Not_Now.Soon,
The money would be coming from the RBA.

It was not debt that collapsed Venezuela, it was their fixed exchange rate of the Venezuelan Bolivar to the US Dollar. They kept it fixed even when the price of their main export (oil) halved, so even the oil industry became uncompetitive. Coupled with a government implementing a peculiarly anti business form of socialism, a collapse was inevitable. Soon they lost the means to maintain the Bolivar's value. But still they kept its official value high, even though there was almost no opportunity to sell them at that price.

It was exactly the same mistake that was the main factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union!

Had Venezuela just let the market set the value of the Bolivar, the collapse could have been avoided. The market devaluing it would have enabled the country to export its way out of trouble.

Aidan, are you suggesting Australia banks foot the bill for American UBI? Andrew Yang is an American politician running for the democrate candidate of the US president.

Not_Now.Soon,
Do try to keep up! I have consistently opposed the UBI.
Threads drift, and the discussion between mhaze and myself that you jumped into was not about how to finance UBI in the USA, but about how to finance expansive economic policy in the general case (and implicitly here).

Aidan,

The delinking of the Bolivar would not have helped, as Venezuela relies heavily on imports. The heavy government expenditure coupled with the collapse of the oil industry due to incompetent management after nationalization was the cause of collapse of the economy.

Printing lots of local currency causes rampant inflation and rapid devaluation of the currency, and as much of the debt is in $US the economy is still screwed.

Typical Socialist incompetence.

Shadow,
Venezuela's heavy reliance on imports would not have prevented delinking of the Bolivar from helping. The higher price of imports would have reduced Venezuela's reliance on them. Meanwhile exports would've become more competitive, so the country would have remained able to afford the imports.

There was indeed plenty of incompetence, but with a floating currency the economy would have been able to withstand that. Yes there would have been inflation, but there would not have been hyperinflation.

Nor would they have needed to accrue US dollar denominated debt. Australia stopped doing so when Keating floated our dollar. When the market sets the value of your currency, borrowing in other currencies becomes unnecessary.