The US should take heed and remember it. The corruption runs deep in our country and our system has begun a spiral towards a similar destruction. Allowing our country to fall into unAmerican and unconstitutional patterns is leading our own country down the wrong path. We need to wake up and stop the snowball we are creating here.
Disasters do not treat every country equally because governments matter. Engineering matters. Honest contracting matters. Building codes matter. Hospitals, ambulances, ports, roads, fuel, communications, and trained rescue teams matter. Chile and Japan learned from earthquakes and built discipline into their systems. Venezuela had oil wealth and squandered it on patronage, ideology, corruption, and control. The heroes now are not the politicians holding press conferences. They are neighbors, church volunteers, doctors, rescuers, and foreign teams pulling life from concrete. The lesson is brutal: natural resources cannot save a nation whose institutions have rotted. Socialism did not cause the quake. It magnified the ruin.
RL, your ability to cut through to the center of the problem is extraordinary! Government’s failure to sustain citizens’ safety comes back to haunt them in many different ways not only in economics but in trust. A lack of trust in government makes government much less efficient, but also less effective.
In 2012 under Chavez Venezuela had its largest GDP ever but then oil prices colapsed and so did their economy. Sanctions ensured it could not recover.
150 million dollars of US assistance is only a fraction of the oil that Venezuela has sold since Maduro's kidnapping. Where are the billions when they are needed?
America’s sudden “concern” over Venezuela looks less like compassion and more like opportunism. A superpower that spent decades undermining governments across Latin America now pretends to be a benevolent guardian the moment a disaster hits. The pattern feels obvious: step in during chaos, offer help with one hand, tighten influence with the other. It’s the old playbook — crisis as a doorway to control.
The US should take heed and remember it. The corruption runs deep in our country and our system has begun a spiral towards a similar destruction. Allowing our country to fall into unAmerican and unconstitutional patterns is leading our own country down the wrong path. We need to wake up and stop the snowball we are creating here.
Disasters do not treat every country equally because governments matter. Engineering matters. Honest contracting matters. Building codes matter. Hospitals, ambulances, ports, roads, fuel, communications, and trained rescue teams matter. Chile and Japan learned from earthquakes and built discipline into their systems. Venezuela had oil wealth and squandered it on patronage, ideology, corruption, and control. The heroes now are not the politicians holding press conferences. They are neighbors, church volunteers, doctors, rescuers, and foreign teams pulling life from concrete. The lesson is brutal: natural resources cannot save a nation whose institutions have rotted. Socialism did not cause the quake. It magnified the ruin.
RL, your ability to cut through to the center of the problem is extraordinary! Government’s failure to sustain citizens’ safety comes back to haunt them in many different ways not only in economics but in trust. A lack of trust in government makes government much less efficient, but also less effective.
Israel, a country of 10 milliion people, also immediately mobilized to send aid.
Just what you would expect in California or South American Banana Republic. And remember Franklin Graham and Samaritans Purse are there.
In 2012 under Chavez Venezuela had its largest GDP ever but then oil prices colapsed and so did their economy. Sanctions ensured it could not recover.
150 million dollars of US assistance is only a fraction of the oil that Venezuela has sold since Maduro's kidnapping. Where are the billions when they are needed?
Cajun navy is also assisting Thank You for exposure of what happens when the gov't turn$$$ a blind eye and gets totally away with IT!!
America’s sudden “concern” over Venezuela looks less like compassion and more like opportunism. A superpower that spent decades undermining governments across Latin America now pretends to be a benevolent guardian the moment a disaster hits. The pattern feels obvious: step in during chaos, offer help with one hand, tighten influence with the other. It’s the old playbook — crisis as a doorway to control.
Hopefully the Clinton Foundation shows up soon, like they did in Haiti. "We’re here to help…ourselves to your young ‘uns."