I have looked at the economy in Venezuela for years. I say in 2014 that the government addiction to Oil would be the demise of the Venezuelan government. Venezuela needs a substantial amount of Oil revenue income. Required to have an oil price above $110 a barrel Currently the oil price is about $66 a barrel. It will not save the government that has crossed the point of no return with the official exchange rate to the US Dollar being 1:10 and the black market rate calculated through Bitcoin is 1:228,265.
This is very different from the 1:10 ratio versus the Venezuelan government has told it's populace. Many of the productive Venezuelans have fled the country. Leaving the state with less taxable income. The printing of Bolivares started after the drop in the government's primary source of income oil.
They had borrowed over $42B in USD denominated bonds, and as they started to print Bolivares to afford their expenses, the Bolivares Fuerte started to drop its value rapidly.
Obama issued an executive order as banks like Citibank have borrowed the Venezuelan government a lot of money that will never be paid back.
Venezuela has been struck with severe shortage issues in the economy due to the Government running imports and exports of goods. The population have lost over 20 pounds of weight. Drinking from gutters, eating zoo animals, firebombing sugar trucks and stoning animals to survive.
Venezuela has gone from being a great country to a national wide slum created by government regulation. If you don't believe me, see the video from some good friends @JeffBerwick, and Luke from We Are Change. They went to one of the murder capitals of the world Caracas, risked their lives to cover what was the start of the hyperinflation I predicted back in 2014.
With 8 of the top 20 cities in the world for murders per capita. Venezuela where the government policies made the country unsafe with the gun free zones and many other policies. We see this in St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore and New Orleans. The bigger the government is, the more poor people become as the Government steals money from the populace.
When you hit great hyperinflation, there is nowhere back for the economy. Venezuela should just declare bankruptcy and get it over with. The major problems I mentioned above is the American banks that have borrowed a substantial amount of money to the Venezuelan Government. When the government become too big vs. the private sector, it always collapses, and this was the case in Venezuela. If you took away the Oil revenues, the government was one of the biggest ones in the world, except some communist countries like North Korea and Cuba.
I wrote in my book The End of Freedom: How Our Monetary System Enslaves Us that the Venezuelan Bolivar would either seize exists, be devalued or there would be civil war. The devaluation and hyperinflation are where we are right now. The government is bankrupt. Even though mainstream media and bankers say that they are not, but the proof is in the massive hyperinflation that has now taken a foothold with a point of no return.
https://www.amazon.com/End-Freedom-Monetary-prepperss-surviving-ebook/dp/B016SECTSW
The crisis of Venezuela will not stop until people remove the government, create Voluntaryist states where people can live in separate societies without aggressing against each other. Communists, Anarcho-Capitalists, Rewilders, Resource-Based Economies can live in peace and harmony. When you have a simple law, a NON-Aggression Principle so no one needs to attack each other. The straightforward rule of life. It is a lot more to it than that, but I will be writing about this in a post.
Nation states are recently struggling with overextension of debt and their size. They are a dying paradigm that is on the verge to be written about in the history books as a failed project among the many kingdoms in the past and current that are getting close to their endgame.
Maduro has destroyed millions of, and he is acting like a dictator having thugs threaten and kill any opposition to his regime. The US has recently said that a potential invasion might be on the books.
If this happens, it is just the regular US Empire agenda of replacing assets that have become liabilities with new assets until they become a liability again. This puppetry from the US government is just the game to expand their state further to uphold the rebellion against their falling US dollar.
We can only hope that Venezuela will fall without the US and other intervention. Like we slowly see with the North Korean dictatorship.
Please check the videos Josh and I have made the last years as well:
Peace, Love and Voluntaryism,
John