HKS's Ricardo Hausmann, one of the leading scholars of Venezuela's economic history, lays out the case for military intervention by a coalition of the willing made up of allies from North America, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe:
I believe current US policy in South America misses a vital and timely opportunity. US policy should gear toward infrastructure projects throughout the Western Hemisphere. Akin to China's $2T Belt and Road Initiative throughout Central Asia and Africa. Just today Indian PM Modi and China's Xi Jinping are holding an historic joint visit to Rwanda, where they will announce new trade agreements.
Instead we see the same old strategy: sanctions in the hope of pro-democratic regime change, that only hurt the very people themselves.
We need not get involved. Regime change and policing the world isn't our responsibility. As bad as it is, we need our military to focus on us and our borders alone, we need to stop meddling in foreign affairs that don't affect us here at home.
That's a surprisingly bad idea, confirming the worst retoric of a dictator and pushing a country in full on civil war allegedly for saving it's people.
Lest we forget, Venezuela degraded to this pitiful situation after the democratic election of a populist who proceeded to redistribute the oil wealth to the poorest citizens. The disastrous policies were very welcomed by parts of the population, and they must be democratically rejected or rescoped to not kill the economy.
>>Instead we see the same old strategy: sanctions in the hope of pro-democratic regime change, that only hurt the very people themselves.
Not a US citizen, but the US foreign policy is a relic of the past. Its really like peak Henry Kissinger 'Our way, or the highway' attitude, where everybody is supposed to fall in line or face invasion.
China offers a far more novel and attractive option to let people live as they like, as long as they can have peaceful coexistence based on mutual interests.
Empires and super powers often fall into this trap of trying to do everything and bullying everyone into submission. It might work for a while while you are at your peak. The issue is its impossible to sustain this forever.
I doubt there is much political appetite for this in the US/Europe. It would have to be led by neighboring Latin American states. And who would that be? Brazil? Their politicians are probably pretty happy to sit by and gloat and accept talented refugees.
To the average person and in the short run, yes. More broadly, given Caracas' hard currency antics, it is a measure on the reallocation of assets from the broader economy to Maduro's cronies. (State products, e.g. food and petrol, are purchased with local currency. Cronies buy hard currency at a fixed price and resell it at the inflated price. This mechanism moves real wealth into their hands.)
I was recently in Zimbabwe (yes, I was given a $100 trillion bank note) and everyone there told great stories about when you went into the store you would give the cash over straight away, because by the time you got back from picking out stuff off the shelves the money you had would be worthless.
It was fascinating to spend 6 weeks there and really understand what that kind of falling currency does it a place and it's people.
1. In debt pumped economies (the majority of world countries these days,) the value of major assets and debt put into them exceeds the money in circulation big time.
2. People pop their piggy banks, sell cars, flats, company stocks just to get some food. Price of these very major assets plunge, and the holders of tbils, bonds, and etc (rich people) begin to panic.
3. When even rich people's money can't buy food and basic necessities, many of them run away from the country with what things they have left, pushing currency further down.
4. Whomever is left in the country is left with a lot of paper, and no food.
It makes me angry to see how such rampant government ineptness can completely destroy a once-thriving economy in a decade. Worse still is Maduro’s continued insistence that it’s a conspiracy against Venezuela rather than idiotic policy which is to blame.
It's not ineptness. It never was, never is and never has been. It's deliberate. This is a textbook example of how power has been weilded throughout history. Your angry because you assume the goal should be to make everyones lives better. Maduro's goal is to make his life better and
to keep the ability to do so for as long as he can. To that end his policies have been effective. The consequences have been horrific for the people, but he doesn't give a fuck. He's only in it for himself.
Why Nations Fail was such a good damn document of history and the nature of human behavior.
> Worse still is Maduro’s continued insistence that it’s a conspiracy against Venezuela
Coincidence or not, Venezuela is sitting in the world's biggest oil reserves. And there are really some foreign companies trying to get it for free (the same they are doing without effort in Brazil and Argentina, which will open 3 US military bases now that the president is "aligned" with the US).
