#15

I have a Venezuelan friend from Maracaibo. He’s lucky enough to have a Greek passport as well through his grandparents, and he’s recently moved to Germany, possibly permanently. He used to go back to Venezuela and work in the oil/petrochemical industry for 6-12 months as a safety inspector, save up the money, and then use it to fund things like living in Barcelona. That’s become not worth the bother now, so he’s just decamped to Germany without the nice savings cushion.

The main things that were affecting him were a massive explosion in crime, and also no-one even in the country knowing what the hell is going on. The amount of phones and car parts he’s had stolen this year are incredible, and in the end the car itself was stolen. That was unheard of before- Maracaibo is the oil capital of the country, and cars were very cheap to run because of the cost-price fuel. Also being a gay man makes him even more of a target for muggings.

#16

Oh, I’m not saying that the situation isn’t bad in the country - successive governments have based the entire economy and society around the price of oil, which has collapsed in the past three years, but whoever was in government would have seen breakdowns like this.

Sadly, many of the reforms brought in by Chavez were laying the foundations necessary for a post-oil economy, but they weren’t done early enough.

#17

I meant it’s more like he’s not complaining “I’m living in this hellscape where everyone is starving and there is no toilet paper” more like “for god’s sake my phone got stolen again. second time this month”. So I imagine those things are going on in the country, but to what extent is anyone’s guess. Maracaibo has always been safer and more prosperous than Caracas though, because of the lucrative oil and chemical industry there.

#18

Also my friend’s family are university lecturers who are fans of Chavez and his educational reforms, but not fans of either Maduro or the neo-liberal opposition groups. Maduro is too heavy handed and authoritarian, but the opposition groups are too capitalist.

#19

The opposition are borderline fascist, from what I’ve read.

#20

My good friend is Venezuelan and was talking about how bad the situation was over a year ago.

#21

My friend is very liberal but he thinks Chavez is really strangling the economy.

#22

Pretty impressive from beyond the grave.

3 Likes
#23

Chavez died four years ago.

#24

Sorry I meant Nic nit Chavez, though he wasn’t a big fan of Chavez either.

#26

Given that the Trump administration seems to exaggerate the most xenophobic aspects of the previous administrations policies I’d probably go with the latter.

Obama’s stance wasn’t exactly encouraging

1 Like
#27

Oh god

#28
#29

Better weather at least.

1 Like
#30

what are we supposed to take away from this? other than that a lot of tories don’t know much about venezuela?

#31

I’m pretty sure Owen Jones answered several of these questions on Friday evening on Radio 4.

#32

Just when I thought I couldn’t find anything more to dislike about the spectator.

#33

In a nutshell:

The people of Venezuela have learned the hard way that socialism doesn’t work, that socialist leaders almost always unequivocally become tyrants, and the free market economy, while not perfect, is a damn sight better than eating horse meat sourced from the local zoo.

#34

=============<() BZZZZZZZZZ

#35

What kind of shitty zoos are you going to that have horses?

2 Likes