The government controls prices for imported essentials such as food and medicine, and the following examples show the result:
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| Bag of dry dog food = $316 |
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| iPhone 5 = $14,127 |
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| Jar of instant coffee = $190 |
So much for lifting up the oppressed worker class!
Furthermore, the rate of inflation in Venezuela is 68%, and the rate of exchange is 6.3 bolivares to $1. The minimum wage at that rate is approximately $890/month.
Recent video posted by the BBC:
Please read THIS ARTICLE. Worth your time.
Beware of all who promise any version of an earthly utopia. It is the Road to Serfdom.
The rich people can get anything they want, they simply pay a higher price for it on the Black Market. The "official" exchange rate may be 6.3 Bs/per $1, but the "unofficial" black-market rate is around 254 Bs/per $1 or 40x the "official" rate. There also used to be a lot of re-selling of subsidized goods in Columbia, hence the fingerprint scanning, etc..
ReplyDeleteIt's like Russia in the 60's/70's.
Here's a recent article on the unofficial exchange rate.
DeleteDios mio.
ReplyDeleteIf the Leftwing Progs had their way, we'd be in the same boat.
ReplyDeleteThis is the same sad story that repeats throughout history, and most especially in Latin America:
The rich crap all over the poor, giving rise to a cacique who promises deliverance. The new boss ends up being just like the old boss.
In Venezuela, it's not even a joke anymore that the Oligarquia has been replace by the Boligarquia.
The Who was right: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
Except the Chavista socialists have wrecked the oil industry, the economy, and society. It's what socialists do.
If it were JUST the prices that was Venezuela's problem. But it's not. The police in Venezuela no longer Protect and Serve. Instead, they merely "enable" the hoods in the Colectivos (collectives) to rob and steal from what remains of the middle and upper classes.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine a brazen robbery like THAT happening in the USA today?
Isn't it? I thought it was. That's precisely what The Dee Cee Desperadoes do every day, ain't it?
DeleteAnd if the colectivos aren't robbing you, the police are... as most come from the colectivos.
ReplyDeleteAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of idiots right here that would love this for America or just don't know any better. You know who you are!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is they never believe it will happen to THEM, Jon.
DeleteThe "idiots" of whence I speak are conspicuous by their absence of comment on this issue. I wonder why?
DeleteThe promise of an earthly utopia is the road to serfdom. Well put! This recalls red China in the late 50's - the famine Mao created by selling most of China's food to Russia in exchange for technology (which, of course, was necessitated because the Soviets killed THEIR breadbasket in Ukraine). People began to queue up at 3 AM for a pitiful handful of old vegetables.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, in the 60's Soviet state, 'peasants' were partly permitted their own gardens - like a kitchen garden. Small plots, not acreages. These private plots produced OVER HALF of all the vegetables brought to market in the Soviet system. I'm sure Moscow allowed this so they wouldn't have mass starvation.
The left has an established track record of callous disregard for life, and I include today's leftwing progs here in the US.
DeleteI imagine most of the dogs and cats have been slaughtered by now for food in Venezuela, so the high price of pet food may not matter so much. Old people, babies and small children are sure to be next.
ReplyDeleteWe are apt to descend very quickly to brute savagery under totalitarian regimes.
It was predictable that a country which depends on oil for virtually its entire foreign currency income would have trouble.
ReplyDeleteLook for Nigeria next. Inflation is already increasing significantly.
Of course, your beloved socialism had nothing to do with the destruction of a beautiful, once-prosperous country.
DeleteAt least Ducky isnt blaming America (of course our beloved Obama is our dear leader, so that explains the silence)....
Deletelol! Oil is the only thing keeping the Socialists in power. Their "mismanagement" of oil simply represents socialist ignorance and contempt for sound economic principles.
ReplyDeleteAs he drained a windfall from record oil prices to spend on social projects, the company fell behind on its bills and investment slowed. The result, analysts say, has been a steady decline in production from 3.3 million barrels a day in 1998, the year before Chavez took office, to the current estimated 2.4 million barrels.
More on the disaster of Socialism.