RealDave
Gold Member
- Sep 28, 2016
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Nope. It was corruption that killed Venezuela.What?
How exactly has anyone anywhere been "punishing" them economically for decades?
That doesn't even make sense. Venezuela was the economic leader of the Latin American. They were a net exporter of food, and had nearly unlimited natural resources.
How were they "punished"?
Sanctions that began the minute Chavez got elected.
An attempted coup sponsored by the US in 2002, that failed when the people angrily rose up against the military and put Chavez back into power.
Please tell me, that you are not just making up an excuse, to cover up the fact that Venezuela's socialist policies wiped out their economy, and now magically they were retroactively being punished for decades.
Because that's what it sounds like you are saying.
I'm sorry that you are too stupid to realize how we've been punishing the place for picking an economic system we don't like.
US Media Ignore—and Applaud—Economic War on Venezuela
A: I don't buy the idea that an attempted coup, caused farms in Venezuela to stop producing rice, converting an nation that was a net exporter of food, into a nation of mass starvation. Especially since the coup clearly failed, and honestly if the US was really supporting the coup, there is no way it would have failed.
B: Be specific. What specific sanctions caused farmers to stop growing rice, and change Venezuela form a net export of food, to starving?
See the problem is, Sanctions didn't do half of the damage you claim. For example, you link to your completely biased left-wing fake news site, claims it prevent food from getting into Venezuela. How true that is, is questionable.
However what isn't questionable, is that Venezuela produced more food than they could possibly eat, before Chavez got control, yanked land from productive farmers and gave it to unproductive peasants.
What isn't questionable is that price controls made selling food in Venezuela unprofitable for the people in the country, and it can be assumed it was unprofitable for those outside the country to export their food to Venezuela.
What isn't questionable, is that when the government nationalized the oil industry in the 1970s, production fell. When they opened up the oil industry to foreign investment in the late 80s to 90s, production increased. When Chavez confiscated foreign owned oil production assets, production crashed.
You could make the case that sanctions made selling Venezuelan oil hard. You could.... in theory, try and make that case. But sanctions had nothing to do with the drop in the actual production of oil, regardless of price. That loss of production happened when the price of oil was at it's highest levels.
The only explanation for that is socialism.