he talked vaguely about Maduro “mismanaging” the Venezuelan economy even though the food shortages were the direct result of the US sanctions and also the private sector (i.e. the part of the economy Maduro can’t control)
That's not entirely true, like, the sanctions played a major role but only after the crisis had already become severe. The first sanctions weren't incredibly heavy. Also yes, they were indeed a result of the private sector but it's not true that he has no power over the private sector. The price control thing was his attempt to stop what was happening by exerting force on the private sector, and it was also the wrong way to go about it. There were many very stupid moves by Maduro at many points.
I mean yeah it is a bad move because of course they're gonna do that lol like what do you expect would happen?
It's a fight, the point is to not make stupid moves like that. If you're in a war and you decide to have no one guarding your camp during the night and you get surprise attacked while everyone is asleep, sure, they're the ones who killed you but it was a dumb idea to have no one guarding the camp in the first place because of course they were going to do that. That wasn't even the worst really, at that point it was already a bad situation all around. And it's not really a hindsight thing because he had a number good advisors who told him what he shouldn't do but he did it anyways. You either take the power away from the private sector and get the supply chain in your hands so that they can't do that (the best option) or if you are not at the point where you can do that then you have to at least somewhat play by their rules until you can do that, or it will just make things worse, which it did. But again, at that point it was already a shit situation because of a number of panic moves.
If he did that the US would probably use it as a cassus belli,
Uhhh how? They already did a ton of nationalisation, how would that be any "worse"?
if you play by their rules, they win, too. maybe it’s important to just accept that leftists are oppressed and there often is no “smart move”, and that it’s better to show solidarity to the third world than backseat drive them with armchair general theories
Dude Venezuela was in a far better position than so many other similar attempts. Far, far better. And yet Maduro fucked up horribly. Like yeah, of course they were oppressed. But also Maduro legitimately has responsibility for really bad leadership. And again, it's not even "backseat driving", because there were many people right there, in Venezuela, involved with the party, who were telling him what he should do and he just chose to not listen. There is choices which are hard, and then there is choices which are just obviously stupid. He made an awful lot of the second.
You have a massive head start, with your country having achieved a huge income which rivals many European countries AND the US gives you a break from any severe sanctions etc, but you don't use that window to diversify, as if your oil exports are gonna make you the same money forever. Obviously that fails. As it fails, the parallel dollar market causes significant inflation. Maduro is advised to unify exchange rates and get rid of parallel markets (as Cuba did recently for their own situation that was brewing), he doesn't do that and he simply just keeps printing money pegged at specific exchange rates to dollars, which get instantly devalued because of the parallel market. That was another stupid move, and again he should have known because people told him this would happen. Then of course hyperinflation makes the prices of everything skyrocket, and he tries to introduce price controls. Except the first thing everyone has to think about when introducing price controls is "are they just gonna circumvent them by just no longer selling stuff or selling it elsewhere?". It's the obvious thing that's gonna happen. And of course it happened. Obviously. So how are these good moves? How is this evidence of good leadership? It's not, he's just bad at what he does and it's a huge pity because Venezuela could have been so much more. At least others can learn from the mistakes. Again, I think people forget the situation Venezuela was in a few years ago. Their growth was HUGE. Under Chavez they were extremely prosperous compared to many other countries in the area, and they also held much more power internally. It seems like people think Venezuela was something like Bolivia, it wasn't. MAS didn't have nearly as much internal security in Bolivia as they did, and Venezuela was far, far ahead of Bolivia in terms of development and prosperity, and compared to Cuba, there was not nearly as much external pressure either (Cuba had to make do with the strictest embargo the US imposes almost anywhere for years, Venezuela had no significant sanctions until 2017). It was a very sudden plummet.
I told you, advisors to his government, as well as a few economists from some opposition parties, if that counts. And it even appears that at least now he started to pay attention to some of them, he reversed some of the price controls for example. I don't know what took so long, if you don't have power over the market and you just introduce a strict price ceiling, the private sector will just sell stuff somewhere else or just not sell it, it's extremely hard to stop. It's weird because in 2014 they actually announced they would unify the exchange rate and then they just didn't do it. In 2016 there was a UNASUR team of economists who came up with a plan to get them out of the downward spiral, but again this was not followed. All the way back to 2013 and before people had identified issues with his approach.
In a long-time oil economy, producing goods locally costs much more than importing, and the money saved by importing could further the project of reducing poverty and inequality.
This is only the case while a boom is going on, that's why you have to be at least a little bit proactive, so that this shitstorm doesn't happen. And again, they were in a pretty decent position to do that compared to other socialist governments. They did not have sanctions until 2017. Or rather there were some sanctions, but only against some officials etc. Nothing particularly severe. It was when the crisis had already gotten to a really bad point that the US decided "OK let's finish them". Of course there is criticism for not adequately diversifying, because it's something you are supposed to expect, it always happens to countries whose exports are almost entirely one particular thing. It's happened many times and of course it was going to happen again, so it should have been a major priority. At least if diversification is just not working, save up the oil like Norway.
