Comments by "Harry Mills" (@harrymills2770) on "Bernie Repeats CIA Talking Points On Venezuela" video.

  1. Chavez decided to take over the oil industry in Venezuela and redistribute the proceeds without thought to keeping the oil money flowing. Venezuela's got the thick crude, but it takes new tech to extract it and a lot of refining capacity. Chavez took the money from previous production and put nothing into investing in future production, because like all socialists, he just thinks money creates itself. Because of the difficulty of extracting and refining, Venezuela's oil isn't profitable below $100/barrel, and $90/barrel is the cut-off for all the competition, including the frackers. So Venezuela wants all oil producers to curtail production, so Venezuela can make money off their oil. This is the problem with Progressive/socalist domestic economics. All these wonderful things to spend money on, but no real understanding of where the money comes from or what NATURALLY sustaining processes look like (Free Markets!). Maduro continued the stupidity. Mismanaged the economy, rather than fostering free enterprise, making Venezuela a 1-crop economy, like much of the Middle East. This always happens under socialism. There are exceptions, when you have a homogeneous population, like much of Europe, where citizens have a sense of duty and don't just see a free meal. I'm not defending what we did in Iraq or Libya. Or what we were starting to do in Syria. And I'd be pissed if we sent troops to Venezuela. But I do think Maduro's a failed socialist dictator. He went from elected president to dictator in this last, Soviet-style, election, where fraud and voter intimidation were very widespread. I don't believe in overthrowing socialist governments. I think we should advocate against socialism, and let them tear themselves apart. I think promising people everything will be taken care of by government just sets you up for shortages and poor quality of goods. You take the enlightened self-interest out of the equation, and weaponize greed for destructive, rather than constructive purposes. You want people's greed to be channeled into making more money because you offer higher quality at a lower price. You get return customers by treating people right. Government control of the economy undercuts that.
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