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Showing posts with the label Venezuela

Venezuela as a Cautionary Tale on #SahodItaasPresyoIbaba, Nationalistic Pride, Welfare State Economics

The Sunday Guardian Years ago, I wrote about Venezuela's pride and protectionism , under a more "formal" style of writing compared to my latest posts. I decided to use an even "less formal" and "less academic" tone since I'm not writing a term paper. Instead, it's like how a professor and a student discuss the thesis using first person over third person, using contractions, etc., while the thesis doesn't use such tones. Back on track, I thought about the arrest of Venezuelan President Maduro can spark debate. Was it a violation of sovereignty? I'm no expert on international law. However, Venezuelans can be seen celebrating Maduro's arrest. Right now, I'm using Gemini AI and Google search to help me find some sources for this blog. It's because I don't want my blog to become another gossip central, but a place to discuss facts with my own personal opinions (making sure they don't  derail the facts).  I used Venezuela ...

The Foolishness of Blaming Wealthier Countries Why Your Country Suffers

Washington Times It's really entertaining (while it can also be frustrating ) dealing with economic neanderthals from my own country. Such people operate on what I call "Pinoy Pride Economics", never mind its high socio-economic post (read here ).  I ended up remembering the now-defunct Philippine Anti-Fascist League old page (and the new page is barely getting any views), which I believe is run by a group of Gen-Z brats blaming the USA for Venezuela's plight. I went Googling and found out that six years ago, President Nicolas Maduro showed he might be the champion of blaming other countries for his own country's poverty.  This incident was a massive blackout that hit Venezuela in 2019 . The news from CNN gives this detail why Maduro might win any blame contest if there was one: As the March outages left the country in the dark, Caracas saw dueling protests by supporters of Maduro and of opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has been recognized as Venezuela’s interi...

Venezuela's Pride and Protectionism

The Telegraph Venezuela is an oil-rich country yet it's a very poor country. Somebody could go ahead and give every unthinkable reason such as "foreign investments caused it" (a blatant lie) and "It's because America had economic sanctions in Venezuela". Yet, the answer can be found in several causes such as corruption. Yet, China and Vietnam, which can be seen to still have a good amount of corruption, are far more successful. The answer also lies in one policy--economic protectionism . The very idea that a country that first world countries used "protectionism" to succeed is a lie as proven by Venezuela's ongoing crisis. A common-sense examination of one root cause of Venezuela's continuing crisis Forbes magazine mentions this in "What Do Investors Need To Understand About Venezuela's Economic Crisis?" by Nathaniel Parish Flannery on December 21, 2016: Venezuela is far and away the worst-managed economy in the Americas . Ad...