(Sung to the tune of the music hall song "What're we goin to do wif Uncle Arthur")

I've just listened to an hour of discussion on the question and I'm no wiser.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03vny34
That, as usual, is a bit of an exaggeration.

The program roughly divides into three segments: 1. the condition of Venezuela right now - a shambles 2. how did it get there -  divided opinion 3. what needs to be done to resolve its problems - divided opinion again.

I didn't know this, that Venezuela has the biggest proven oil reserves in the world (?). And clearly other big oil producing countries have gone through boom-bust cycles as the price fluctuated but haven't ended in the same catastrophe that Venezuela has.

I am inclined to agree with the economist on the panel - well more than inclined to be honest - that there are economic laws that can't be defied permanently, just like the law of gravity (on earth anyway).
And clearly Bolivarian economics as practised by Chavez & now Maduro tried to do just that with the result we see.
Market forces must be allowed to work. They can be regulated to an extent. If they are over-regulated that will be counter-productive. If they are totally defied, chaos will ensue.
The Chavez govt eventually tried to nationalise everything. What production there was was squeezed out or dried up. When the oil price fell, or even before, collapse set in.

Now the Maduro govt blames the US and its allies for the country's troubles. He is now suggesting that the US is about to invade.
Can anybody seriously imagine Obama would contemplate doing that? It's a measure of the madness that infects these people.

How are their problems to be resolved? Nothing in the shops, no drugs in the hospitals, crime rampant to the extent that everybody shuts themselves up at 6pm, business gone away or bankrupted.
There's some Irishman on the panel. He admits he's not an economist, I don't know what he is, probably a political scientist. His solution is the govt must consult the local communes & the poor people. The economist points out these people would have no idea what's necessary to rebuild the economy.

I can only imagine that some painful process of restarting market forces, as in Russia, will have to be gone through. But in Latin America, with military coups & revolutions, will such a process be allowed to happen. There's always foreign aid of course.
Oh and apparently it's going to get worse because the country is about to default on debt payments.

CNN:
Another sign of deep trouble in Venezuela: Lufthansa, one of Europe's largest airlines, said it will stop flying to the country. The company announced Sunday that beginning June 17, it will suspend flights indefinitely to Venezuela, which is grappling with a daunting economic and humanitarian crisis.

Andreas Bartles, a Lufthansa spokesperson, said there's two reasons for the decision. First, there simply isn't enough demand -- particularly among business travelers -- to fill flights. Second, the company is having trouble converting Venezuelan currency, which uses complicated multi-tiered exchange rates.



Venezuela is heavily reliant on its massive oil reserves, and two years of stubbornly low oil prices have strangled the country's economy.

Related: Venezuela: the land of 500% inflation 

And fewer flights on Venezuelan runways is far from the country's only problem. The economic crisis has spurred food rationing, medicine shortages, and mass unemployment. The International Monetary Fund expects unemployment to hit a staggering 21% next year.

The government has ordered rolling blackouts to conserve power, and employees in the public sector are working only two days a week.

The downward spiral has caused concern for many international companies. Last year, multiple air carriers -- including U.S.-based Delt  (DAL)and American Airline a (AAL)s well as Air Canada and Europe-based Alitalia -- made plans to reduce or suspend Venezuelan flights.

Related: How much more oil can the Saudis really pump?

Coca-Cola (KO) also recently announced that it is temporarily stopping production in the country amid a sugar shortage.

Yet another socialist success story, nothing to see here folks.  :D , the real mystery is why Marla didn't pack her bags and get on down there to enjoy the socialist paradise while the going was good, the good being about the time between the socialist paradise being declared and one hour later  ;D, I guess thats a small window of opportunity  ;D

Better to stay home and sh!t in your own nest hey Marla    ;D

A few years ago oil prices were high and the media was singing the praises of venezuela. 

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/world-affairs/2013/01/hugo-chavez-man-against-world

;D ;D ;D "economic miracle" ;D ;D ;D

Socialism is Revenge of the Id!ots, when Chavez took over he made sure that every full bore f@ckin id!ot that ever graced the shores of Venezuela would be put in charge of something important  ;D

If my limited experience of Venezeula is anything to go by i'm very happy with her

Just another socialist utopia, it is what is envisioned by the greens and labor during their party get togethers.


Total control by the government and a ready made scape goat when they fkk it u due to incompetence.

Disintegration in slow motion:

Four tankers carrying more than two million barrels of US crude are stuck at sea and cannot discharge at a Caribbean terminal because Venezuela's PDVSA has not yet paid supplier BP Plc, according to two sources and Thomson Reuters vessel tracking data.

The cargoes are part of a tender Petroleos de Venezuela, known as PDVSA, awarded in March to BP and China Oil.

The deal was to import some eight million barrels of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude so Venezuela could dilute its extra heavy crudes and feed its Caribbean refineries.

While three cargoes for this tender were delivered in April, seven other vessels, including BP's four hired ones, are waiting to discharge, leaving up to 3.85 million barrels of WTI in limbo.

PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company's cash crunch, which also affected its oil imports in late 2015, have added to a backlog of tankers since March due to malfunctioning loading arms at Jose, Venezuela's main crude port.

PDVSA initially offered to pay for the imports with Venezuelan oil, but negotiations for those swaps failed as the proposed loading windows and crude grades did not work for BP, a source close to the talks said.

Amid low crude prices, declining exports and a brutal recession at home, PDVSA has since 2015 delayed payments to suppliers. As a result, service firms including Schlumberger, Halliburton and Petrex have curtailed operations in the OPEC country.

The payment delays are also raising questions about who will pay for demurrage, or the daily costs for delays. Three of the BP tankers have been anchored for more than 30 days.

As China already lifts Venezuelan crude as part of broader oil-for-loans deals, its companies have agreed on swaps for this tender, the sources said.

Issues with loading arms to receive tankers at Jose port have doubled wait times for shippers since March.

PDVSA said in a statement that installation of replacement equipment in the port's southern dock were successfully concluded on Tuesday.

Some 30 dirty tankers are currently waiting around PDVSA's ports in Venezuela and Curacao.

PDVSA has become one of the largest buyers of US crude since April even with a narrow arbitrage that makes most exports unattractive, analysts have said, but payment delays could stymie its bid to continue imports.

Maybe Bernie Sanders or Hillary could sort their problems out.

Just as long as the problems mean they dont recall the young lady I'm dating from the embassy home.

Dear Socialists of America: Let’s Chat About Venezuela
Jun. 4, 2016 8:01am   

Mary Ramirez -The Blaze

. . . .If an order of McDonald’s fries costs you the USD equivalent of $126 (oh and by the way, that’s 9 percent of your monthly wages), youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If your local state-run grocery store shelves are stocked with the same couple of items (when they’re stocked at all), youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If your president ordered a 30 percent minimum wage increase (the 33rd hike in 17 years) and yet “minimum wage is now only about 20 percent of the cost of feeding a family of five,” youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If what it once cost you to buy breakfast, lunch and dinner now barely gets you breakfast, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If you wait in line for hours for “a couple of little bags of flour or some butter,” youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If government regulations force prices of food down, but 700+ percent inflation makes it nearly impossible to buy it, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If the government takes over grocery stores for having supposedly “squirreled away food to stoke public exasperation over widespread shortages,” youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If you can only go to grocery stores on certain days and ONLY with a government-issued ID, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If your government threatens “to take over idle factories and jail their owners” because they’re being supposedly “paralyzed by the bourgeoisie,” youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If the government has imposed rolling electricity blackouts and the little food you have sits spoiling in a powerless refrigerator (unless of course, you’re a government official living in Caracas), youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If you “routinely skip one meal per day and increasingly rely on starches to make up for proteins that are too expensive or simply unavailable,” youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If you’re eating dogs, cats and garbage to survive, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If your government now only works two days a week, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If you’re ambushing and looting grocery trucks on the highway, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If being the editor of a newspaper investigating government corruption gets you thrown in jail,  youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

If it’s nearly impossible to leave your country because of your government’s stringent currency controls, youuuuuu might be living in a socialist country.

Listen, all Foxworthy-esque joking aside, this is serious stuff.

We’re talking about a country sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves, and yet it is literally “almost too poor to afford inflation.” Translation: they can barely pay to print more money.

Venezuela (even with the global drop in oil prices) should be better than fine. It should be exceptional.

And yet today, Venezuela is gone. It has spiraled into a hellhole of violence, unimaginable poverty and government oppression.

Why?

Because the Venezuelan government, like so many before them, bought into the lie of socialism. Before my socialist friends point a finger, no, it’s not because of falling oil prices; even triple digit oil prices weren’t enough to pay for Venezuela’s wild redistributive spending spree.

They bought into the lie (or took advantage of it) that government can deal with economic problems with more government. They bought into the lie (or took advantage of it) that the government can orchestrate success.

To the 47 percent of Americans in this country who say they’d vote for a socialist:

What exactly did Venezuela do wrong? No really, what precisely went wrong?

What part of their top-down, government-run collectivism sounds any different that the socialism that Bernie Sanders and every other American socialist peddles?

Didn’t Venezuela’s current leadership (and decades’ worth of leadership before them) follow Karl Marx’s redistributive principles to a T?
So what gives?

I’ll leave you with a final thought:

If Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolas Maduro praises would-be socialist leader Bernie Sanders as “an emerging candidate with a restorative and revolutionary message,” youuuuuu might want to rethink your worldview.

