[SilverElfin]

It’ll be hard to know where it goes, but there’s a reason why people like Putin are billionaires. They siphon off funds from the state to themselves. And no one is in a position to stop them or even look into what’s going on.

Venezuela was allegedly planning to invade a resource rich neighbor before the Trump administration’s actions, as part of a long standing territorial dispute, and I think that was partly so Maduro could keep the support of the population but also partly to deal with the financial problems. So their leaders definitely knew these issues were building up.

[ErneX]

To be honest that was a huge bluff. There’s no way the decimated Venezuelan army after so many years of corruption could even threaten to invade anybody. Not downplaying the seriousness of the whole thing but even Venezuelans knew that was a distraction.