How The GOP Chose To Be A White christian Party

[StoneByStone]

Yes, it was. It wasn't American sanctions that kept the country from having toilet paper or enough flour for bread, it was imposed price controls that set the sales point below the cost of manufacture and import. Nobody is going to be able to afford to sell products at a loss for long.
It wasn't American sanctions that are causing regular blackouts in Venezuela. It's a poorly managed, unstable grid made worse because all the best technicians and engineers have fled the country because they could get paid what they're worth elsewhere while wage controls meant they got undervalued in Venezuela.
Nationalizing the oil industry only ensured its collapse. First, corruption by incompetent bureaucrats within the industry that were appointed by the government made sure things were badly mismanaged. Then, the oil companies that lost their facilities and property there refused to sell Venezuela any parts to keep their refineries and wells operating. Can't blame them for doing that. Would you willingly sell stuff to someone who just took your business away because they could and didn't bother to indemnify you for the loss?

I guess it's just a coincidence that all those problems didn't start until after the sanctions. And it's was a coincidence every time it happened in Latin America.

Related to this I suppose you are going to try and make the same argument for Zimbabwe where Robert Mugabe turned the nation into a basket case the same way Chavez and Maduro have done to Venezuela.

I'm not saying Socialism works well. I'm just saying Venezuela is not a good example of Socialism failing.

So, the most successful nations in Europe are the ones with the least Socialism. The worst are ones that still cling to heavy-handed Socialism like Greece, Italy, or Spain.

You're confusing party names with policy. Yeah, the Northern European countries don't have mainstream parties with the word "Socialism" in the name. But their policies are that of a mixed economy with both Capitalist and Socialist elements. And they have more welfare policies than Southern Europe.

The idea that Europe today is Socialist is nonsense. It has a social-welfare state but has pretty much otherwise abandoned Socialism as unworkable.

No country in the world has Socialism. "Socialism" has essentially just become a buzzword to scare Conservatives. However, the German Sprachraum and Nordic countries have more welfare policies than anywhere else. They have mixed economies with more socialist elements than America or even Italy or Greece.

[T. A. Gardner]

I guess it's just a coincidence that all those problems didn't start until after the sanctions. And it's was a coincidence every time it happened in Latin America.

This is all wrong. The meltdown of the Venezuelan economy started in 2010. Obama was in office and there were no sanctions in place. The first blow came with the massive drop in world oil prices. Venezuela at the time was very dependent on oil money to prop their economy up. The combination of having nationalized their oil industry with a resulting drop in production along with falling prices meant Venezuela was suddenly in a cash poor situation.
That led to an increasing move to nationalize companies as many would not accept government wage and price controls that meant they were selling their products at a loss. Chavez at that time took over:

The steel industry. That resulted in a major drop in production for the same reasons as oil. No ability to maintain or modernize plants.
In 2009 Chavez took over the agricultural sector. Just as happened everywhere from the Soviet Union to China to Zimbabwe, production took a nose dive and Venezuela became a net importer of food
Chavez nationalized the banks in June 2010 and arrested many of the top bankers. Since then Venezuela has seen hyper-inflation making the Bolivar worthless. Same thing happened in Zimbabwe.
In 2007 Chavez nationalized the telecom industry along with television and radio. Since then, the payroll has been bloated with more corruption through hiring useless bureaucrats and the industry has fallen apart as it can't maintain the equipment
Same thing has happened to the electrical grid and production. Now Venezuela can't keep the lights on.
Tourism and travel have dried up both due to the unrest as well as the general decline in safety and desirability of Venezuela as a tourist destination.

A great example of mismanagement by government control of the economy is bread. In Venezuela, flour is imported by the government either as flour or as wheat and then ground into flour locally. The government decided in 2017 that bakers would by fiat law have to make at least 80% of their product as bread and the price would be controlled by the government. Bakers quickly discovered that following the government's rules meant they lost money making product. They wanted to make more high priced items like Croissants and pastries because these weren't price controlled.
The government responded by a combination of cutting off all flour supplies to bakers who wouldn't comply, then arresting some. Flour imports have dried up as the money to buy wheat or flour isn't available to the government anymore due to hyperinflation. The government also hired a small army of "inspectors" to check bakeries throughout the country that they are complying with the government rules. That just adds cost for no improvement in product.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-39278391

So, you can try to claim it wasn't Socialism that caused all these problems but every one of them started AFTER Chavez began nationalizing business and industry. Maduro has continued to follow the same line and the problems have gotten worse.

I'm not saying Socialism works well. I'm just saying Venezuela is not a good example of Socialism failing.

I'm saying it doesn't work at all and Venezuela is just the latest example of that.

You're confusing party names with policy. Yeah, the Northern European countries don't have mainstream parties with the word "Socialism" in the name. But their policies are that of a mixed economy with both Capitalist and Socialist elements. And they have more welfare policies than Southern Europe.

What I stated had ZERO to do with political party names and EVERYTHING to do with national policies and economics that we can look at from history.

No country in the world has Socialism. "Socialism" has essentially just become a buzzword to scare Conservatives. However, the German Sprachraum and Nordic countries have more welfare policies than anywhere else. They have mixed economies with more socialist elements than America or even Italy or Greece.

Yes, many countries have Socialism. There are various varieties of it, and not every type has all aspects of it.

[StoneByStone]

This is all wrong. The meltdown of the Venezuelan economy started in 2010. Obama was in office and there were no sanctions in place. The first blow came with the massive drop in world oil prices. Venezuela at the time was very dependent on oil money to prop their economy up. The combination of having nationalized their oil industry with a resulting drop in production along with falling prices meant Venezuela was suddenly in a cash poor situation.
That led to an increasing move to nationalize companies as many would not accept government wage and price controls that meant they were selling their products at a loss.

The sanctions actually began in 2008. Granted, they got progressively worse, especially under Trump, but they definitely started before the economic crisis. And they really picked up in 2014 when Obama signed the "Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014." This is especially telling because the crash of the Venezuelan economy is largely believed to have happened on October 20, 2016.

And yes, there was mismanagement by the Venezuelan government too. It's one of the reasons I don't like nationalization of all businesses.

What I stated had ZERO to do with political party names and EVERYTHING to do with national policies and economics that we can look at from history.

You pointed out that Greece, Italy, and Spain have parties with words like "Democratic Socialism." If we're going by policies, then the policies of the German Sprachraum and Nordic countries have more welfare policies.

Yes, many countries have Socialism. There are various varieties of it, and not every type has all aspects of it.

How exactly are we defining "Socialism" here? Is it real Marxist Socialism, where there's collective ownership of the means of production? Or is it Fox News Socialism, where anything that helps the working-class is Socialism?