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Comment by bserge | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela's situation is just sad. Produces less than half of the food it needs to sustain the population, the vast majority of exports are oil (which has crashed in price) and some other natural resources.

A recipe for disaster. No one needs their currency, not even the pathetic internal market, they can't get foreign currency because exports are low (esp. for a country of 30 million). Wat nou?

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I believe they have the largest oil reserves in the world (over 15% of the worlds reserve). I also believe Venezuela was in dire straights long before oil crashed. Quite honestly their government is massively to blame. After a certain leader passed away they went downhill very fast.

That certain leader is the one who sent them downhill: Chavism was a recipe for disaster from the start. It’s only because the price of oil was so high in 2000-2008 that the rot wasn’t immediately apparent.

Chavez is the one who replaced competent leaders with army cronies. Chavez is the one who demolished democracy

And Chavez was the one who nationalized the oil companies and then was shocked when he couldn’t find competent people to keep the refineries going.

Literally killed the goose that lays the golden eggs.

How is it possible that the HackerNews crowd isn’t aware of US sanctions?

That would ruin the "government incompetence caused hyperinflation" narrative because people want to laugh, be smug and feel superior. If people knew that e.g. the Weimar Republik hyperinflation was caused by external factors like war reparations then they would have to understand that hyperinflation is more than just "printing money".

There have been major sanctions since 2017 while "Inflation rates became the highest in the world in 2014 under Nicolás Maduro, and continued to increase in the following years"

If they could kick out Maduro and get a sane government things would be quite fixable. Venezuela used to be the richest country in South America. Their problems are very man made.

Oil crashed? The news here yesterday was that the MSRP for gasoline is now over €2/liter due the high oil price of more than $80/barrel.

Chavism worked when oil was well above 100usd. 80 is still very low relatively to the rest of the 21st century

Crashed... in... price...? I guess I should investigate the $5/gal gas prices I’m seeing in CA.

I like how you think you can infer the way the rest of the world should be just based on your local petrol prices.

Meanwhile in Europe prices are approaching USD 9 / gallon. (And yes, that includes a lot of taxes.)

You should investigate. At least $1.21/gal of that is going to the government. State/Federal gas tax + sales tax + regulatory fees and other regulatory fees. Also California mandates specific formulations which adds to the costs compared to other locations, and add to that the general increased cost of any operations in the state, including higher wages. That extra cost you pay is not going to the ones pulling crude out of the ground. Not saying that Venezuela isn't mismanaging its natural resource revenue, but your high prices are not a contradiction of the fact that their revenue is impacted by an historically low crude price.

California has a special summer blend of gas that has an unusual vapor pressure due to somewhat unique additives. The only people that make CA blend gas is, surprise surprise, in the high cost of business state, California. California effectively has a closed petroleum economy which has a dramatic impact on fuel prices. It's completely disconnected from Venezuela.

Why don't the gas stations just sell regular gas and not this special sauce that's inflating the price?

I would guess laws and regulations.

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