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There has never been a country that should have been so rich but ended up this poor | Human Interest | Scoop.it

From www.washingtonpost.com - May 25, 2016 2:49 PM

Douglas Vance's curator insight, February 2, 2018 4:08 PM

Venezuela has the most promise to be an economic powerhouse. Their plethora of fossil fuel resources should make them such. However, their gross abuse of power and economic mismanagement have doomed the country to devastating economic hardships. Despite the clear fact that Venezuela should be a global fossil fuel player, the blatant and indredibly brash corruption and governmental incompetence was too much for their economic potential to withstand.

David Stiger's curator insight, September 23, 2018 3:54 PM

The line "there has never been a country that should have been so rich but ended up this poor" is jarring. Venezuela has the world's largest oil supplies - a natural resource so valuable some refer to it as "black gold." But, the nation has oddly become, as the article judged, a "failed state." The nation is suffering from staggering unemployment, poverty, and economic decline. People are starving and cannot meet their basic needs. The country tried tackling poverty under a socialist system by sharing the oil wealth with its citizens. This socialist project collapsed into failure with the onset of increased government corruption.

Hugo Chavez, the country's former president, set in motion a government that was doomed to fail. Seeking to find supporters who were loyal to him, Chavez removed the economic and oil experts from power. Oil production fell drastically while government officials began engaging in drug dealing and embezzlement of public funds. The three pronged cancer has crippled an economy based on only one export - oil. If the economy had been diversified from the start, perhaps the crisis would not be so terrible.

To alleviate hyper-inflation, President Nicolas Maduro has been subsidizing certain businesses. These businesses have found that selling their capital on the black market is more profitable than restocking their shelves to sell needed products at discounted rates. The governments efforts only cause the nightmare to grow.

As people decry the deplorable acts of crony capitalism in the U.S., it would be wise to examine how sour a purely socialist system can turn. More equitable distribution of a country's wealth can be wise only if there are safeguards against corruption. Venezuela is a key example of what happens when a elite few loot and pillage an entire nation.

There has never been a country that should have been so rich but ended up this poor