I highly recommend reading Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng [0]. It's a factual, first-hand account of the China's Cultural Revolution and what living in a communist / socialist society is really like from an educated person's perspective. My inlaws escaped Saigon when it fell and say the picture is very accurate.
The socialist downfall of countries are all unique, but follow similar paths. I encourage people to understand the causes of them and how brutal and arbitrary these governments are.
I think we need to be more careful with our terminology than using the terms "communist" and "socialist" interchangeably. Presumably, the real problem we're talking about is state-controlled economies, regardless of the ideologies that set them up.
> The socialist downfall of countries are all unique, but follow similar paths
The PRC just surpassed US GDP on some measures, whereas in the 1940s it was a western and Japanese occupied backwards basket case. Is that the downfall you mean?
Or do you mean Russia, which couldn't win a war with the Japanese in 1905, never mind Germany a decade later? The New York Times columns of 1918 said Mr. Lenin's government would fall any day now. What actually happened is as Europe and the US fell into depression in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing. It repelled an attack by a military alliance of virtually all of continental Europe in 1941 and Red Army soldiers planted the red flag in 1945. Then it launched the first satellite, man in space etc. After becoming a superpower, the central committee of the CPSU decided to pack it in in the late 1980s, and attune itself to the economic and political system of the rest of the world. Even Molotov never believed in "socialism in one country", and he was the one proclaiming it.
Some downfall, foreign-dominated backwaters rose to become world superpowers.
I'm reading a lot of comments exclusively blaming communism, but when I lived in Caracas during the first years of the Chavez presidency, I witnessed an overwhelming public support in his favor.
Elections were won with ~70% of the votes, and I also recall various referendum-like votes which Chavez won easily as well. Another fact that surprised me was that every Sunday he would give these 4h long speeches, and a crowd would invariably go to the streets/TV to watch him speak.
Later on I am aware that this scenario changed drastically, but in my layman's eyes the first years of Chavismo seemed very democratic, and of course also very populist (e.g. housing for the poor), which only made the governments approval rates soar.
I'm not saying I'm pro-communism, but before pointing a finger at communism, maybe the democratically elected Venezuelan government's incompetence, especially regarding spending all the revenue from it's single main natural resource on unsustainable populist programs with little ROI, should be blamed.
Chavez was immensely popular. A coup by the army was overturned by mass protests.
His government was very successful by most economic metrics during his time in his office. It is his successor that has dropped the ball with his bungling of the currency mess. And that's the root cause of all this suffering, a bad currency system, and low oil prices.
You call them populist programs with little ROI, but they were investments and initiatives that were improving the lives of giant swathes of the nation's citizens.
If the price of oil was still $100 per barrel the country wouldn't be in this situation, and we wouldn't have all this gnashing of teeth over the inevitable downfall of socialism.
From my position, capitalist economies shouldn't be so arrogant right now. Instead of blaming the economic system of the country, take it as a warning for what happens when natural resource assets stop producing bounty, or currency exchange moves against being in your favor.
American Capitalism would not be immune from an ecological recession caused by plausible threats like warming and ocean acidification and biodiversity loss, and America might not always have the subsidy of the petrodollar. The dollar's status as reserve currency is equal to a finger on the scale in all American's economic favor.
Florencia, Cristina Kirchner's Argentinian former president daughter, had 5 million dollars in its bank account. Being daughter of a former president seems to be the more rewarding job in our countries.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/218148/florencia-ki...
Sadly, state-controlled economies end up replacing a capital-owning business elite with a connection/power-owning political elite, and in the process, destroying incentives to produce and work.
Actually, this somehow reminds me of my childhood here in ex-USSR.
No groceries (deficit on everything worth buying), no money to by anything in reasonable quantities, extreme inflation, state-issued coupons for different amounts of items (you still had to pay for them, these were used for rationing).
We were large family, so we got a right to stand for a few hours in line every few weeks at a distant shop where families with four or more children could shop for items not available elsewhere.
Crime rates were through the roof, but not kidnappings. Muggings, burglaries, extortion, plain and simple beating up because you looked the wrong way. These were the days when gangs started forming, so old rules (stand up and fight even if you'll lose) did not work.
This story gives me shivers. It was extremely hard to provide for your children back then. I cannot imagine how people from countries with much worse conditions can manage.
Edit adds this paragraph. I was a child then. I thought that everything around was a norm. I, actually, did not care much. Now I do.
That's an odd turn... care to elaborate on the connection between government caused economic crises in South America and identity politics among (what I assume are) North American urbanites?
