Oil-rich Venezuela’s miracle — record poverty

[Bacchus4.0]

The recent history of oil-rich Venezuela should be taught in universities around the world as a textbook case of an economic miracle in reverse: despite having benefited from the biggest oil boom in recent history, the country has managed to be poorer.

A joint new study by three leading Venezuelan universities — Andres Bello Catholic University, Central University of Venezuela, and Simon Bolivar University — shows that 48.4 per cent of Venezuelan households were below the poverty line in 2014, up from 45 per cent of households in 1998, before late radical leftist President Hugo Chávez took office and benefited from nearly a decade of soaring world oil prices.

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The new study is in sharp contrast to Venezuelan government figures, which claim that poverty has decreased in Venezuela under Chávez’s “socialist revolution.”

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The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), which uses official figures from Venezuela, reported recently that poverty in Venezuela — including extreme poverty — rose by nearly 10 percentage points in 2013 after declining steadily in previous years. But ECLAC does not provide figures for 2014, either.

http://www.stabroeknews.com/2015/features/02/08/oil-rich-venezuelas-miracle-record-poverty/

[MADem]

1. They've given all their oil to China at fire-sale prices because the Boligarchs took all the oil

money.

That country has been mismanaged into the ground.

[Fred Sanders]

2. The wealthy ruling class booted from their gilded cages want their country back! Sounds familiar.

[COLGATE4]

3. Jesus. Did you even read the article?

[Bacchus4.0]

4. Making everyone poor will ensure equality. Thats one way of looking at it nt

[Fred Sanders]

5. The oligarchs want their oil back - is another way of looking at it.

[Marksman_91]

6. Are you even listening to yourself?

The oil has always belonged to the state decades ago, way before Chavez even made headlines. I'd actually argue the oil money has been distributed even less equally now and put in an even smaller group's pockets, which are the PSUV leadership and the boligarchs who do business with them. There is indeed an oligarchy in Venezuela, but it's not who you think. One need only take a look at the properties and possessions of the Cabello and Maduro and Chavez families to see who the real oligarchs are.

[hack89]

7. Venezuela nationalized their oil decades before Chavez

Go learn your history.