     

What're we gonna do with Venezuela?
sell it to Gina

John Smith wrote on Jun 5^th, 2016 at 11:30am:

What're we gonna do with Venezuela? sell it to Gina

Yeah, straight after we sell you to the circus.

innocentbystander. wrote on Jun 5^th, 2016 at 12:12pm:

John Smith wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 11:30am: What're we gonna do with Venezuela? sell it to Gina Yeah, straight after we sell you to the circus.

you'd just love me to join you wouldn't you? ... but I'm not for sale

John Smith wrote on Jun 5^th, 2016 at 12:16pm:

innocentbystander. wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 12:12pm: John Smith wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 11:30am: What're we gonna do with Venezuela? sell it to Gina Yeah, straight after we sell you to the circus. you'd just love me to join you wouldn't you? ... but I'm not for sale

You'd make Bozo the clown look serious.  ;D

innocentbystander. wrote on Jun 5^th, 2016 at 12:21pm:

John Smith wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 12:16pm: innocentbystander. wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 12:12pm: John Smith wrote on Jun 5th, 2016 at 11:30am: What're we gonna do with Venezuela? sell it to Gina Yeah, straight after we sell you to the circus. you'd just love me to join you wouldn't you? ... but I'm not for sale You'd make Bozo the clown look serious.  ;D

Are you worried you'd lose your job?

This is what people like john & Greg do when they want to destroy threads on the failure of socialism.

It's another tactic of the new totalitarians.

bogarde73 wrote on Jun 5^th, 2016 at 12:49pm:

This is what people like john & Greg do when they want to destroy threads on the failure of socialism.

I only suggested that you sell it to Gina ... after all, you seem happy enough selling Australia of to Gina and her ilk. Don't you think it's a good idea?

bogarde73 wrote on May 29^th, 2016 at 10:48am:

What're we gonna do with Venezuela?

While a discussion on the problems it is facing is potentially interesting, I fail to see why we need to do anything with Venezuela.  Can someone explain why the question needs to be asked?

Well discuss the issue then instead of making a goose of yourself about the thread title.
Warning: you might need to book a safe room when you find what a failure socialism is.

bogarde73 wrote on Jun 6^th, 2016 at 12:14pm:

Well discuss the issue then instead of making a goose of yourself about the thread title.

There is no doubt that Venezuela has major problems, a great deal of which appear to be the result of incompetence and corruption in the political system, compounded by the fact that the country's economy relies so heavily on oil exports (oil accounts for something like 96% of its exports).  The country is a basket case, and nothing short of a complete change of government can save it.

You asked what are we going to do with Venezuela? Or as you most eloquently put it "What're we gonna do with Venezuela?".  Given that Australia does not have any special sort of relationship with Venezuela, and that the Venezuelan brand of socialism bears little resemblance to what we have here, I fail to see that there is any pressing need for Australia to do anything about it.  It would be more appropriate for other countries in the Americas to intervene rather than Australia, which is, after all, a relatively minor player on the international stage outside of our own geographical area.

Can I ask you again what we need to do about it and why we need to do anything about it?  You say you want a discussion about what you posted, but you shy away from answering questions.


bogarde73 wrote on Jun 6^th, 2016 at 12:14pm:

Warning: you might need to book a safe room when you find what a failure socialism is.

Oh yes, and there is no need to resort to personal abuse of the sort one would expect from an unintelligent troll.  I am sure you are capable of a better response that that.

My oh my, what a thin skin you have. A safe room seems very appropriate if you regard that as personal abuse. One wonders what shock & horror you'd feel if I showed you a picture of Rhodes.

As for the thread title, it obviously didn't occur to you that it was meant to convey "what is the world going to do". You must have very literal thinking.
Obviously it is already or very near to a failed state. Another case of failed socialist experiments needing a bailout from the free enterprise world.

bogarde73 wrote on Jun 7^th, 2016 at 7:59am:

My oh my, what a thin skin you have. A safe room seems very appropriate if you regard that as personal abuse.

Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m not hurt or offended by what you said - as far as personal abuse goes, it is at a fairly low level.  I was just calling you out for the troll that you are.  You say that you want a discussion, but you ignore what people say about the topic and instead indulge in name calling and puerile comments about the person rather than have any sort of discussion about what they say.

I also get the impression that you seem to think that I am a committed Socialist of the old school.  While that might have been the case 40+ years ago, my political stance these days is much closer to the centre than to the left.


bogarde73 wrote on Jun 7^th, 2016 at 7:59am:

One wonders what shock & horror you'd feel if I showed you a picture of Rhodes.

I have no idea what you’re on about - Cecil Rhodes, a Greek island, a Sydney suburb?


bogarde73 wrote on Jun 7^th, 2016 at 7:59am:

As for the thread title, it obviously didn't occur to you that it was meant to convey "what is the world going to do". You must have very literal thinking.

That did occur to me as a possibility but you should really learn to word your posts a bit better than you do, so that forum members know what you mean rather than having to guess.


bogarde73 wrote on Jun 7^th, 2016 at 7:59am:

Obviously it is already or very near to a failed state. Another case of failed socialist experiments needing a bailout from the free enterprise world.

I said in my last post that Venezuela was a “basket case basket case, and nothing short of a complete change of government can save it”.  Did it occur to you that I might actually agree with some of what you said?