As someone who lives next door to Venezuela, it seems to me the situation over there has really hit the proverbial fan.
Venezuela has been in a disastrous economic situation for years, but nowhere as bad what we are seeing these days.
Just yesterday their government opened the border with Colombia for 12 hours (they have kept it closed for a year) and about 125 thousand people crossed into Colombia to buy basic groceries and medicines. 30% did not cross back.
Venezuela is on the brink. It has a socialist majority because previously the rich bleed them dry. Now the boot is on the other foot and the socialists are starving out the middle and upper classes who traditionally voted for the elite that controlled the media in Venezuela.
So sad. At some point it will flip again and the cycle will repeat itself.
Meanwhile the US continues to pressure the socialist government through sanctions in order to break a government that they don't approve of. Whilst the oil price remains low, the socialist government can't profit enough to get back on track.
The innocents, including children are going to starve, because the USA refuses have any kind of socialist leaning government in its back yard. it's been going on for decades. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile the socialist "elite" make sure that they have good on their tables and punish the middle classes for their refusal to accept their ideology, happily lining their own bank accounts.
It is somewhat ironic that their neighbour Colombia, that for years was the black sheep of the region, has swapped roles with its previously rich sibling.
That's similar to how it was in 90's Yugoslavia during international sanctions.
We didn't have so much crime (definitely no violent stuff like kidnaping), and cellphone was still big grey brick Fox Mulder would pull out of his jacket ... So sharing knowledge you've found bread or milk was spreading slower.
For those asking how come farmers aren't making huge money in such cases - they still need to buy other stuff and that's equally/proportionally expensive.
In case of Yugoslavia, I think pretty much all petrol/gas was smuggled in (because international sanctions) from nearby countries.
Once you consider that mass producing food means you need to power machines (like tractor) and ultimately transport it somehow to consumers ... Imagine how many jerry cans had to be smuggled ...
And IMHO you're mixing cause and effect when you mention state-controlled economies as a cause of this. It mostly fails because (for one reason or another) country is effectively blocked from trading with the rest of the world, and doesn't have enough variety in materials/resources to be on it's own.
Instead of "And IMHO you're mixing cause and effect ..." I meant "And IMHO you're mixing causation and correlation ..." making final paragraph:
And IMHO you're mixing causation and correlation when you mention state-controlled economies as a cause of this. It mostly fails because (for one reason or another) country is effectively blocked from trading with the rest of the world, and doesn't have enough variety in materials/resources to be on it's own.
I'm curious about the pictures of stores with "good selections at high prices". Is there split market like the former USSR where stores without price constraints are selling at higher prices but have a wider selection? One of the challenges there was that suppliers would divert their supplies to the "open price" stores because it made them more money, is that what is going on in Venezula?
It probably has to do with stocking times would be my guess. (i.e. If you get one shipment a week, the day it arrives and ends up on the shelves you look full...by the end of the week, well, you've got almost nothing since you aren't able to get any reserves)
> But despite the severe scarcity Venezuelans are not going hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that the Latin American nation more than halved malnutrition indices to less than 5% since Chávez came to power. It gives partial credit to the government-run network of food distribution chains known as Mercal, which delivers subsidised food in shops across the country. And yet food has gone missing, and queues outside food shops often wrap around the block.
It also is probably the difference b/t government and non-government stores to a degree but the real culprit seems to be:
> For Oliveros, an additional cause for the shortage of basic food staples is the decrease in agricultural production resulting from seized companies and land expropriations. "More than 3m hectares were expropriated during 2004-2010. That and overvalued exchange rate destroyed agriculture. It's cheaper to import than it is to produce. That's a perverse model that kills off any productivity," he says.
They destroyed their agricultural system years ago and the government just can't afford to keep spending like they used to with the oil prices where they are now.
Venezuela tries to impose price controls on items below market prices. According to the book Economics in one lesson chapter 17 government price fixing does not work in the long run and leads to shortages of goods.
You can be prepped up the wazoo and if a Venezuela goes down in your backyard what are you going to do? Hide out in your basement and eat tinned tuna?
The best "preparation" is looking ahead and living in a place that isn't about to go to shit. Having a plane ticket and a passport is infinitely more valuable than a bucket of bullets and a gun.
I agree, keeping 'food insurance' is far from crazy.
You can buy MREs that last five to ten years.
They won't solve all problems but they will certainly give you time to react appropriately e.g. escaping an area or growing food for the following year.
