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The Jordan Harbinger Show

1269: Venezuela | Out of the Loop

The Jordan Harbinger Show

Jordan Harbinger

Business, Education, Science

4.8 • 12.1K Ratings

🗓️ 11 January 2026

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Venezuela's collapse is about way more than socialism and oil. Ryan McBeth breaks down how a resource-rich nation became a cautionary tale on our doorstep.

Welcome to what we're calling our "Out of the Loop" episodes, where we dig a little deeper into fascinating current events that may only register as a blip on the media's news cycle and have conversations with the people who find themselves immersed in them.

Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1269

On This Episode of Out of the Loop:

  • Venezuela's collapse wasn't caused by a single villain or policy — it happened because oil money replaced accountability. Institutions were hollowed out, competence was swapped for loyalty, and when the cash dried up, the regime compensated with control instead of reform.
  • Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution" brought real benefits early on — redistributing oil wealth and challenging entrenched elites. But the gains depended entirely on high oil prices, and when those collapsed around 2010, hyperinflation, shortages, and mass migration followed.
  • Venezuela matters strategically to the US because it sits near the Panama Canal and Gulf Coast refineries — making it a pressure point for energy markets, migration flows, and criminal networks. China and Russia have both moved in, treating the instability like an open house.
  • Nicolás Maduro wasn't so much a supreme leader as a traffic cop managing competing mafias. The country's power structure fractured into factions — military, political, criminal — each with its own incentives, making any clean transition extremely difficult.
  • Venezuela's story is a reminder that resource wealth without strong institutions becomes a trap — but it also shows that populations who've experienced democracy and prosperity tend to push back. That memory of better times can become the foundation for rebuilding.
  • And much more!
  • Connect with Jordan on Twitter, on Instagram, and on YouTube. If you have something you'd like us to tackle here on an Out of the Loop episode, drop Jordan a line at [email protected] and let him know!
  • Connect with Ryan McBeth at his website, Twitter, Instagram, and on YouTube. If you’d like to stay on top of what’s happening in the world, subscribe to Ryan’s Substack!

And if you're still game to support us, please leave a review here — even one sentence helps!

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories,

0:08.3

secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical

0:12.5

advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. Our mission is to help you

0:16.8

become a better informed, more critical thinker through long-form conversations with a variety

0:20.8

of amazing folks, from spies to CEOs, athletes, authors, thinkers, performers, even the occasional

0:26.3

rocket scientist, astronaut, hacker, or a special operator. And if you're new to the show,

0:30.4

or you're looking for a way to tell your friends about the show, I suggest our episode starter

0:34.1

packs. These are collections of our favorite episodes on topics like persuasion and negotiation, psychology and geopolitics, disinformation, social engineering, China,

0:42.4

North Korea, crime and cults, and more that'll help new listeners get a taste of everything we do

0:46.3

here on the show. Just visit jordanharbinger.com slash start or search for us in your Spotify

0:51.6

app to get started. Today, another out-of-the-loop episode on

0:54.7

Venezuela. Little Venice, big oil, bigger mess. You probably heard the headlines and thought,

0:59.9

all right, socialism, corruption, oil, got it. But that's kind of like saying, hey, Titanic,

1:04.7

boat hits thing. The real story here is how a country was some of the largest oil reserves on

1:09.1

Earth turned that resource into a regime

1:11.9

ATM, hollowed out its institutions, banned civilian firearms, and then watched normal people

1:16.8

get crushed between politics, cronies, and criminals, to the point where folks were literally

1:21.4

staying in bed to avoid burning calories. And now it matters to Americans because Venezuela is not

1:27.3

just a tragedy.

1:28.4

It's energy, migration, transnational crime, and great power chess, sitting uncomfortably close to

1:34.0

the Panama Canal, with China and Russia sniffing around like it's an open house, or, as I like to say,

1:39.4

little old Taiwanese ladies at the buffet in Vegas. If you know, you know. Today, my friend Ryan

...

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