onlooker wrote:Read this Kub by a Venezuelan Scholar, it lays out the Economic warfare imposed on Venezuela as soon as Chavez was elected. This economic warfare being a standard operation since at least WWII in South and Central Amerira.
https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opini ... -0007.html
I include this passage:
" When a nation seeks to create an egalitarian society or moves towards socialism, economic actions are taken that usually do not occur in a vacuum. They are accompanied by a media war peppered with false economic facts that seek to divert attention and mislead as is currently happening today with the Venezuelan government."
Read this onlooker. This is your own source BTW:
To an agonizingly large degree, Venezuela’s crisis is of the government’s own making. Instead of easing or ending it, the government’s actions—and inactions—over the last several years have made it far worse. Yet, the government has not acted in a vacuum, but in a hostile domestic and international environment. The opposition has openly and repeatedly pushed for regime change by any means necessary.
An honest account of the crisis must include both of these aspects: the government’s costly errors, and the destabilizing actions of the opposition and US government. To ignore one or the other is to misrepresent reality and perpetuate false all-or-nothing narratives that blame the crisis, in its entirety, on either “socialism” or the “Empire.” Such narratives may comfort those seeking affirmation for preconceived notions, but they will not aid those seeking to know why Venezuela is in crisis and how it might get out of it.
Why Is Venezuela in Crisis?Onlooker, you and the Venezuelan Scholar are falling directly into the trap this author warned about. Putting most of the blame on Economic warfare. Yet even your own source says that "
to an agonizingly large degree, Venezuela’s crisis is of the government’s own making." Meddling from Washington certainly made things worse. Yet much of what your sources call "economic warfare" I call rational human behavior. Because of the currency and price controls implemented by the government, they created a perverse incentive to not stock stores with goods at prices that are below cost. Why would anyone want to sell goods at a loss? Instead, they stock the bare minimum of goods they can get away with and sell the rest on the black market. This is not economic warfare directed by foreign governments or the Venezuelan opposition. These are rational economic decisions made by thousands of individuals. Many are doing this just to survive in these chaotic times.
onlooker wrote:As for how Venezula was before Chavev read these two links which follow. I only include this pertinenent passage "During the decade from the late 1980’s to 1998, Venezuela signed [9] off on draconic International Monetary Fund programs, including privatizations of natural resources, devaluations and austerity programs, which enriched the MNCs, emptied the Treasury and impoverished the majority of wage and salary earners." So no Venezuela was just like all other South and Central American countries, very unequal and with a large impoverished class.
Onlooker, you are mixing up the good times in the 70s(high oil prices) with the bad times in the 80s and 90s(low oil prices). Because the oil revenues fell hard in the 80s and 90s, there was no more oil revenues to bankroll the generous social program the government had been doling out. And because there was no rainy day savings to help the country get through lean times, the blow was doubly devastating. Venezuela was going to have been in a world of hurt whether they accepted the IMF program or not. It's the same dynamic we are seeing more recently. Venezuela prospering during a decade of high oil prices(2004-2013). And Venezuela becoming impoverished during low oil prices(2014-). No IMF program this time around. Yet Venezuela is even worse off now than during the 80s. I mentioned all of this before:
Onlooker, you make it sound like only under Chavez did Venezuela's poor see their standard of living rise. That's not true. The fate of the poor in Venezuela goes up and down with the fortunes of oil:
By the 1960s and the 1970s, the governments in Venezuela were able to maintain social harmony by spending fairly large amounts on public programmes. In 1970, Venezuela had become the richest country in Latin America, and one of the 20 richest countries in the world, with a per capita higher that Spain, Greece and Israel. Venezuelan workers were known for enjoying the highest wages in Latin America, a situation that dramatically changed when oil prices collapsed during the 1980s.
The economy contracted and inflation levels rose, remaining between 6 and 12 percent from 1982 to 1986. The inflation rate surged in 1989 to 81 percent, the same year the capital city of Caracas experienced rioting during the Caracazo following the cuts in government spending and the opening of markets by the then president, Carlos Andres Perez.
By the mid-1990s under Caldera, Venezuela saw annual inflation rates of 50-60 percent, and an inflation rate of 100 percent in 1996, three years before Chavez took office. The number of people living in poverty rose from 36 percent to 66 percent in 1995 with the country suffering a severe bank crisis.
onlooker wrote:In summary, Kub and others you can keep reading what sources you want and demonstrate your confirmation bias or you can try to expand your views and see through the false propaganda. They're is ample info on the Net to follow the trail of aggressive Neo-liberal imperial policies by the US and other Western powers and the Transnational Corportations whom the Western politicians are beholden too. Who knows maybe I can sway one of you.
Funny I was just going to say the same thing to you. I am not quoting fox news here onlooker. Most of the time I am quoting your own sources. Yet your confirmation bias has you tuning even them out when they don't fit your narrative. Just FYI, I am a frequent reader of venezuelanalysis.com. I like to look at sources that don't conform to my own believes just to keep myself honest. I think you could benefit from that as well. Step out of your comfort zone onlooker. Check out what the other side is saying. You might find that the truth is not so simple as your original narrative paints it. Maybe start with
Caracas Chronicles and see what kind of impression you come away with after reading a few articles. Here's an article talking about the food stocking I was just talking about:
Surprise! They helped people loot, now there’s no food
The oil barrel is half-full.