Does anybody remember James Burke's Connections? The very first episode on how to live in a global downturn?
Suffering from the disease of central government. We need a telethon to stamp this disease out. Look how many were killed in the 20th century because of it. Ideology infects a people then gets turned to government implementation, and when things go badly wrong, it can't be fixed until it collapses and the people finally start to learn their lesson.
Sounds like communist Romania in the 80's. The main difference there was that the state had a near monopoly on violence, which they used constantly. Even people who were starving were mostly too scared of the government to contemplate violence.
Sounds like it's time for new elections or executions of the assholes in power.
I am in a privileged position, though, I understand the situation of 'common people' as I work closely with them as a local business owner.
This journal is really close to the reality.
To those wondering about 'side markets' and 'farmers marking a killing', let me explain.
There is a black market for food and any other good. Shortages are real, especially when it comes to medicines. It's easy to find pasta or rice comparatively. People with chronic diseases are dying - the patients that have the medicines they need require foreign help either from family or friends.
About 5 years ago the minimum wage was about $300. Today it's $40. You can find in any major city people looking for food in the dumpsters. [1]
Why are farmers and producers not making a killing? It's not that simple, but there's definitely people making a killing: black market traffickers which are mostly politicians and military men in strategic positions.
I know a few farmers, so I will speak from experience. This farmer friend I have - let's call him Jose, produces milk and his family has been doing so for more than 40 years.
Jose is the vet in the farm. Venezuela was suffering a long drought due "El Nino" that also affected the electric service. Cows were producing less milk due this - medicines for cows are really hard to get (probiotics, antibiotics, etc), food for animals is mostly imported - just like medicines. The biggest problem, though, is what's brought us here: The government economic policies.
The market for foreign currencies is regulated. Only the government and through the government currencies can be exchanged. Since the government depends heavily on oil for foreign currency we've seen quite a dip in imports. In other words, the government lacks liquidity. Which is why it's really hard to legally obtain imported goods, so if you produce in Venezuela and sell your product in Bolivares (local currency) you would have to get Dollars (foreign currency) to import anything - the government is basically saying no to 95% of requests for currency exchange.
The market for [most] producers is highly regulated. No milk producer can produce milk higher than the fixed price given by the government. For most, there's no incentive.
The government is printing money like crazy making inflation soar (we have the highest inflation in the world! [2])
As you can see, most producers have no incentive as they will not see profit in their ventures since they have a cap for what they can sell the product for.
Imagine that the U.S government says by law "1 pound of rice will cost $1 or less" and anyone selling for more is breaking the law. If the cost of producing rice is $0.1c this would be fine, however, for the rice producer each pound of rice costs $1.5 - how many people do you think are going to produce rice? This happens in Venezuela in almost all product categories (milk, coffee, beans, rice, pasta, flour, and I could keep going, the list is really long).
What has the government done to fix the issue? Basically, nothing since their policy "fixes" is to control more and more our economy.
The government solution to the food shortages and I must say, this is really hard to explain, is to give out bags of food with goods distributed by the "own people in the community". I don't see how will this ever work, since while it's not free they're giving out a bag for $1 that in the black market can easily go for $10, a golden goose for the corrupt. The government is completely ignoring, what in my opinion is far worse, which is, the lack of medicines of any kind for the most part.
The government controls the media, the military, and all forces but one - the legislative power, though through political tricks they've found ways to mostly neutralize it. This year - 2016 - we could potentially have a referendum, though the government is making everything it can to avoid it and I must, sadly say, I believe they're succeeding.
This will sound like a stupid question but I'll ask it anyway.
Why can't they just drop the price controls?
I expect it is ideological, but surely being alive trumps ideology (in that you'll starve or else people who have decided to become more flexible will kill you).
Since both countries "owned" a good part of the world real estate at some point in their history, it seems pretty easy to cherry-pick and find something to support whatever point you're trying to make.
The only real insight I've found is that colonialism is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it anymore.
Shouldn't rural farmers be making a killing in these conditions? (eg. give me USD or your old iPhone/car and I'll deliver you homemade milk and bread for X months)
> I head out early to a farmers’ market near my house. Before dawn each Saturday, the farmers truck in their produce from the surrounding mountains. Everything’s sold at free-market prices. This is, technically speaking, illegal but essentially goes unenforced nowadays.
They certainly should; farmers made out like bandits during the Wiemar hyperinflation. For Venezuela, see the entry for June 25th here: selling farm produce at free-market prices is illegal, but the ban isn't enforced, and the farmers do well for themselves for as long as their ATM connections stay up.
