Was Venezuela a rich nation?

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BAGOFSWAGS

1979 was the peak of Venezuela wealth due to the high price of oil ($100 a barrel in today's equivalent dollars). Only 15% of the population was poor. Oil dropped and venezuela became poor. Oil bottomed out at $10 a barrel in 1998 and you-know-who became President. Oil surged to $80 a barrely by last year and some of the people credited Chavez with some of the "miracles", although he isn't close to where they were in 1979. The country is being gambled on high oil prices and wild spending. It will probably hit a crisis soon even if ol doesn't drop. The rest of the economy is in tatters and the laws respecting private property have been destroyed. Rish people and a former small but respecatbly sized middle class are becoming poorer. Most of the poor have imporved a bit, but won't be able to maintain what they have if oil drops. At $50 a barrel - Big Problems. At $40 - Disaster. Chavez is lucky so far, maybe oil will stay high and over $60, maybe it won't. It's not the way to run a country, though.

jljimenezs30

lived there for years, it has never been rich, only the goverment and a few amount of people have been always rich, there is a lot of corruption and what is worse a very poor common sense about prosperety and willingness, the nation has seen better days in the past.

nadisha

Venezuela was never a rich country. By "rich" one implies the country as a whole, not a bunch of lunatics that hold all revenue of their oil.

Ever been to Caracas? - a lovely city by all means, but with 16 other lovely cities surrounding it as shanty-towns on the sides of the hills which overlook the capital.

There is a saying there, "If ever those shanty-people decided to walk down on Caracas all at the same time, no army could stop them."

Oil is their main income - corruption, the other.

Jose

Venezuela was a rich nation a long time ago, many people went to venezuela to invest, and all the money produced by oil made venezuela a rich country. However, after the years corruption became popular and venezuela's weakened.

Adriana

We have always been a rich nation in the matter of resources. We have oil, land, agriculture, tourism. The goverment has only sold for many years the oil because that's what gives the nation a bigger income.

But, 8 years from now Venezuela started to be less rich because Chavez has been giving away our oil, and he isn't selling our other resources, and our income is less, and he's taking away most of it for personal stuff.

homeless

Simon Bolivar said (Governing South America was equal to that of Plowing the sea) Yes Venezuela is rich in oil but there is no trickle down effect

syrdell

Venezuela has the means to make all its citizens very well off and rich. It produces vast amounts of oil and other minerals. Somehow its wealth gets stuck somewhere at the top and never benefits the people. It has suffered from such phenomenon for many decades. Now the decease is worse than ever, there is now more revenue from its products than in many years, but, the people are poorer because only Chavez and his posy get to keep the wealth and manipulate Venezuela as their kingdom.

lisander

It is a rich country, it hasa lot of oil and the prices of it are as high as it has never been, but the population is in poverty at its most. They do not produce much of anything else, they do extract iron. Most of all there are services for the population, the agriculture is poor.

*amanda*

Yes it was and still is... (mainly from huge reserves of oil, turism, coffee, sugar, cacao, etc, etc) only that the administrators of that richness have been really bad in their work... they havenÂ´'t just know how to distribute the money. Besides of stealing it.

bob shark

Yes, It has lots of oil.

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