Maracaibo used to be the Dallas of Venezuela, its wealth fueled by oil. But today, residents are fighting for survival and the city is experiencing an exodus. The collapse of Maracaibo is emblematic of what may lie in store for the country at large.
https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/venezuela-city-of-maracaibo-i...
Thanks for this! Is this what is in store for us in rich Canada, when our fracking industry dies, when the tarsands become too unprofitable, when the investment capitalists stop pumping money into a losing industry, when they no longer have any money to pump? When, now! our forest industry is dysfunctional, when our real estate bubbles collapse, ad nauseum?
Yes Chavez was wrong to not invest their fleeting profits from oil into building self reliance, especially food.....and pouring it exclusively into social services, housing for the poor (millions!) Not building up their diversified economy and industry! Borrowing US dollars to sustain a losing system at high interest rates in US dollars!
But is this not what our own social democrats promote?
Who is promoting local self reliance, holistic forestry, worker and community cooperatives in BC to rebuild our forests and sustain our rural economies?
No...your dystopian scenario for Venezuela, is what we face as well, when our bubble credit economy collapses...unless there is leadership to build self reliant, autonomous alternatives!
No, it isn't what anyone here promotes. Appropriate taxation pays for services. Taxes are just paying collectively for stuff.
I do not believe that economic collapse in the sense that you predict is going to happen. It's fine to promote local production and sustainability but most people don't want to go back to homesteading and bartering. We like going to stores to buy stuff from all over the world. You aren't going to convince people to stop doing that even if you are right about what the future holds.
journal-neo.org W. Engdahl
If major oil shale regions are already beginning to shows signs of limits at present prices, and if decline rates are about to significantly accelerate over the coming 2-3 years, it will have major implications for US foreign policy as well as the economy. A major factor in the recent actions of Washington in the Middle East and even Venezuela has clearly been driven by a sense that America no longer depends on foreign oil and can take greater geopolitical risks. Oil and the remarkable shale boom were largely behind this impression.
The Trump Administration began in 2017 as one of the most oil-friendly in recent history. Rex Tillerson, CEO of ExxonMobil, was named Secretary of State. Texas oil-friendly Governor Rick Perry headed Energy Department. Others were named who favored expansion of shale oil as a national priority. If this domestic shale oil support suddenly begins to vanish, it will send major new shock waves around the globe at a time when shock waves are coming from every direction. It’s not the end of the Oil Age, but it could soon be the end of the USA shale oil boom, one fueled on mountains of debt, horrendous environmental destruction and wishful thinking. In turn that could trigger a global oil price shock that will turn the economy dramatically down.....
...... We like going to stores to buy stuff from all over the world. You aren't going to convince people to stop doing that even if you are right about what the future holds. ...
whew! I could include info on the collapsing shipping industry, collapsing rail shipment industry........but to think that our governments with its dying industries and threatened banks will be able or willing to continue to support services?
In my region of Canada, there are fewer services, no public transport and increasing prices for basics...in the cities, most people now buy in tyhe dollar stores...and when the products from China dry up?
Please I do not suggest just homesteading and bartering...I am a bioregional autonomist, with the ideas for regional economics capital infrastructure, finance and credit systems...as the system continues its decline into bankruptcy, this alternative will be the only alternative, except of course total control!
Whatever problems Venezuela has, none can be made better by installing Juan Guaido' as president, or by imposing his Thatcherite-Pinochetist agenda, an agenda almost nobody other than multi-millionaires supports.
And no useful role at all can be played by the Pentagon. All past U.S. military interventions in the Americas have brought to the countries they intervened in was poverty and death.
On the upside, John Bolton is out of the picture. The world, including Venezuela, can take a bit of comfort in that.
