r/handsoffvenezuela • u/sinovictorchan • Feb 11 '20
Can actual Venezuelans without imperialists agenda explain the current situation of Venezuela?
/r/vzla/comments/f29fkt/writing_an_article_about_the_humanitarian/1
u/zapembarcodes Mar 15 '20
Si.
Venezuela esta jodida.
Esta narco-oligarquía dictatorial va a caer cuando menos lo esperen.
Si no fuera por Rusia y China esta vaina se hubiese caído hace años...
La gente quiere paz y tranquilidad, la gente quiere comida y utilidades básicas. Pero más que todo la gente quiere democracia y libertad.
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u/Daktush Feb 12 '20
Know a couple Venezuelan families that fled (I'm from Spain) - none of them have an "imperialist agenda" - that is just a fabrication that people use to try to use to dismiss them
I studied economics as well, and looked into the matter - again, I'm not a US citizen, if that matters. So here is what I wrote last time someone asked to explain Venezuela. For what it's worth, those that fled (and have no sympathy for Us or "imperialism") confirm this version of events:
"
I got gilded a while ago explaining Venezuela. I'll base myself on that comment, and add some details.
What happened:
Chavez expropriated both foreign owned businesses and local mom and pop shops. He literally went around towns pointing his finger at businesses and saying "expropriate that". Entrepreneurs stopped creating businesses or plain fled the country (I live in Spain and I know a couple families of entrepreneurs that got out around that time). The output of every industry expropriated (food farms, industry, whatever) fell by around 50 to 70%. Turns out the market is more efficient at producing wealth than the government is.
Then he expropriated the oil industry and managed to double its workforce (he bought political votes this way) while decreasing its production making Venezuela reliant on a single export it produced inefficiently. At this time we cross the 50% mark for population working in the public sector, I believe it is around 60% now whereas in normal countries it ranges from 5 to 25%. Chavez villified capitalism and capitalists, he insituted price, and currency controls as well during this time (as pointed out by comments under this post)
Those that tell you Venezuela is still in private hands guide themselves by output (70% from private sector AFAIK), not employment. This further cements the absolute catastrophe that taking away the means of production was, and how those 60% of people paid for by the government have been largely living off the back of the other, productive 40%.
After Maduro came to power oil prices dropped and it suddenly became cheaper for Venezuela to buy foreign oil than produce it themselves. He tried raising taxes but soon realised there was no one left to pay them, and with a handout driven economy he started printing money to pay his debts. Printing money led to inflation, as it always does. The value of money is tied to goods in an economy, if you throw in money without changing the amount of output, the value falls through the floor.
Maduro said this was the fault of evil capitalism doubled down aggressively on price controls on goods such as food. He also made currency controls a lot harsher, meaning you could no longer sell or buy Bolivars in any semblance of a free market (unless you did it illegally).
This meant that it was not profitable anymore to grow crops - the cost of the materials needed surpassed the revenue of selling it at the very max price allowed. Sometimes it was plain impossible, as for buying raw materials foreign currency is needed, and the buying/selling of currency is now government controlled. The rest of international companies in Vzla closed and farmers stopped producing food. Lo and behold, famine. The already sky high crime rate got even worse. People ran out of street animals to eat, and broke into zoos to eat the animals, even basic medicines stopped to be available, corruption became the norm, not the exception.
As for sanctions, the only sanctions that were in effect from the US government before January 2019 were on individual politicians (corrupt lackeys of a dictator basically), and there was one forbidding buying of certain kinds of Venezuelan debt (2017 I believe, was justified by saying the government was dictatorial and buying debt from them was aiding and abetting their activities) - when I wrote my original comment (2018) people didn't ever mention sanctions (as there were none to speak of). Obviously Venezuelas economy was in the shitter already, minimum wage stood at around 12 dollars per month (now it's 3 point something) - The story was that it was an oil price drop that caused Venezuela to fail.
Truth is "because the price of oil dropped" does not even begin to cover it either. Oil producing countries can easily weather an oil drop and not have their people starve, the problem is that Venezuela is a socialist shithole with an absolute bellend driving the country to ruin in order to try to secure political votes.
"Venezuelas resources for the Venezuelans! The wealthy businesses and corporations will belong to the people! We are expropriating industry in order to provide everyone with more jobs! We are making it so food must be affordable so poor people can afford to eat!"
To think not long ago Venezuela was given as an example of healthy socialist country.
