The average tax rate in Venezuela is 25%. The average tax rate in the US is 26%. Sorry, Trump, this is yet another lie by Trump, but what else is new on this?
I do not know the details of Venezuelan of immigration policies, but at this point in time the issue in Venezuela is not immigrants freely arriving and causing economic problems, but just the opposite: people leaving in massive numbers leading to crises in all the neighboring countries of Venezuela.
So, bottom line: Trump not for the first time is totally full of it on all of this.
But now it is time to deal with the political-economic problem of Venezuela, a matter that may lead to some regular readers of this blog to differ with me.
Indeed, Venezuela has turned into a political-economic disaster: extreme hyperinflation with a plunging real output, with massive outmigration, so massive that the receiving nations (Columbia, Brazil, Guayana, Ecuador), have had serious public complaints.
So GOP standard stories have now focused on Venezuela as the supposed world model of “socialism.” Oh gag on many issues. I have from the moment Hugo Chavez came to power I never supported him, a military guy who had attempted a failed coup. I shall not name prominent economists who now are fumbling with the current awful situation.
As it is, indeed for most of the time Chavez ruled the Venezuelan economy performed not too badly, and indeed had had reductions in inequality, long demanded for politically. Even now, a substantial portion of the Venezuelan population is better off than in the past due to the Chavist policies, even as the general state of the economy is horrendously collapsing under his successor Maduro, who has suppressed normal democratic processes. And while the economy maintained a not-too-bad performance while Chavez was in power, it has totally collapsed under Maduro, his successor.
Of course the critics have argued that the policies that led to this hyperinflationary collapse were due to Chavez and not his pathetic loser successor, Maduro. This is a more complicated matter, and gets to the systemic question: has Venezuelan policy been a world avatar of “socialism”?
Chavez avoided such claims, even as he cut a deal with Cuba for them to provide doctors for oil, a deal still in place last I heard. Regarding how “socialist” he was, a lot less than many would say, and that was not how he described himself or his policies He claimed a nationalist position derived from the great liberator of South America from Spanish rule, Simon Bolivar, who indeed did come from Venezuela. So the original Chavismo was proclaimed by him to be “Bolivarianismo,” a term that has now basically disappeared, for better or worse.
So how “socialist” has Venezuela been, with its failed Bolivarianismo? Much less than either it s fervent supporters or its far more numerous critics have claimed. In terms of the most hard core definition of socialism, state ownership of the means of production, the most important part of the economy, the oil sector, was nationalized decades ago, back when Venezuela and Saudi Arabia cooked up OPEC in 1960. There have been nationalizations since Chavez took power, but most of the Venezuelan economy not in the oil sector actually remains privately owned, not soicialist.
Which brings us to how Chavez and Maduro really messed up the economy. Yes, they imposed some dumb price controls here and there, and since have been totally swamped by the hyperinflation. Yes, there were nationalization of some firms, even as most of the economy remains privately owned and pays lower taxes than in the US. But the real problem was/is corrupt political cronyism, with the crucial oil sector the central problem for the economy. And the bottom line on that emanates from when Chavez took power and fired the competent managers of the state-owned oil company and installed incompetent cronies who proceeded to destroy the Venezuelan oil industry. I saw this from Day One and never supported Chavez or Maduro.
What we dealing with here is not socialism, but “corrupt incompetence.” Venezuela is not a socialist economy more than it was before Chavez came to power. It is just a corrupt loser oil exporter that has lost it.
Barkley Rosser
The Dumpster® always needs an enemy.
Venezuela just happens to be convenient this week.
He and his low-IQ supporters could not find Venezuela on a globe if you spotted them Guyana and Colombia.
A good discussion but the 1st sentence needs an edit”
“The average tax rate in Venezuela is 25%.”
Actually it is 34% if we are talking about corporate profits tax rates:
https://home.kpmg.com/xx/en/home/services/tax/tax-tools-and-resources/tax-rates-online/corporate-tax-rates-table.html
pgl:
I saw this also, a flat rate. Is there no average? If you look at the United Sates, it states 27% for 2018. I believe the average is far lower.
Corrupt incompetence is a lot closer than Venezuela.
DB,
The pentagon trough (more constant dollars in 2016 than in 1969 or 1986) has been filled to bursting with an enemy since 1949 when Truman lost China to Mao, an enemy has kept the “blob” selling the pentagon since then with a small exception under Bush I and Clinton.
Bush II, Obama, and Trump have the Taliban and al Qaeda, while Obama funded jihad in Syria. The war on terror replaced Stalin, Mao and Gorbie.
Now the liberal opposition wants Russia, and the Dumpster is going all with Obama’s European preparedness scam.
Venezuela is the “blob” for the deplorables. you say?
Ilsm, your a moron. How is “Mary Anne McLeod” doing………..oh thats right, she never existed. What was Donnie’s mothers real name. I will give you 3 chances to guess right.
I am amazed how dumb the proggies have become. Zionist’s are doing false flag “attacks”(outside the “drones” like Bowers, a jewish/scottish surname fwiw) to rally the drones. How about the black guy that got caught burning jewish temples………….me thinks he wasn’t supposed to be caught…….
This has been going on since 2014 when Adelson and de Rothschild came up with this “plan”. Yet, progressives won’t admit it.
A correction on your Chavez point, the previous owners were incompetent as well, which is why Chavez fired them. There was famine in the mid-late 90’s and the media tries to ignore that. To miss the global economic boom and how good it was for Venzie in the naughts is missing the story. The real problems don’t start to the oil bubble burst and the sanctions that came in when it recovered.
Sanctions are the only reason why they can’t sell more oil now, but the long run may lead to a less dependent nation on oil.
According to the following the VZ corporate and individual tax rate is 34%
https://tradingeconomics.com/venezuela/corporate-tax-rate
Sorry about what happened to your column, BR.
No idea how to make sure it does not happen again.
Ultimately, what matters is what those tax dollars are spent on. If we had higher taxes, and they were used to support universal healthcare, college education for those qualified, infrastructure, etc, and not squandered on military adventurism and corporate welfare, higher taxes would be a boon for US society. Simply focusing on the tax rate plays into the GOP meme that all taxes are bad. They aren’t.
The average tax rate takes into account the corporate tax rate. Why pull that one out from the overall average? Just a sideshow.
Barkley:
I understood it; but, I think they were looking for proof of an average number and cited somewhere.
Look at Wikipedia on list of countries by taxes per GDP ratio.