Monday, July 24, 2006
Caracas Chronicles on Venezuela's economic development or lack thereof
I assume most readers are familiar with the Caracas Chronicles blog, written by the ardent Chavez opponent, Francisco Toro. There aren't many things that he and I would agree on regarding Venezuela but there actually is one very important point were we probably could find common ground. And that is that for Venezuela to progress and offer its citizens substantially improved lives it needs to move beyond oil and have rapid and sustained economic growth in other industries.
Of course, figuring out how to achieve that is anything but easy and is quite controversial in and of itself. But one important step would be to examine Venezuela's economic history up to this point to try and figure out what has NOT worked. Caracas Chronicles is doing that through posts of recorded interviews with various economists who have differing ideas on what has gone wrong with Venezuela's economy over the past 30 or 40 years. They can be found here and here. While they are quite lengthy and are not themselves all inclusive as far as the different theories go they are more than worthwhile and I would recommend that people make time to listen to them.
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Of course, figuring out how to achieve that is anything but easy and is quite controversial in and of itself. But one important step would be to examine Venezuela's economic history up to this point to try and figure out what has NOT worked. Caracas Chronicles is doing that through posts of recorded interviews with various economists who have differing ideas on what has gone wrong with Venezuela's economy over the past 30 or 40 years. They can be found here and here. While they are quite lengthy and are not themselves all inclusive as far as the different theories go they are more than worthwhile and I would recommend that people make time to listen to them.
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