But then there is also criticism for the way inflation was handled.
I don't know what the rest of the post has to do with the situation, it looks kinda like a copy paste info dump that doesn't really have much to do with what I said.
it's because he is an actual historian and real-life conflicts often involve both sides being pretty shitty
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I've heard about the Venezuela private sector hoarding food but not about the exporting, where can I read more about that?
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thank you!
That's not entirely true, like, the sanctions played a major role but only after the crisis had already become severe. The first sanctions weren't incredibly heavy. Also yes, they were indeed a result of the private sector but it's not true that he has no power over the private sector. The price control thing was his attempt to stop what was happening by exerting force on the private sector, and it was also the wrong way to go about it. There were many very stupid moves by Maduro at many points.
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I mean yeah it is a bad move because of course they're gonna do that lol like what do you expect would happen?
It's a fight, the point is to not make stupid moves like that. If you're in a war and you decide to have no one guarding your camp during the night and you get surprise attacked while everyone is asleep, sure, they're the ones who killed you but it was a dumb idea to have no one guarding the camp in the first place because of course they were going to do that. That wasn't even the worst really, at that point it was already a bad situation all around. And it's not really a hindsight thing because he had a number good advisors who told him what he shouldn't do but he did it anyways. You either take the power away from the private sector and get the supply chain in your hands so that they can't do that (the best option) or if you are not at the point where you can do that then you have to at least somewhat play by their rules until you can do that, or it will just make things worse, which it did. But again, at that point it was already a shit situation because of a number of panic moves.
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Uhhh how? They already did a ton of nationalisation, how would that be any "worse"?
Dude Venezuela was in a far better position than so many other similar attempts. Far, far better. And yet Maduro fucked up horribly. Like yeah, of course they were oppressed. But also Maduro legitimately has responsibility for really bad leadership. And again, it's not even "backseat driving", because there were many people right there, in Venezuela, involved with the party, who were telling him what he should do and he just chose to not listen. There is choices which are hard, and then there is choices which are just obviously stupid. He made an awful lot of the second.
You have a massive head start, with your country having achieved a huge income which rivals many European countries AND the US gives you a break from any severe sanctions etc, but you don't use that window to diversify, as if your oil exports are gonna make you the same money forever. Obviously that fails. As it fails, the parallel dollar market causes significant inflation. Maduro is advised to unify exchange rates and get rid of parallel markets (as Cuba did recently for their own situation that was brewing), he doesn't do that and he simply just keeps printing money pegged at specific exchange rates to dollars, which get instantly devalued because of the parallel market. That was another stupid move, and again he should have known because people told him this would happen. Then of course hyperinflation makes the prices of everything skyrocket, and he tries to introduce price controls. Except the first thing everyone has to think about when introducing price controls is "are they just gonna circumvent them by just no longer selling stuff or selling it elsewhere?". It's the obvious thing that's gonna happen. And of course it happened. Obviously. So how are these good moves? How is this evidence of good leadership? It's not, he's just bad at what he does and it's a huge pity because Venezuela could have been so much more. At least others can learn from the mistakes. Again, I think people forget the situation Venezuela was in a few years ago. Their growth was HUGE. Under Chavez they were extremely prosperous compared to many other countries in the area, and they also held much more power internally. It seems like people think Venezuela was something like Bolivia, it wasn't. MAS didn't have nearly as much internal security in Bolivia as they did, and Venezuela was far, far ahead of Bolivia in terms of development and prosperity, and compared to Cuba, there was not nearly as much external pressure either (Cuba had to make do with the strictest embargo the US imposes almost anywhere for years, Venezuela had no significant sanctions until 2017). It was a very sudden plummet.
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I told you, advisors to his government, as well as a few economists from some opposition parties, if that counts. And it even appears that at least now he started to pay attention to some of them, he reversed some of the price controls for example. I don't know what took so long, if you don't have power over the market and you just introduce a strict price ceiling, the private sector will just sell stuff somewhere else or just not sell it, it's extremely hard to stop. It's weird because in 2014 they actually announced they would unify the exchange rate and then they just didn't do it. In 2016 there was a UNASUR team of economists who came up with a plan to get them out of the downward spiral, but again this was not followed. All the way back to 2013 and before people had identified issues with his approach.
This is only the case while a boom is going on, that's why you have to be at least a little bit proactive, so that this shitstorm doesn't happen. And again, they were in a pretty decent position to do that compared to other socialist governments. They did not have sanctions until 2017. Or rather there were some sanctions, but only against some officials etc. Nothing particularly severe. It was when the crisis had already gotten to a really bad point that the US decided "OK let's finish them". Of course there is criticism for not adequately diversifying, because it's something you are supposed to expect, it always happens to countries whose exports are almost entirely one particular thing. It's happened many times and of course it was going to happen again, so it should have been a major priority. At least if diversification is just not working, save up the oil like Norway.
But then there is also criticism for the way inflation was handled.
I don't know what the rest of the post has to do with the situation, it looks kinda like a copy paste info dump that doesn't really have much to do with what I said.