Yes, Venezuela could collapse if oil keeps dropping

American Thinker ^ | 12/17/2014 | Silvio Canto Jr.

[PapaBear3625]

True. Venezuela should be one of the richest countries in the Americas. But -- as with all government-run enterprises -- the money that should have gone to exploration and basic maintenance of its equipment was instead siphoned off to bloat the government and buy votes.

If Venezuela was run efficiently, the Venezuelan middle class would be prosperous. The Communists do not want the middle-class to be prosperous. They want the middle class to be poor, with the underclass being paid to keep them down.

The Communists don't care if the country is poor, as long as the people who keep them in power are content.

[PapaBear3625]

The extremely inefficient public sector paid for by high oil prices.... the domestic subsidies,

Public employment provides income to people who would not have a job in the private sector. Subsidies allow the underclass to have a tolerable standard of living.

Once the unproductive are no longer subsidized, they will erupt in violence and civil war.

[St_Thomas_Aquinas]

-— Who will pay Joe Kennedy’s $400K salary -—

Mae that 700,000 His wife taes home another $100,000 Together, they earn almost $1 million annually from this “harity” (Sorry, having eyboard problems)

[BfloGuy]

They want the middle class to be poor, with the underclass being paid to keep them down.

Yes. the Marxists have always understood that both the rich and the poor could be co-opted, and that it was the dreaded middle class, the strivers (the bourgeoisie) that must be destroyed.

Obama understands that, too.