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Comment by wolfgang000 | Hacker News Reader

I'm Venezuelan and today argentina's inflations look like the venezuela's one in 2014~2016 and as you may already know that only got worse and worse, hopefully, that is not going to happen this time but looking at this trend I believe the best course of action would be to be prepared to leave the country before all collapse

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It's interesting that Argentina is in the same decline Venezuela was in (and still is), just with some years of latency. Both countries are in the same economic region, one would think someone would learn from having a hyperinflation near them.

A lot of Venezuelans immigrated to Argentina years ago, and are now leaving Argentina and immigrating to other countries. Some are even going back to Venezuela now that everything there is in dollars and the situation seems to be stabilizing. A somewhat popular opinion is that the country is very corrupt but you can live with it if you earn in dollars.

Well what is there to be done about it really? You stop printing money and servicing debt and you wind up in default, now unable to import goods, which you rely heavily on because you wouldn't be in this situation in the first place is your domestic production was strong. So you get... prices going sky high on imported goods. Either way you dice it, they're fucked. It's an entire country stuck in a debt trap. The only outcome is economic collapse, and all the government can really do is fudge the numbers to slow it down.

It's my understanding Argentina actually isn't heavily dependent on imports. Not only are taxes high on imports, they have a net trade surplus. Argentina also is extremely lucky like US they have extremely diverse environment including excellent farm ground, natural resource, and coastal access. Defaulting on debt might be a good option.

The goods neccesary to raise cattle and grow soy, both some of the most important exports Argentina has, need to have the basics imported such as tools and seeds.

Another problem is that exporting meat have been limited by law to try and control local prices [0], it has instead made Uruguay and Brazil start exporting what Argentina did previously and can't anymore because of state control.

[0] https://batimes.com.ar/news/economy/argentina-extends-export...

> A somewhat popular opinion is that the country is very corrupt but you can live with it if you earn in dollars.

That was the exact same mentality that a lot of people in venezuela(me included) used to have at the beginning of the crisis "The inflation doesn't affect me, I earn in dollars" was a very common attitude for people with remote jobs, but then even the price in dollars started to increase due to the corruption on every level of the supply chain, companies leaving or closing, terrible mismanagement of public services like electricity, water and transportation, and many other terrible decisions. We were too naive...

Whilst similar, you need to take into account that there is a diversity in argentine economic activity that never existed in venezuela. If there is some redeeming quality that can be gleaned from argentine history is that it rebounds rather quickly.

And it's the same kind of ideology that ruins both countries in spite of both being extremely rich in natural resources.

My impression is that the various offshoots of Marxism, e.g. Chavismo in Venezuela or wokism in the US, is a means for a coalition of mostly upper middle class people to replace the current ruling coalition with something that is effectively feudalism with themselves on top. These people seem to feel like they have the right to occupy the most powerful roles, either due to the excellence of their ancestors or envy of those that are perceived as their superiors, but doesn't because they are mostly mediocre and often have wealth as well as position through inheritance. That's why prosperity typically fall after their takeover, as these are primarily motivated position and not by an obsession about what the job entails.

Has this been your experience with the Venezuelan ruling class?

If you read history, you quickly realize that this is what socialism always was, even back in the mid 1800's: A counter revolution against the capitalist emancipation of the world.

Traveling Europe it's easy to see how much more convenience and position inherited wealth used to grant. It's very human to feel entitled through birthright, and to change the rules to benefit your in-group over the majority of people.

In the case of Venezuela that's not correct.

Chavismo was definitely not a coalition of mostly upper middle class people. Quite the opposite + very very strong ties to the army.

The poor Chavista street thugs are no more in power in Venezuela than the antifa street thugs are in the US, if so they would be fat and wealthy like Maduro. You have to distinguish the tool from the master wielding it.

The way Chavez revolutionized the Venezuelan republic into a marxist feudalistic state pretending to be a republic was by building upon a subverted legislature, executive and presidential role. These are all except the presidential role privileged roles that require some measure of education as well as position. Especially the roles that require lawfare is difficult to subvert without first subverting lawschools to produce large numbers of revolutionary lawyers, and this is exactly what has happened in the US.

Chavez as well as the current woke US administration is a sign that subversion has already taken deep hold, so neither was the start of the subversion but enabled by decades of a slow walk through the 5 institutional pillars of western society that the Marxists identified; church, government, enterprise, law, and education that tie it all together (Gramchi came up with the slow march, countering Marx that thought the peasants would rebel on their own).

Fun fact: the electronic voting system Dominion used in the US was first developed to help Chavez cheat in elections, as he was too unpopular to win otherwise

I don't get the connection you're trying to make between chavismo and what you call "woke" movement in the US.

What happened in Venezuela is not that. Chavez was surrounded by anything but the upper middle class. His closest allies were from the army which are the same that rule the country now (eg. Diosdado Cabello). They didn't subvert any institution or pillar, they just replaced them. They created parallel government, law and education systems by replacing the constitution the supreme court and the parliament with their own more powerful and aligned versions. They also cut funding to universities and created their own via the "misiones" in the 00s. There was indeed a thin layer of ideology from certain old school intellectuals at some point but really nothing you could describe as upper middle class, that was also removed after a few years.

"Fun fact: the electronic voting system Dominion used in the US was first developed to help Chavez cheat in elections, as he was too unpopular to win otherwise"

That's just not true. There was never any proof of fraud or cheating in any of those elections, specially via those machines. As painful as it is, Chavez was immensely popular while alive and won all of his presidential elections.

Paulo Freire Marxist liberation theology heavily subverted both churches and schools in Venezuela before Chavez came to power, this is the root of critical pedagogy that has taken over American schools and liberation theology that has subverted churches.

This is just one out of many examples.

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