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Poverty Is ‘Scarce’ In Venezuela (The Guardian 7 Years Ago)
The Guardian published an article about Venezuela’s “success” in 2013. It is still up and now titled, “Sorry, Venezuela haters: This economy is not the Greece of Latin America: Predicting a Venezuelan apocalypse won’t make it happen.” (Of course, they’d gladly trade places with Greece today.)
For more than a decade people opposed to the government of Venezuela have argued that its economy would implode. Like communists in the 1930s rooting for the final crisis of capitalism, they saw economic collapse just around the corner. How frustrating it has been for them to witness only two recessions: one directly caused by the opposition’s oil strike (December 2002-May 2003) and one brought on by the world recession (2009 and the first half of 2010). However, the government got control of the national oil company in 2003, and the whole decade’s economic performance turned out quite well, with average annual growth of real income per person of 2.7% and poverty reduced by over half, and large gains for the majority in employment, access to health care, pensions and education.
Now Venezuela is facing economic problems that are warming the cockles of the haters’ hearts…
A note at the bottom of the article has not aged well:
The subheading on this article was amended on 15 November 2013. The original one, not supplied by the author, ended with the words “in this oil-rich country the only thing imploding is poverty”. This has now been removed.
The author’s ignorance on monetary policy is astounding.
Published in Economics
Golly. You’re right about that. Amazing.
I figure he’s working for the Biden Maladministration in monetary policy today.
You are so heteronormative.
I have it on
goodauthority that womyn in collectivist hellholes have it better than their sisters (of whatever sex) in the capitalist countries.So, you know. There’s that.
Young Earth creationists aren’t as much in denial of reality as socialists. Also, young Earth creationists tend to give poor people food in charity organizations as opposed to socialists who take away food.
The one thing Socialism produces in abundance is poverty.
Also, bigotry. Bigotry is normal in most of humanity and something we constantly have to struggle against. When countries go socialist, they fail to mitigate the bigotry that was there before. Also, in every circumstance that I am aware of, bigotry has gotten worse.
Cuba’s persecution of homosexuals and the utter lack of Afro-Cubanos in the ruling government of Cuba is an example. The USSR’s persecution of homosexuals and Jews under Communism is another. And everyone knows about the China-Coms.
Odd isn’t it that a philosophy that never shuts up about poor and minority folks never stops hurting those they say to champion.
But Jimmy Carter said their elections were fair…
From the OP, “Now Venezuela is facing economic problems that are warming the cockles of the haters’ hearts…”
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that a leftist would use the rhetorical device of labeling people ‘haters’, simply because they hold a view, based on experience, that a socialist government is not likely to end well for the majority of it’s citizens. Those outside the ruling class.
The only reason this experiment, doomed to failure, lasted as long as it did, was because there was a vast amount of
wellwealth, in the form of oil, that could be easily extracted from the ground, until the incompetence of the system resulted in the collapse of the industry that was relied upon to it prop up.