Colombia: A Stepping Stone for U.S. Operations against Venezuela

[Socialistlemur]

3. The author sure has imagination.

Most of the article is a rehash....and it's really weak. For example, the border areas between Venezuela and Colombia are known to be lawless. And the mixture of outlaws running in the hills are drug and kidnap victim smugglers, FARC, ELN, and old AUC guerrillas devoted to whatever crime is handy. There's some smuggling of gasoline because the Venezuelan government makes PDVSA sell it for a really low price. And there's food smuggling because Venezuela uses price controls and the currency price has collapsed in the black market. the smuggling is aided by corrupt government officials.

There are two issues which are really killing the economy: the controlled exchange rate and corruption. There seems to be a move to fight the corruption which flourished under Chavez. This Maduro seems to be doing because its so bad he either gets rid of it or Venezuela is toast. He's not doing much about the distorted exchange rate now, but I think that shoe has to drop. They'll have to open a secondary market within two months or they are in really deep trouble.

An interesting point: as they move to fix the mess left behind by Chavez they continue with the praise and the baloney. They are not taking credit for cleaning things up which is a really dumb political move. Why not say what's so evident the system was a mess and they intend to fix it?