The fascinating thing to me is how stability has been maintained. Usually nations have two stable modes. Ones where the peasants are too hungry and illiterate to organize. And ones where enough people are productive and happy to make revolting a bad bet.
Venezuelans are educated. Yet they've devolved to failed statehood without much fuss from the population.
Both Chavez and Maduro still receive praise from the far left opposition leader in the UK - while the government are pretty damn incompetent too, so the opposition actually has a chance of getting into power.
I’m not sure his policy is “idiotic” in the sense that he just made mistakes running the country. This is history repeating itself for the nth time, so it can’t be a “mistake”.
This is in fact socialism working as designed. Maduro and the rest of his political bureaucracy elite are doing very well, than you, at the cost of the rest of the country.
Pretty much every socialist-communist-attempting country went through this. China is the only kind-of successful one, but at the cost of rivers of blood, political prisoners. It's Venezuela's turn to show the whole world how socialism fails.
A complete lack of reference to the elephant in the room.
Chavez was always very clear on his approach, and his 100% embracing of the S-word. Yet not referenced at all here.
How do people deal with this in real life? I mean, is there a way to safeguard savings in such a scenario, or have enough money for day to day purchases like food ?
So their government is basically bankrupted and have 0 credibility, in literal sense. What could it do to save itself, except being overthrown by its people?
"Venezuela’s inflation will skyrocket to 1 million percent by the end of the year as the government continues to print money to cover a growing budget hole, the International Monetary Fund predicted on Monday."
If you're not talking about the government, who obviously like printing money, then the issue is that people are paid in the local currency and have no choice and shops may be forced to accept it. The black market has long ago dealt in USD. Bitcoin doesn't help anyone since people don't have enough money to eat, let alone buy computers or mobile phones. Also Bitcoin is not a hard, ie stable, currency.
Venezuelan government wants to maintain control over money creation (and print as needed). They actually came out with their own cryptocurrency, the Petro, which is backed by national oil reserves.
It's easier to barter or use hard currency. When you're at 1 million percent inflation, you don't want to have to rely on having electricity and network access to buy food. Moreover, pitching people on a new currency in the midst of a currency collapse is an uphill battle.
When will a superpower (China or USA) step in and end this miserable spiral? An effective military action and instalment of a puppet government, followed by a free reign to multinational oil companies should swiftly end the miseries being endured by the Venezuelan populace.
And the moment that happens every single bad thing in Venezuela for the past 15 years and the future 1,000 years will be their fault. The entire world would condemn the USA as imperialists and there would be protests in the streets. Europeans would scoff at American brutality. And 5 more Chavezs with their socialist revolutions would be born, raging against US hegemony. That's what Chavez did in the first place, he was "protecting Venezuela from the imperialist USA". All the problems caused by his socialist revolution were actually because of US interference. There are still people today, here in this board, that believe that.
I'll mince no words: what an appallingly stupid idea.
First of all, do you think the US would do anything about anything, out of the goodness of their heart? Hah. Maybe you believe their interventionism is part of their efforts to build world peace, or maybe to, how do they say, "spread freedom and democracy"? Such naivety. The US protects its own interests and those of its business owners. If that means overthrowing democratic governments, so be it, if that means genocide, so be it, etc.
Second of all, the callousness with which you propose simply installing a puppet and letting the US govern the country is beyond description. Tell me, how would you feel if a foreign power decided you don't know how to govern your country, and that you need rescuing, and that from now on he would be in charge and dictate how your country gets run. Would you like it? If the answer is, as it must, "no I would not", then the only conclusion I can draw is that you view the Venezuelans as somehow incapable of making the right decisions and ruling themselves. As babies, or morons. Colonialist thinking, nothing else.
Thirdly, your point about letting oil multinationals ransack the country, and how that would, somehow I guess, improve the lives of the population. I won't comment on this one, because I cannot even fathom the train if thought here.
