1. Chavez/Maduro didn't spend any money on infrastructure. Now the oil fields are pumping out very little, and there is no money/nobody to repair them. The electrical grid is a shambles. Bridges are literally crumbling, with wooden boards spanning holes in concrete bridges built only years ago.
2. Offering subsidized foods at less than the cost to manufacture them. Venezuela doesn't have a farming economy, because the seed to plant costs more than the price Chavismo pays farmers for their produce. Chavismo thought that they would just nationalize the farms... until they discovered that these farms couldn't produce no matter who ran them. Farms that do produce, barely produce. Often their fields are raided and animals stolen.
3. Chavez nationalized entire industries (oil, mining, steel, concrete, etc) when these workers struck for fair wages. He replaced these highly skilled, educated union workers with party loyalists who know NOTHING about their industry. The former employees now work in Brasil, Mexico and the United States. Their is an epic brain drain going on in Venezuela.
4. Chavismo nationalizes (for the WORKER!) businesses that cannot/won't produce. GM, Kimberly Clark, Bridgestone, etc. GM hasn't produced a car in years in Venezuela, so Maduro "took the factory and gave it to the workers". What does it produce, now that it is in the hands of the workers? Nothing. The Kimberly Clark factory? Nothing. The Bridgestone tire factory? Nothing. It is all symbolism and no substance with Chavismo.
5. Chavez (and Maduro) have surrounded themselves with Cuban sycophants, who don't care a lick about Venezuelans, but GOD do they love the idea of tormenting Uncle Sam. Diosdado Cabello, Nestor Reverol, Delcy Rodriquez, El Aissimi... If Venezuela could become another Cuba? That thought alone would make them wriggle with joy.
6. Venezuela is infiltrated (especially the bureaucracy) with Cubans who do not report to Maduro. They report to Castro. The military hierarchy is awash with them. (Over 4000 generals when they used to have less than 200 when Chavez was a paratrooper?) The military is in charge of the economy, and it is corrupt to the core. Billions are being siphoned off to Cuba. (and into their own pockets. Chavez' daughter is worth $4.2 billion.)
Chavismo lives in a fantasy world. A vacuum, where actions don't have consequences. When I see Maduro during one of his cadenzas, I am reminded of the quote from Game of Thrones:
"He would see this country burn if he could be king of the ashes"
= new reply since forum marked as read
