Несколько цитат, хотя вся статья недлинная и стоит прочесть:
On July 23, Alejandro Werner, the Director of the International Monetary Fun
d’s Western Hemisphere Department, announced that the Fund was expecting inflation in Venezuela to reach 1,000,000% by year’s end. In April, the IMF announced that Venezuela’s GDP was expected to be 45% below its 2013 level by the same time. These are mindboggling numbers. How and why could such a thing happen?
[...]
How is it, then, that Venezuela can have a GDP contraction that dwarfs that of the Great Depression, the Spanish Civil War (when GDP fell by 29%), or even the recent Greek crisis (when the economy shrank by 26.9%)? And how could this happen while simultaneously generating hyperinflation of a magnitude seen only in Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in 2008-2009?
The answer is surprisingly straightforward and well understood. The government used the oil boom that started in 2004 to disempower society and enhance state control over production and the market, while borrowing massively in international markets.[...] By 2013, the government’s excessive borrowing had caused it to lose access to international capital markets, triggering the start of the recession. In 2014, the price of oil fell sharply, making the previous import level unsustainable and triggering a much deeper collapse. It was clear at the time that the government needed to change its ways. Even members of President Nicolás Maduro’s administration pushed for a return to more market-friendly policies and for international financial support. Instead, Maduro’s government doubled down, deepening distortionary controls on the economy.
[...] Why, with clearly formulated alternatives on the table, did the government choose a predictably disastrous course of action, at such high human cost?
There are three possibilities: ignorance, intention, and strategic interaction [...]
Given the choice between re-empowering and starving its citizens, the regime chose the latter and bought off as many henchmen, through venal means, as it would need. Yes, the catastrophe would weaken the regime; but society would weaken even faster, assuring the regime continued control.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines “evil” as “doing or intending to do harm.” Ultimately, there is no other plausible explanation for what has happened in Venezuela.