PJ Vogt

Exceptionally.

We're going to take a short break and then all the people who've tried to govern this exceptionally difficult place and what befell them.

Welcome back to the show.

We're in the 1970s now.

Venezuela, at this point, has a democratic government, and crucially this decade, the price of oil is going to skyrocket.

there will be a series of oil shocks, huge spikes in the international oil price.

The first big one is intentionally caused by OPEC, an alliance of oil-selling countries that Venezuela is a part of.

This big reduction in oil raises prices precipitously.

And later, there's a second oil shock during the Iranian revolution, the revolution craters Iranian oil production.

The 1970s in general, a time that was as economically good for Venezuela as it was bad for the U.S.

Here is Alejandro Velasco with chapter three of our story, Petrostate.

Because it's too, just the population is too small.

It's too small.

And what you're trying to do, you're trying to convince people, while the dollar is very strong, to domestically start to make goods that they can get very, very, very cheaply internationally.

And it's just like, it's very hard to do that.

Chapter four, the crisis years of the 80s and 90s.

Your family ends up leaving the country.

What was your understanding of what was going on?

I mean, you were extremely young.

What was your family's understanding?