> The US official said Trump was specifically briefed not to raise the issue and told it wouldn't play well, but the first thing the president said at the dinner was, "My staff told me not to say this." Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn't want a military solution…
> For Maduro, who has long claimed that the US has military designs on Venezuela and its vast oil reserves, Trump's bellicose talk provided the unpopular leader with an immediate if short-lived boost as he was trying to escape blame for widespread food shortages and hyperinflation…
> A few weeks after Trump's public comments, Harvard economics professor Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister, wrote a syndicated column titled "D Day Venezuela," in which he called for a "coalition of the willing" made up of regional powers and the US to step in and support militarily a government appointed by the opposition-led national assembly.
[+] [-] ArtWomb|7 years ago|reply
D-Day Venezuela
https://panampost.com/editor/2018/01/02/d-day-venezuela/
I believe current US policy in South America misses a vital and timely opportunity. US policy should gear toward infrastructure projects throughout the Western Hemisphere. Akin to China's $2T Belt and Road Initiative throughout Central Asia and Africa. Just today Indian PM Modi and China's Xi Jinping are holding an historic joint visit to Rwanda, where they will announce new trade agreements.
Instead we see the same old strategy: sanctions in the hope of pro-democratic regime change, that only hurt the very people themselves.
[+] [-] gremlinsinc|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bumholio|7 years ago|reply
Lest we forget, Venezuela degraded to this pitiful situation after the democratic election of a populist who proceeded to redistribute the oil wealth to the poorest citizens. The disastrous policies were very welcomed by parts of the population, and they must be democratically rejected or rescoped to not kill the economy.
[+] [-] mikeash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kamaal|7 years ago|reply
Not a US citizen, but the US foreign policy is a relic of the past. Its really like peak Henry Kissinger 'Our way, or the highway' attitude, where everybody is supposed to fall in line or face invasion.
China offers a far more novel and attractive option to let people live as they like, as long as they can have peaceful coexistence based on mutual interests.
Empires and super powers often fall into this trap of trying to do everything and bullying everyone into submission. It might work for a while while you are at your peak. The issue is its impossible to sustain this forever.
[+] [-] Eridrus|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ataturk|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] realusername|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
To the average person and in the short run, yes. More broadly, given Caracas' hard currency antics, it is a measure on the reallocation of assets from the broader economy to Maduro's cronies. (State products, e.g. food and petrol, are purchased with local currency. Cronies buy hard currency at a fixed price and resell it at the inflated price. This mechanism moves real wealth into their hands.)
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|7 years ago|reply
I have felt very sad for the folks in Venezuela for a long time now. Here's hoping that there is a peaceful end to this nightmare for them.
[+] [-] nutjob2|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Arnt|7 years ago|reply
Back in Germany in 1923, workers did their best to buy stuff for their earnings in the first hour. Anyone who held cash lost, and lost fast.
[+] [-] grecy|7 years ago|reply
It was fascinating to spend 6 weeks there and really understand what that kind of falling currency does it a place and it's people.
[+] [-] Bromskloss|7 years ago|reply
Calculation: https://www.google.com/search?q=exp((15+min)*ln(10000%2B1)%2...)
[+] [-] baybal2|7 years ago|reply
1. In debt pumped economies (the majority of world countries these days,) the value of major assets and debt put into them exceeds the money in circulation big time.
2. People pop their piggy banks, sell cars, flats, company stocks just to get some food. Price of these very major assets plunge, and the holders of tbils, bonds, and etc (rich people) begin to panic.
3. When even rich people's money can't buy food and basic necessities, many of them run away from the country with what things they have left, pushing currency further down.
4. Whomever is left in the country is left with a lot of paper, and no food.
[+] [-] cal5k|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] i_made_a_booboo|7 years ago|reply
Why Nations Fail was such a good damn document of history and the nature of human behavior.
[+] [-] meiraleal|7 years ago|reply
Coincidence or not, Venezuela is sitting in the world's biggest oil reserves. And there are really some foreign companies trying to get it for free (the same they are doing without effort in Brazil and Argentina, which will open 3 US military bases now that the president is "aligned" with the US).
