Of course the rich and middle class would flee, Chavez has done a lot for the poor. This is the fault of having an economy based upon one resource, it was idiotic economic planning that thought, social welfare programs would last from the boom of one oil industry. It is not the fault of socialism, more the fault of idiotic economic planning.
It's not the "rich and middle class" that flee to Curaçao right now. The rich already fled to the U.S. years ago. But please continue to be an absolute bottom of the barrel poster.
In that article, the majority of refugees are fleeing to Curacao, a tiny near-desert island surrounded by reefs and rough seas.
I can't begrudge anyone who runs away from a terrible living condition, from a failed state, but their near uniform choice of Curacao is telling. These people would rather pay pirates $1000 USD for a chance to be tossed overboard from a raft to swim to rich Curacao than to walk to poor Guyana for free*. In that sense, even desperate people exercise economic choice.
*The article does mention that Venezuelans were flooding the border to slightly-worse-off-on-paper Colombia before their Army closed it.
Interesting post, hadn't thought of this. Isn't there a reason they cannot go to Guyana? Curaçao also isn't
that rich.
