No brownies for you!

[dismal]

The OP highlights the miseries of socialism. It is a reminder that should be made often. Despite its murderous history, there are some, especially the young, who are drawn to socialism and wish to transform society accordingly. They should be educated on why their utopias are nightmares.

While I agree that socialism is a poor economic model, Venezuela's current problems started with low prices for oil and basically end with low prices for oil. I have to remind all of these Venezuela's socialism sucks threads this, along with the fact that the previous government, a Milton Friedman approved, neoliberal, oligarchical run government and economy did much worse when the price of oil dropped much less relatively, and is the reason why the country voted in a socialistic government. Venezuela stands as solid proof that extremes like socialism on the left and the neoliberal fantasy of the self-regulating free market on the right are to be avoided at all costs.

Q) Why does low oil price cause shortages of bread?

A) it doesn't

You get bread by growing wheat, milling flour, baking bread. Given there appears to be demand for bread, we are only left to wonder why there is no supply.

Except we know, don't we? Government has inserted itself into the market for bread and destroyed it.

 

[SimpleDon]

While I agree that socialism is a poor economic model, Venezuela's current problems started with low prices for oil and basically end with low prices for oil. I have to remind all of these Venezuela's socialism sucks threads this, along with the fact that the previous government, a Milton Friedman approved, neoliberal, oligarchical run government and economy did much worse when the price of oil dropped much less relatively, and is the reason why the country voted in a socialistic government. Venezuela stands as solid proof that extremes like socialism on the left and the neoliberal fantasy of the self-regulating free market on the right are to be avoided at all costs.

Q) Why does low oil price cause shortages of bread?

A) it doesn't

You get bread by growing wheat, milling flour, baking bread. Given there appears to be demand for bread, we are only left to wonder why there is no supply.

Except we know, don't we? Government has inserted itself into the market for bread and destroyed it.

Yes, you are right. The government was using the profits from the oil to subsidize the prices of commodities like bread and to import food. No profits from the oil and the government devalues the currency so much that foreign trade that provided much of their food costs much more. Everyone in the country suffers except for the members of the government. Socialism is a shit system of economics.

In the Milton Friedman approved oligarchical system when the price of oil tanked workers were laid off and they and their families suffer. They will take any job at any wage so wages plunge. Now no one has any money, except for the oligarchs. The oligarchical system is a shit economic system.

The point is that if you have a country that is dependent on sales of a single commodity and the price of that commodity tanks, it doesn't much matter what kind of economic system you have, the country is going to suffer.

The only solution is for the government to take the profits from the oil when the price of oil is high and invest them into education and diversifying the economy so that it is not so dependent on oil, instead of using the money to subsidize food or to have it disappear from the economy into the oligarch's bank accounts. To run the economy more like Israel and less like oligarchical Russia today and less like the socialistic Soviet Union of 1960.

This requires a mixed mode economy and more public investment. More like what Ecuador has done, with some success. However, Ecuador has not only had to deal with the lower oil prices recently, they suffered from a devastating earthquake last year. They also use the US dollar for their currency, so they suffered from the recent increases in the value of the dollar. The lack of their own currency makes them like Greece, they can't use the whole range of macroeconomic measures that a country with its own currency can employ. The recent problems make a change in the government probable, with the likelihood of an oligarchical government coming in, which would undo much of the good work that the current government has done.

Here is the World Bank article on Ecuador.

 

[DrZoidberg]

What point are you trying to make?

The OP highlights the miseries of socialism. It is a reminder that should be made often. Despite its murderous history, there are some, especially the young, who are drawn to socialism and wish to transform society accordingly. They should be educated on why their utopias are nightmares.

Hmm.... Could the young be drawn to socialism because of the miseries of capitalism? If you want to win socialists over I suggest focusing on fixing capitalism. If you do that no education on socialist history is necessary.

 

[dismal]

Q) Why does low oil price cause shortages of bread?

A) it doesn't

You get bread by growing wheat, milling flour, baking bread. Given there appears to be demand for bread, we are only left to wonder why there is no supply.

Except we know, don't we? Government has inserted itself into the market for bread and destroyed it.

Yes, you are right. The government was using the profits from the oil to subsidize the prices of commodities like bread and to import food.

Um, OK, this does not change my point. There is demand for bread. There would be supply for bread if the government just got ta fuck out of the way.

Ergo, the lack of bread has nothing whatever to do with oil price and everything to do with the government being in the way.

Full stop.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, you are right. The government was using the profits from the oil to subsidize the prices of commodities like bread and to import food. No profits from the oil and the government devalues the currency so much that foreign trade that provided much of their food costs much more. Everyone in the country suffers except for the members of the government. Socialism is a shit system of economics.

In the Milton Friedman approved oligarchical system when the price of oil tanked workers were laid off and they and their families suffer. They will take any job at any wage so wages plunge. Now no one has any money, except for the oligarchs. The oligarchical system is a shit economic system.

The point is that if you have a country that is dependent on sales of a single commodity and the price of that commodity tanks, it doesn't much matter what kind of economic system you have, the country is going to suffer.

Once again, you have a long, intelligent reply that misses the point entirely.

The economy would be hurt by falling oil prices. The production of bread should have been pretty much immune to that, though, as it is produced from local resources. The people might have a hard time affording bread due to unemployment but there still should have been bread.

The bread shortage is entirely because the government mandated it be sold at less than it cost to produce.