[+] [-] nabla9|7 years ago|reply
Populism has the message that the elites are corrupt and we can solve issues by just selecting the right people to lead us.
Populism assumes that there is a such thing as "will of the people" and the job of the government is to simply implement this will.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
The fascinating thing to me is how stability has been maintained. Usually nations have two stable modes. Ones where the peasants are too hungry and illiterate to organize. And ones where enough people are productive and happy to make revolting a bad bet.
Venezuelans are educated. Yet they've devolved to failed statehood without much fuss from the population.
[+] [-] nailer|7 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/309065744954580992
[+] [-] grecy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrenth|7 years ago|reply
This is in fact socialism working as designed. Maduro and the rest of his political bureaucracy elite are doing very well, than you, at the cost of the rest of the country.
[+] [-] bufferoverflow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WindowsFon4life|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tzfld|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alltakendamned|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh-kumudo|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alecco|7 years ago|reply
This will end in a civil war.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] economistrator|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Bromskloss|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vermontdevil|7 years ago|reply
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/16/how-venezuela-struck-it...
[+] [-] gtt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nutjob2|7 years ago|reply
If you're not talking about the government, who obviously like printing money, then the issue is that people are paid in the local currency and have no choice and shops may be forced to accept it. The black market has long ago dealt in USD. Bitcoin doesn't help anyone since people don't have enough money to eat, let alone buy computers or mobile phones. Also Bitcoin is not a hard, ie stable, currency.
[+] [-] zaarn|7 years ago|reply
If the answer to that question is anything but yes, I doubt adopting bitcoin at all will help.
[+] [-] sebleon|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|7 years ago|reply
It's easier to barter or use hard currency. When you're at 1 million percent inflation, you don't want to have to rely on having electricity and network access to buy food. Moreover, pitching people on a new currency in the midst of a currency collapse is an uphill battle.
[+] [-] brainwad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rcxdude|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paulddraper|7 years ago|reply
A far more realistic approach is to adopt another country's stable currency (e.g. US dollar).
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
Are the regular international credit card systems still working in Venezuela?
[+] [-] krapht|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shitgoose|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dingo_bat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phyller|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrepd|7 years ago|reply
First of all, do you think the US would do anything about anything, out of the goodness of their heart? Hah. Maybe you believe their interventionism is part of their efforts to build world peace, or maybe to, how do they say, "spread freedom and democracy"? Such naivety. The US protects its own interests and those of its business owners. If that means overthrowing democratic governments, so be it, if that means genocide, so be it, etc.
Second of all, the callousness with which you propose simply installing a puppet and letting the US govern the country is beyond description. Tell me, how would you feel if a foreign power decided you don't know how to govern your country, and that you need rescuing, and that from now on he would be in charge and dictate how your country gets run. Would you like it? If the answer is, as it must, "no I would not", then the only conclusion I can draw is that you view the Venezuelans as somehow incapable of making the right decisions and ruling themselves. As babies, or morons. Colonialist thinking, nothing else.
Thirdly, your point about letting oil multinationals ransack the country, and how that would, somehow I guess, improve the lives of the population. I won't comment on this one, because I cannot even fathom the train if thought here.
[+] [-] greeneggs|7 years ago|reply
https://www.businessinsider.com/ap-us-official-trump-pressed...
> The US official said Trump was specifically briefed not to raise the issue and told it wouldn't play well, but the first thing the president said at the dinner was, "My staff told me not to say this." Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn't want a military solution…
> For Maduro, who has long claimed that the US has military designs on Venezuela and its vast oil reserves, Trump's bellicose talk provided the unpopular leader with an immediate if short-lived boost as he was trying to escape blame for widespread food shortages and hyperinflation…
> A few weeks after Trump's public comments, Harvard economics professor Ricardo Hausmann, a former Venezuelan planning minister, wrote a syndicated column titled "D Day Venezuela," in which he called for a "coalition of the willing" made up of regional powers and the US to step in and support militarily a government appointed by the opposition-led national assembly.
[+] [-] gruez|7 years ago|reply