Venezuela: More Oil Than Saudi Arabia Yet No Toilet Paper

Venezuelan hospitals have no water, infrequent electricity, are without functioning xrays, incubators, operating rooms, medications. Newborns and ill people are dying....
"legislature declared a humanitarian crisis in January, and this month passed a law that would allow Venezuela to accept international aid to prop up the health care system.“This is criminal that we can sit in a country with this much oil, and people are dying for lack of antibiotics,” says Oneida Guaipe, a lawmaker and former hospital union leader.
But Mr. Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chávez, went on television and rejected the effort, describing the move as a bid to undermine him and privatize the hospital system.

“I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one,” Mr. Maduro said."

If you have the stomach....read this heart rending NY Times article,
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html?_r=0
 
I didn't think Arabs used toilet paper ...

Maybe the US can swap Venezuela toilet paper for oil and leave the Arabs out of it?

The Arabs do breed lovely horses, though ...

Some babies and ill people die in whatever country ...

The world is just weird, mainly because of the people in it.
 
Guitarist said:
I didn't think Arabs used toilet paper ...

Maybe the US can swap Venezuela toilet paper for oil and leave the Arabs out of it?

The Arabs do breed lovely horses, though ...

Some babies and ill people die in whatever country ...

The world is just weird, mainly because of the people in it.
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I wonder if your response would be as flippant and irrelevant if you had read the article.
 
ndynt said:
Even more so, Shali....because much of it could be alleviated if the president, Mr. Maduro, would allow international aid. How can a country so rich in a natural resource end up like this?
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This Maduro character has 15% approval rating and 70% of Venezuelans blame him for economic conditions. Maduro has been accused of being more worried about trying to keep the country on the left side than accept policy and aid that would help the citizens.

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela--crisis-20160515-snap-story.html

Big problem in ex dictatorships is that so much got done because the person in power was able to use their authority to get it done so many of these countries never bothered with a system that anyone in power could use. Charisma or an iron fist will only go so far when it goes to those messy details of running an economy and providing for the people.
 
ndynt said:
Even more so, Shali....because much of it could be alleviated if the president, Mr. Maduro, would allow international aid. How can a country so rich in a natural resource end up like this?
Click to expand...


As I was reading through the article you linked I came across this statement: '...This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high. Now that prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014 — the consequences are casting a destructive shadow across the country.....'

Exactly describes Alberta, Canada to a degree. What has saved this province is that they are party of a greater whole which has other resources to keep it going.

I did some reading on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez a couple years ago and while I think Chavez's heart for the poor was in the right place (i.e. he really cared and wanted to lift them out of poverty), I don't think he was very good at economics and management of resources and probably didn't pick the right people to help him achieve the results he envisioned. I also remembered when he provided free oil to the poor of America for about six years, and while a lot of that might have come from a desire to poke the American administration in the eye with 'a big oily stick', I'm betting that the people he helped keep warm in those winters were grateful.

My guess is that one of the reasons that the current president doesn't want to accept outside help is because it opens the door to unwanted interference that invariably has all sorts of negative ramifications sooner or later. He probably is keeping in mind the CIA involvement in the coup that attempted to bring Chavez down for instance, not to mention other South American countries. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/6-Coups-Against-Latin-Americas-Left-Since-2000-20160511-0021.html
 
Debby said:
As I was reading through the article you linked I came across this statement: '...This nation has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet the government saved little money for hard times when oil prices were high. Now that prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014 — the consequences are casting a destructive shadow across the country.....'

Exactly describes Alberta, Canada to a degree. What has saved this province is that they are party of a greater whole which has other resources to keep it going.

I did some reading on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez a couple years ago and while I think Chavez's heart for the poor was in the right place (i.e. he really cared and wanted to lift them out of poverty), I don't think he was very good at economics and management of resources and probably didn't pick the right people to help him achieve the results he envisioned. I also remembered when he provided free oil to the poor of America for about six years, and while a lot of that might have come from a desire to poke the American administration in the eye with 'a big oily stick', I'm betting that the people he helped keep warm in those winters were grateful.

My guess is that one of the reasons that the current president doesn't want to accept outside help is because it opens the door to unwanted interference that invariably has all sorts of negative ramifications sooner or later. He probably is keeping in mind the CIA involvement in the coup that attempted to bring Chavez down for instance, not to mention other South American countries. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/6-Coups-Against-Latin-Americas-Left-Since-2000-20160511-0021.html
Click to expand...
Interesting. Thanks for the Chavez info, Debby. Have only read very negative statements about him.
 
Venezuela should look around the world and see what happened to most of the worlds communist nations. One, they had to drop away and try different paths for the people. Just about any communist run nations are full poverty. Look to Cuba for one of those. Other communist nations still call themselves to be communist but work quite obviously in capitalistic ways and allow their people to own and profit from their own ways, and that is China. Another major communist country finally gave up and completely dropped their attachment to the name and now work more independently and that is Russia.

Seems like plenty of showing that communism alone is not the best way to go for anyone.
 
Right now there are few places that are not preferable over Venezuela. Hopefully the people will be able to obtain enough petition signatures, in time for there to be another election. If only Meduro does not delay it, by his asking that all signatures be verified. That could forestall it to beyond the January deadline and instead of the election they will only get his cohort, the Vice President, as their President. More of the same.
 
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