As of April 30, there is film and there are reports of insurrection and protests in the streets in Venezuela. Guaido, the man who would be President and who is supported by the US and many other nations, is exhorting Venezuelans to take to the streets to overthrow the incumbent Maduro government. Guaido is also seeking support of the Venezuelan military.

Pessimistic

I expect Guaido’s efforts not to succeed and for him to be arrested. I expect that the socialist/communist Maduro government to survive and retain control. I expect the Venezuelan economy to continue to fail and for its people to continue to be repressed. I am pessimistic because Maduro is backed by many bad actors, including Cuba, Russia, and Iran, who won’t hesitate to use force including ground troops to keep their puppet Maduro in power there. Unless the US is willing to match force with force and for the US government to withstand being put down as an imperialist power bent on war, never mind that the Cubas, Russias, and Irans are also bent on war, then our man Guaido will be the loser along with the Venezuelan people and Maduro will remain.

Refugees

In February 2019, the United Nations estimated that about 3 million Venezuelans, or about 10% of its pre-strife population of 30 million, had fled the country. Many more have left since then, and many more will flee as this unrest and repression continue. Most are fleeing to other South American or Spanish-speaking countries, with neighboring Colombia the destination of the most refugees. The US must and is helping these refugees at their destinations. This is in contrast to Venezuela and the Maduro government itself which has turned away humanitarian aid because the acceptance of such would indicate that their socio-economic experiment has failed.

Lesson

There is no investment or financial planning lesson to be learned here, other than to avoid going to Venezuela and to avoid owning its currency. Venezuela is an OPEC member and has vast oil reserves which are not being produced, which is resulting in somewhat higher world oil prices. Venezuela will not get its oil production back on line any time soon so don’t look for a drop in prices just yet.

The lesson here is with Socialism. Maduro and his predecessor Chavez have implemented Socialism and Socialist economic concepts properly. We are all seeing what happens to an economy and to a people when Socialism is applied. Socialism sounds like a great economic theory to the academics who tout it and to the bleeding heart, guilt-ridden, and revengeful populace who want to tear down those who have been successful above them. Power to the people, right? Now we have some politicians here in the USA who believe Socialism is the right way to go here because they know a better way to make it happen. I implore you all to look at what is happening in Venezuela and understand that something like that can happen here in the US if we accept as a whole that Socialism is the way to go. Socialism has resulted in the deaths of millions upon millions of people over the past 100+ years. Socialism has resulted in miserable economic conditions every time it has been tried. Don’t let it happen here in the land of freedom and free enterprise, the USA!