Originally posted by: Californication
I come across that way because in thread after thread I am on the opposite side as other people and when we look back I am the accurate one. And I am not liberal, I am progressive, there's a difference. Between the Republicans, Democrats, and Progressives, we are the only group of people that care about the country. Edit: And I always consider other opinions, I adjust myself accordingly before settling, take another look.
So you’re answer to my opinion on Venezuela is that I am insufferable and the Democrat party is going to lose. That is not an argument. That is a Donald Trump like response.
1)I really hope that's a joke! Do you truly believe that of the 330 million in the USA, only the far left care about the country? If so, you really need a reality check. For the record, I also tend to agree with many "progressive" ideas - although certainly not all. That said, I think it's the height of hypocrisy to assume that you and only you actually "care". In fact, it's more than that, it's dangerous. When a group of people believe they are the "only ones" -that can easily lead to dictatorship.
2)The crisis in Venezuela is more complex than simply saying "it's the USA's fault". In fact, that's a truly naive and asinine answer. While the economic sanctions definitely have a role, it's much more than that. If you want to assign blame, it should go to:
1)
The Venezuelan government -- the primarily culprit with "years of economic mismanagement, and corruption"
Oh, not to mention the fact the the Venezuelan government has killed thousands upon thousands of innocent protesters all while denying there is even a crisis!!
Some argue it is the socialist policies which led to this mess, but even if the socialist policies are not the main reason for the economic collapse, it certainly is an issue along with the anti-democratic governance, all the corruption, and simply put, the complete
mismanagement of the economy.
2)Venezuela's oil production dropped, there was no maintenance and no investment. This is huge. Basically, the government just let things slide to the point of no return.
3)There's too much oil. If you put all your money in oil, and oil becomes super cheap, you lose.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201...
4)The sanctions. They must have some affect, but what? One paper found that the sanctions were devestating, although still NOT the main cause of the crisis. However, another paper claims that
"it becomes clear that the bulk of the deterioration in living standards occurred long before the sanctions were enacted in 2017. Relatedly, we find rapidly worsening trends across all of the socio-economic indicators we analyze well before the sanctions were imposed in August 2017. Therefore, in the presence of these strong pre-trends, it is impossible to attribute the current performance of these socio-economic indicators to the sanctions."
https://www.brookings.edu/researc...
Based upon what I've read (just a few links below, there are numerous scholarly articles on this), colleagues I've spoken to from South America (mostly Brazil), the blame is primarily on the Venezuelan government.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/20...
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-la...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/0...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/0...