system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5, what's going on in Venezuela, and what are the causes?
gpt
You know that old saying: no society is more than 9 meals away from a revolution? Well that’s where Venezuela is at today. How they got there is another story. Granted, oil prices are very low and oil is Venezuela’s economy is largely dependent on oil revenues but 20 years of underinvestment in their oil industry, basic infrastructure, rampant corruption and the Venezuelan governments relationship with the Chinese has left the nation impoverished. Exacerbating all of this is the incredible brain drain that’s been taking place for the past 15 years. A petition for Hugo Chavez’s recall back in 2003 led to a blacklist for anyone who signed it, barring them from any public sector employment. Tens of thousands of high skilled workers, most critically in the nation’s oil and gas industry, packed their bags and left Venezuela. Instead of taking all that oil revenue and reinvesting it in the Venezuelan O&G sector or using it to diversify their economy it was siphoned off by corrupt Chavez allies, spent on PR stunts or doled out as welfare to the slums to keep Chavez in office. And when the oil money began to dry up due to both lowering prices and a decline in output from Venezuelan producers (caused by the lack of investment in those assets) they just began printing money. To make matters even worse, in an attempt to tackle inflation and shortages of basic necessity the Venezuelan government has been seizing private businesses and producers that don’t toe the line on price controls. The reality of this policy is the business is handed over to a Chavez/Maduro ally who then runs it into the ground through a combination of incompetence and corruption. 
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So now you have a population that has to deal with 1,500% inflation, the worst violent crime rate on the world, lack of basic necessities, food shortages, crippling international debt, and no employment prospects. It’s a wonder it took them this long to rise up.