Sometimes I wonder if all of the online computers, internet, apps and other stuff makes any sense. We have complicated our lives unnecessarily and multiplied beyond the capacity of our plant to hold us meaningfully or have a life with any semblance of contemplation.
I think socialism is the "excuse" rather than the root cause: which is poor government that ran on cronyism and petro-dollars and is completely stuffed after decades of mismanagement. The main difference between this and a number of other governments is that it's happening in the Western hemisphere and not some corner of Africa or the Middle East.
[+] [-] seibelj|9 years ago|reply
The socialist downfall of countries are all unique, but follow similar paths. I encourage people to understand the causes of them and how brutal and arbitrary these governments are.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Death_in_Shanghai
[+] [-] tptacek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|9 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
[+] [-] pastProlog|9 years ago|reply
The PRC just surpassed US GDP on some measures, whereas in the 1940s it was a western and Japanese occupied backwards basket case. Is that the downfall you mean?
Or do you mean Russia, which couldn't win a war with the Japanese in 1905, never mind Germany a decade later? The New York Times columns of 1918 said Mr. Lenin's government would fall any day now. What actually happened is as Europe and the US fell into depression in the 1930s, Russia was surging ahead and industrializing. It repelled an attack by a military alliance of virtually all of continental Europe in 1941 and Red Army soldiers planted the red flag in 1945. Then it launched the first satellite, man in space etc. After becoming a superpower, the central committee of the CPSU decided to pack it in in the late 1980s, and attune itself to the economic and political system of the rest of the world. Even Molotov never believed in "socialism in one country", and he was the one proclaiming it.
Some downfall, foreign-dominated backwaters rose to become world superpowers.
[+] [-] htaunay|9 years ago|reply
Elections were won with ~70% of the votes, and I also recall various referendum-like votes which Chavez won easily as well. Another fact that surprised me was that every Sunday he would give these 4h long speeches, and a crowd would invariably go to the streets/TV to watch him speak.
Later on I am aware that this scenario changed drastically, but in my layman's eyes the first years of Chavismo seemed very democratic, and of course also very populist (e.g. housing for the poor), which only made the governments approval rates soar.
I'm not saying I'm pro-communism, but before pointing a finger at communism, maybe the democratically elected Venezuelan government's incompetence, especially regarding spending all the revenue from it's single main natural resource on unsustainable populist programs with little ROI, should be blamed.
[Edit] Typo
[+] [-] willholloway|9 years ago|reply
His government was very successful by most economic metrics during his time in his office. It is his successor that has dropped the ball with his bungling of the currency mess. And that's the root cause of all this suffering, a bad currency system, and low oil prices.
You call them populist programs with little ROI, but they were investments and initiatives that were improving the lives of giant swathes of the nation's citizens.
If the price of oil was still $100 per barrel the country wouldn't be in this situation, and we wouldn't have all this gnashing of teeth over the inevitable downfall of socialism.
From my position, capitalist economies shouldn't be so arrogant right now. Instead of blaming the economic system of the country, take it as a warning for what happens when natural resource assets stop producing bounty, or currency exchange moves against being in your favor.
American Capitalism would not be immune from an ecological recession caused by plausible threats like warming and ocean acidification and biodiversity loss, and America might not always have the subsidy of the petrodollar. The dollar's status as reserve currency is equal to a finger on the scale in all American's economic favor.
Venezuela's present could be our future.
[+] [-] elgabogringo|9 years ago|reply
http://www.latinpost.com/articles/71424/20150812/maria-gabri...
[+] [-] randiantech|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JPKab|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alvarosm|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] laacz|9 years ago|reply
No groceries (deficit on everything worth buying), no money to by anything in reasonable quantities, extreme inflation, state-issued coupons for different amounts of items (you still had to pay for them, these were used for rationing).
We were large family, so we got a right to stand for a few hours in line every few weeks at a distant shop where families with four or more children could shop for items not available elsewhere.
Crime rates were through the roof, but not kidnappings. Muggings, burglaries, extortion, plain and simple beating up because you looked the wrong way. These were the days when gangs started forming, so old rules (stand up and fight even if you'll lose) did not work.
This story gives me shivers. It was extremely hard to provide for your children back then. I cannot imagine how people from countries with much worse conditions can manage.
Edit adds this paragraph. I was a child then. I thought that everything around was a norm. I, actually, did not care much. Now I do.
