BH
Veteran Member
How could Chavez and Maduro have improved the situation for the impoverished without it having led to what it did today?
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untermensche
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Why bring Chavez into it?
He had nothing to do with it.
There was no collapse when Chavez was in power.
He had nothing to do with it.
There was no collapse when Chavez was in power.
Sarpedon
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Things were headed that way. He had the luck to die before it happened,so that Maduro could write a check for a million dollars and send it to him in heaven with a balloon.
They could have prevented this by not being dumb lunatics.
They could have prevented this by not being dumb lunatics.
untermensche
Contributor
What is this "they"?
What a bunch of revisionism.
We have one who led to failure and one guy that ran the economy without a crash his entire presidency.
Maduro is not Chavez and Chavez was not Maduro.
To find out what went wrong in Venezuela you have to start with Maduro.
What a bunch of revisionism.
We have one who led to failure and one guy that ran the economy without a crash his entire presidency.
Maduro is not Chavez and Chavez was not Maduro.
To find out what went wrong in Venezuela you have to start with Maduro.
Chavez was actively destroying the productive capacity of the nation from day one. He was bailed out by high oil prices for a while.
Sarpedon
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What is this strange defensiveness about Chavez?
How can you not see that his overindulgent, corrupt rule set the stage for what came after? And no crashes? We must have been watching different news channels.
You are like a Lenin supporter who blames everything on Stalin.
How can you not see that his overindulgent, corrupt rule set the stage for what came after? And no crashes? We must have been watching different news channels.
You are like a Lenin supporter who blames everything on Stalin.
untermensche
Contributor
Blah blah blah.
Chavez lifted the lives of millions who had been living in an apartheid state for decades.
To capitalists those people do not count.
The great improvements to their lives do not matter.
You've said that before Baghdad Bob.
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You forgot to apply enough faith:
He's a socialist.
Socialism is good.
Thus it's impossible for him to have had a bad result.
untermensche
Contributor
You're the one making the positive claims.
I can't prove a negative.
You have no evidence just worthless opinion.
There was no collapse under Chavez.
That is a fact.
Axulus
Veteran Member
A few things:
Never adopt currency price controls, which destroyed companies that needed to import parts and supplies, who were not connected to the government. It is essentially a government give away to the wealthy, well connected government loyalists at the expense of everyone else, which did great damage to the private economy. Chavez implemented this.
Remove all other price controls on staples like food and toiletries. The price controls caused many companies to go bankrupt. Instead, provide low income people with stipends from tax revenue to pay for the goods.
Minimize government nationalizations of private companies. Such nationalizations killed private investment. Why invest millions on an uncertain, risky venture if the government will just take your company if you happen to make it successful?
Save a large portion of the profits from the oil company during the oil boom for the time when the price ineviatably declines, keep up investment in the oil sector, and keep the most competent people in charge rather than the most loyal. What actually happened is that billions were stolen from the company to pay Chavez's cronies and to keep the military happy. Instead of saving money with the windfall profits, the country borrowed billions to spend even more.
Implement a currency board and fix the exchange rate of the currency to a stable foreign currency, such as the Euro, USD, Yen, or the Yuan. This stabilizes prices and goes a long way to preventing import shortages.
With the stronger private sector that would result from this, more private sector tax revenue would've been generated that could then be used to support the poor.
Chavez regime actually didn't do a whole lot for the poor. He had an amazing PR department though, one that duped many people.
Read this report from a former Chavez supporter who worked in the government by a respected economist about the real story of what happened. Note that this was before Chavez died:
An Empty Revolution: The Unfilled Promises of Hugo Chavez
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sou...FjAAegQIBBAB&usg=AOvVaw3PEkHtd6LcrMX_AMa4PV-M
untermensche
Contributor
He only gave them things like electricity and an education.
Axulus
Veteran Member
The oil boom and billions of government borrowing allowed that. The increase in electricity and education wasn't beyond other countries that have gone through similar rates of economic growth. Nothing special. This is detailed in the report I linked comparing increases in income and reduction in poverty of other South American countries.
untermensche
Contributor
The people he gave it to were deliberately denied it by the previous apartheid state.
All he gave the indigenous were rights and dignity.
That's all.
This bullshit capitalist revisionism when it was a capitalist apartheid state is sickening.
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couch_sloth
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Sarpedon
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Yeah, he created food shortages amid an oil boom! Quite an accomplishment.
I just don't get this, he's just another Gaddaffi: a fellow with a weird philosophy who took over a country and exploited it's mineral resources, then went mad with his own ego. He's a run of the mill dictator, there are dozens of others like him. Why the personal attachment? I scorn him along with all his ilk, but some people seem to be passionate about him one way or the other. I don't get that. He's just another failed demagogue.
I just don't get this, he's just another Gaddaffi: a fellow with a weird philosophy who took over a country and exploited it's mineral resources, then went mad with his own ego. He's a run of the mill dictator, there are dozens of others like him. Why the personal attachment? I scorn him along with all his ilk, but some people seem to be passionate about him one way or the other. I don't get that. He's just another failed demagogue.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
If you look at their bios neither had any qualifications. Chavez went ideological and nationalized foreign businesses. He then bought support by enacting large scale social welfare without any cost accounting and which were destined to fail. Populism gone wild.
The economy tanked as the middle-upper class who owned and ran businesses were ideologically hounded.
They are oil rich and business poor.
Correction: they have lots of oil in the ground, where it's worth nothing. They have dealt a huge blow to the nation's capacity to produce oil as well.
steve_bank
Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
Yep. Oil rich and business poor....