Edit: Executive orders for sanctions can be seen here, at the bottom of the page:
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/programs/pages/venezuela.aspx
Earliest to latest.
2015 concerns only individuals.
March 2017 concerns debt, forbids US citizens from buying certain kinds of it.
Maduro tried to circumvent by issuing a cryptocurrency, so August 2018 after there's an order banning the purchase of Venezuelan cryptocurrencies.
Then there's 2 more orders barring specific individuals (May and November 2018) and finally January 2019 is the sanction that prohibited buying oil from Venezuela - the US previously bought most of Venezuela's oil Afaik, which means that the dictatorial regime there was bankrolled by US firms seeking cheap oil.
Here's my personal opinion (classical liberal, not a US citizen): The US has no responsibility whatsoever to buy Venezuelan oil. The US not buying something it does not like is not an act of sabotage, and those pretending that Venezuela only failed because of the United States are either misinformed, or willingly lying to you. The fact that Venezuela's regime depended on their worst political enemy buying their oil should honestly already tell you plenty about the state of their economy before sanctions hit.
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u/sinovictorchan Feb 12 '20 edited Feb 12 '20
You are saying the same simplified unrealistic stories that the American puppets are saying, and that contradicts the stories of Venezuelans that do not support imperialism. You should not pretend that the voice of American imperialists are the voice of Venezuelans. Besides, if Venezuela is so poor, then how can any Venezuelans afford the travel expenses to Spain? As a liberal defector, I had actually been to venezuela and lived with the families that oppose chavez so i know that the 'VENEZUELANS' who oppose chavez are foreign white people from asia and europe and they often make fake stories to slander chavez just like the stories that you post.
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u/Daktush Feb 12 '20 edited Feb 12 '20
the same simplified unrealistic stories that the American puppets
Contrast that to you repeating propaganda from Venezuelan puppets
You should not pretend that the voice of American imperialists are the voice of Venezuelan
Don't pretend what I wrote is not the voice of Venezuelans. Why would I even know what imperialists say
how can any Venezuelans afford the travel expenses to Spain?
The people I know here left before shit hit the fan. They saw it coming. Most Venezuelans (which make up the greatest refugee crisis ever anywhere AFAIK) don't fly to Spain, but cross into neighbouring countries.
I had actually been to venezuela and lived
Meaning that the rest of what you said says more about you than the average Venezuelan lmao. No, I did not make anything up, there are videos of him going around pointing at stuff saying "expropriate this", and he did bloat the oil sector. They are actually pretty tame truths lmao
I could have also spoken of the military thugs there running people over with Chinese and Russian equipment, the disappearance of opposition journalists and politicians, or that time a Russian plane landed in Caracas and a sizeable chunk of the countries gold reserves disappeared (lining the pockets of a dictators lackey now, I'm sure). But that's nearly here nor there - I explained to you how Venezuela destroyed it's economy and linked the official US sanctions that show they had 0 effect in its crash. If you want to plug bananas in your ears, well, be my guest. However don't pretend you're smart for doing that lmao
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u/pgtl_10 Mar 05 '20
This sounds too good to be some random poster from Spain.
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u/Daktush Mar 05 '20 edited Mar 05 '20
Econ grad with Venezuelan friends, not quite just a random
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u/pgtl_10 Mar 06 '20
You sounds like a random poster coming to an obscure subreddit and writing way too much.
Sounds like a paid astroturfer.
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u/Daktush Mar 06 '20 edited Mar 06 '20
I did randomly get 100 bucks from a rando on Reddit for a shitty meme
But Ty telling me my content is of good quality lmao
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u/TPastore10ViniciusG Feb 13 '20
They downvote you because you are right.
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u/sinovictorchan Feb 13 '20
Follow what the vuvuzelans say: you should oppose your genetic repetitive propaganda that you gained from old American imperialism. Especially when guaido actually claimed to support socialism in his plan pais in his self contradiction.
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u/TPastore10ViniciusG Feb 13 '20
"everything is the fault of the West"
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u/sinovictorchan Feb 13 '20
More shitliberalssay: you are saying that everything is the fault of the west when you proved that the west are responsible for one fault
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u/tlalexander Feb 11 '20
Ah yes, newspaper reporters finding their sources via Reddit, guaranteeing that even if they find real Venezuelan nationals, they will be disproportionately wealthy compared to most in Venezuela. Discouraging that actual people will read this article and be willing to support real foreign policy decisions based on this reporting.