[+] [-] throw89234|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MaxfordAndSons|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] botfly|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CamonZ|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doozy|9 years ago|reply
Venezuela has been in a disastrous economic situation for years, but nowhere as bad what we are seeing these days.
Just yesterday their government opened the border with Colombia for 12 hours (they have kept it closed for a year) and about 125 thousand people crossed into Colombia to buy basic groceries and medicines. 30% did not cross back.
[+] [-] huherto|9 years ago|reply
> 30% did not cross back.
Not surprisingly. It can easily become a humanitarian problem for Colombia. What is the political sentiment in Colombia about this ?
[+] [-] junto|9 years ago|reply
So sad. At some point it will flip again and the cycle will repeat itself.
Meanwhile the US continues to pressure the socialist government through sanctions in order to break a government that they don't approve of. Whilst the oil price remains low, the socialist government can't profit enough to get back on track.
The innocents, including children are going to starve, because the USA refuses have any kind of socialist leaning government in its back yard. it's been going on for decades. Rinse and repeat. Meanwhile the socialist "elite" make sure that they have good on their tables and punish the middle classes for their refusal to accept their ideology, happily lining their own bank accounts.
It is somewhat ironic that their neighbour Colombia, that for years was the black sheep of the region, has swapped roles with its previously rich sibling.
[+] [-] techcode|9 years ago|reply
We didn't have so much crime (definitely no violent stuff like kidnaping), and cellphone was still big grey brick Fox Mulder would pull out of his jacket ... So sharing knowledge you've found bread or milk was spreading slower.
For those asking how come farmers aren't making huge money in such cases - they still need to buy other stuff and that's equally/proportionally expensive.
In case of Yugoslavia, I think pretty much all petrol/gas was smuggled in (because international sanctions) from nearby countries.
Once you consider that mass producing food means you need to power machines (like tractor) and ultimately transport it somehow to consumers ... Imagine how many jerry cans had to be smuggled ...
And IMHO you're mixing cause and effect when you mention state-controlled economies as a cause of this. It mostly fails because (for one reason or another) country is effectively blocked from trading with the rest of the world, and doesn't have enough variety in materials/resources to be on it's own.
[+] [-] techcode|9 years ago|reply
And IMHO you're mixing causation and correlation when you mention state-controlled economies as a cause of this. It mostly fails because (for one reason or another) country is effectively blocked from trading with the rest of the world, and doesn't have enough variety in materials/resources to be on it's own.
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fweespeech|9 years ago|reply
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matte...
> But despite the severe scarcity Venezuelans are not going hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organisation has said that the Latin American nation more than halved malnutrition indices to less than 5% since Chávez came to power. It gives partial credit to the government-run network of food distribution chains known as Mercal, which delivers subsidised food in shops across the country. And yet food has gone missing, and queues outside food shops often wrap around the block.
It also is probably the difference b/t government and non-government stores to a degree but the real culprit seems to be:
> For Oliveros, an additional cause for the shortage of basic food staples is the decrease in agricultural production resulting from seized companies and land expropriations. "More than 3m hectares were expropriated during 2004-2010. That and overvalued exchange rate destroyed agriculture. It's cheaper to import than it is to produce. That's a perverse model that kills off any productivity," he says.
They destroyed their agricultural system years ago and the government just can't afford to keep spending like they used to with the oil prices where they are now.
[+] [-] ColinCochrane|9 years ago|reply
Store shelves that are well-stocked, like those in this bakery near Zerpa’s house, are typically full of non-essential items set at sky-high prices
[+] [-] acd|9 years ago|reply
Economics in one lesson is available for free from the Ludwig von Mises institute. https://mises.org/files/henry-hazlitt-economics-one-lessonpd...
[+] [-] daxorid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astrodust|9 years ago|reply
The best "preparation" is looking ahead and living in a place that isn't about to go to shit. Having a plane ticket and a passport is infinitely more valuable than a bucket of bullets and a gun.
[+] [-] johansch|9 years ago|reply
Venezuela didn't wake up last year and decided it wanted a particularly messed up form of socialism. This started much longer ago..
(I'll hijack my own comment: socialism != social democracy, as practiced by a few northern European countries.)
[+] [-] internaut|9 years ago|reply
You can buy MREs that last five to ten years.
They won't solve all problems but they will certainly give you time to react appropriately e.g. escaping an area or growing food for the following year.
Does anybody remember James Burke's Connections? The very first episode on how to live in a global downturn?
