered all around the world. But we still have friends who are like family who are there. I try not to think about it. It is just so sad.
Venezuela was already an economic basket case BEFORE the bottom dropped out of the oil market-- Chavez raiding PDVSA as a piggy bank and using it as a bloated civil jobs program.
I’m not kidding about ‘Atlas Shrugged’. You should read it. The novel is so prescient of Venezuela.
Pursuing communism has not hopes, not abroad, not here, there is no “success” story in regard to this, never was, never will be and the lack of education is the only explanation for “idolizing Chavez” and many others, some of whom are not abroad. Huge intentionally built in gaps in education …
just like in brazil …accept in brazil it looks like the president may actually be impeached.
@zobroward Do you ever watch Fareed Zakaria’s show on Sundays? He had a panel yesterday talking about Brazil. One of the panelists made some good points contrasting the situation and attitude in Brazil with Russia. How in Russia, people like Putin, just shrug their shoulders at corruption, and say its “well, that’s Russia” where in Brazil the fact that they are finally fighting against corruption and calling for impeachment is a very, very healthy thing that will hopefully bode well for Brazil’s future, a country with so much potential.
doschicos
one of my family members watched hours of the impeachment proceedings live yesterday! 500 people all making a statement before voting…holy moly that went on for a long time!
but,the show of democracy made me proud!
I don’t think it is “Atlas Shrugged” in Venezuala, I think it is more like the Atlas Shrugged mentality helped create venezuala and led to Chavez coming to power in the first place. Like many countries in central and south america, Venezuala had been dominated by as very small elite (economically and power as well), that was maintained, especially during the cold war, by the military. You had a very tiny part of the population with most of the wealth, and for everyone else things like education, decent housing and so forth were very, very limited, because they basically were fated for a life to live the way they grew up. Chavez was no bargain, like most people claiming revolution, he was out to use anger of people at their fate to gain power, then once in he was no better than any dictator. Sure, he made noises towards the people, about the old worker paradise crap, better education, services, etc, but he didn’t deliver, because there was another group with their hands in the till, an elite controlled it, just not necessarily the same bunch. Venezuala had big problems long before Chavez showed up with his Cuba imitation, read up on what Venezuala was like in the decades preceeding Chavez, it was a mess then, too.
Just like the ending of the book. All the lights going out…
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/28/world/americas/venezuela-economic-government-collapse.html?_r=0
Too bad other countries use Atlas Shrugged as an instruction manual instead of a cautionary tale. Of course, admitting that one has read that book or anything else by Ayn Rand is an open invitation to ridicule on college campuses these days.