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Comment by cf498 | Hacker News Reader

The thing is, in Venezuela a lot of people still have a lot to loose. Their economy tanked, the question at this point is how the available resources are going to be distributed. The existing corrupt structures are still a safer bet for large groups of the population and they cant have to high hopes for the viable alternatives.

If the old regime is overthrown, it will likely not be more equal. I would be highly surprised if it wouldnt come to a famine then without major NGOs stepping in.

I hope I have the wrong impression though. The situation is simply terrible.

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> I would be highly surprised if it wouldnt come to a famine

It already is. People aren't eating zoo animals for fun. They are eating them because they are hungry.

Which, in a country as green and lush as Venezuela, makes me wonder if the population is mildly retarded. You probably don't even have to try to grow food there. Just throw seeds on the ground.

As dark as it is, there is a difference between malnourished and a famine. With "a lot to loose", in a lot of cases its those peoples lives. Alot of them are malnourished now, but they stay to loose the little that is available.

My point being, there isnt a simple way out. There is no get rid of the president and everything will be fine. It will likely be worse of, even if just for a short while for a lot of people if major NGOs dont step in.

Chavez was charismatic but not very bright. Maduro is his former drinking buddy who isn't charismatic or bright.

Basically most of the farms shut down because the government mandated food prices below the cost of production. Food was imported by the government instead.

Then the government ran out of money, and Venezuela doesn't have food or farms.

If farmers had held out through the hard times Maduro would have just nationalized their farms to try to fix the food problem. So quitting was really their only option.

I believe all that was rooted in the original breaking-up of farms? Large farming corporations were divided and given to workers in small parcels. But they had not the financing, equipment nor training to run their own operation. Also, they were now 'wealthy landowners' and probably not too motivated.

Anyway, fast forward and nobody is producing food, or at an uncompetitive cost. As noted, the food imports ruined the balance of trade, the falling oil prices ended their exports, and the country went bankrupt.

Has any socialist country survived the death of their cash cow? These experiments seem to work in principle, but only as long as huge amounts of cash are injected from outside.

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