[+] [-] huherto|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh_sigh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jtlienwis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joesmo|9 years ago|reply
Sounds like it's time for new elections or executions of the assholes in power.
[+] [-] the_vzlan|9 years ago|reply
I am in a privileged position, though, I understand the situation of 'common people' as I work closely with them as a local business owner.
This journal is really close to the reality.
To those wondering about 'side markets' and 'farmers marking a killing', let me explain.
There is a black market for food and any other good. Shortages are real, especially when it comes to medicines. It's easy to find pasta or rice comparatively. People with chronic diseases are dying - the patients that have the medicines they need require foreign help either from family or friends.
About 5 years ago the minimum wage was about $300. Today it's $40. You can find in any major city people looking for food in the dumpsters. [1]
Why are farmers and producers not making a killing? It's not that simple, but there's definitely people making a killing: black market traffickers which are mostly politicians and military men in strategic positions.
I know a few farmers, so I will speak from experience. This farmer friend I have - let's call him Jose, produces milk and his family has been doing so for more than 40 years.
Jose is the vet in the farm. Venezuela was suffering a long drought due "El Nino" that also affected the electric service. Cows were producing less milk due this - medicines for cows are really hard to get (probiotics, antibiotics, etc), food for animals is mostly imported - just like medicines. The biggest problem, though, is what's brought us here: The government economic policies.
The market for foreign currencies is regulated. Only the government and through the government currencies can be exchanged. Since the government depends heavily on oil for foreign currency we've seen quite a dip in imports. In other words, the government lacks liquidity. Which is why it's really hard to legally obtain imported goods, so if you produce in Venezuela and sell your product in Bolivares (local currency) you would have to get Dollars (foreign currency) to import anything - the government is basically saying no to 95% of requests for currency exchange.
The market for [most] producers is highly regulated. No milk producer can produce milk higher than the fixed price given by the government. For most, there's no incentive.
The government is printing money like crazy making inflation soar (we have the highest inflation in the world! [2])
As you can see, most producers have no incentive as they will not see profit in their ventures since they have a cap for what they can sell the product for.
Imagine that the U.S government says by law "1 pound of rice will cost $1 or less" and anyone selling for more is breaking the law. If the cost of producing rice is $0.1c this would be fine, however, for the rice producer each pound of rice costs $1.5 - how many people do you think are going to produce rice? This happens in Venezuela in almost all product categories (milk, coffee, beans, rice, pasta, flour, and I could keep going, the list is really long).
What has the government done to fix the issue? Basically, nothing since their policy "fixes" is to control more and more our economy.
The government solution to the food shortages and I must say, this is really hard to explain, is to give out bags of food with goods distributed by the "own people in the community". I don't see how will this ever work, since while it's not free they're giving out a bag for $1 that in the black market can easily go for $10, a golden goose for the corrupt. The government is completely ignoring, what in my opinion is far worse, which is, the lack of medicines of any kind for the most part.
The government controls the media, the military, and all forces but one - the legislative power, though through political tricks they've found ways to mostly neutralize it. This year - 2016 - we could potentially have a referendum, though the government is making everything it can to avoid it and I must, sadly say, I believe they're succeeding.
[1] http://www.el-nacional.com/sucesos/Venezolanos-desesperados-...
[2] http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/12/news/economy/venezuela-imf-e...
[+] [-] internaut|9 years ago|reply
Why can't they just drop the price controls?
I expect it is ideological, but surely being alive trumps ideology (in that you'll starve or else people who have decided to become more flexible will kill you).
[+] [-] rafaelm|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ensiferum|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikdaheratik|9 years ago|reply
The only real insight I've found is that colonialism is a bad idea and you shouldn't do it anymore.
[+] [-] doozy|9 years ago|reply
All apparently doing pretty well.
[+] [-] gscott|9 years ago|reply
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/02/29/venezuela-is-making-surreal-s...
[+] [-] aianus|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GFischer|9 years ago|reply
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2016/07/13/venezu...
http://www.wsj.com/articles/crime-wave-lashes-venezuelas-alr...
[+] [-] bpodgursky|9 years ago|reply
> I head out early to a farmers’ market near my house. Before dawn each Saturday, the farmers truck in their produce from the surrounding mountains. Everything’s sold at free-market prices. This is, technically speaking, illegal but essentially goes unenforced nowadays.
[+] [-] clock_tower|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] goombastic|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nolepointer|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madengr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sxcurry|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikdaheratik|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Jtsummers|9 years ago|reply
Which country?