VENEZUELA ECONOMIC CRISIS – VARIOUS ARTICLES
Compiled by Lucy Maness Warner
September 11, 2016



Sometimes when I’m doing these news Blogs, I do get discouraged by what I see, and this is one of those cases. The whole world is in a crisis, it seems. I found the first article several days ago, and I was shocked. It isn’t that I value animals over people, but that we take these creatures into our homes and protect them. They in turn love us and comfort us when we have lost our job or our husband. You can even talk to a dog or cat. My cat probably didn’t understand much at all of what I said, but she gazed into my eyes lovingly. These Venezuelans are expressing the same feeling, but they have had to give their pet away; and, of course, there is the underlying human crisis. People are starving.

I think the UN should step in and help the country. Some people in the US talk against international aid as being too expensive, but there is a time to try to help. Their government, unfortunately, must shoulder the blame. They are actually blocking the citizens’ access to foreign aid, and there have been food riots.

For a summary of events in recent years that have led up to all this, go to the (excellent, as usual) Wikipedia article below. I see described there an over-dependence on their oil industry to finance things like the buying of food and other necessities, rather than a massive push for every householder to grow food crops on his private little patch of land. Large agricultural production there in recent years has slowed down to a crawl, due to government mismanagement, and now that the oil prices have dropped, that money which was used to buy exported food has diminished, so people are literally starving.

One of these articles below is about the number of people who have given up their pets due to the expense of feeding them. Another article mentioned an even darker result: some are hunting the abandoned cats, dogs, etc. for food. In short, their society is totally failing, and it can’t provide enough of its’ own needs to survive, it appears to me. They need a Victory Gardens program for one thing. This series of articles is extremely discouraging for people who care about things like lifeforms and beauty and hope.

Such a catastrophe in Venezuela may contribute, as well, to another world financial crisis like the Depressions of 1930 and 2008, and the total destabilization of Venezuela. The RIGHT LEANING trend in the worldwide scheme of things nowadays may be the result of just such an economic depression coming on. When people have trouble surviving they tend to look for scapegoats, and of course there are always some convenient objects upon whom to pile all that fear and hatred. We aren’t merely coming to Hard Times, we are there already.

I see, particularly in the Wikipedia article on Venezuela’s current problems, an overdependence on the importing of basic goods, financed by the sales of oil. At a certain point down the road, money runs out and food is unavailable at any price, as has happened there. To me, imports should be more for the supplying of luxuries than for such basic needs as food. For a nation to come to depend on just one or two sources of trade, such as the oil industry there, is a grave error. When the Free Market system gets too free and a government doesn’t look to the needs of its’ own people FIRST, that looks like Business Greed run riot to me, and very poor national economic planning. Farmers have always been the backbone of our economy in this country, where our own people were fed whether exporting food might bring money in or not. Feed the people first, and then export the excess, not sell to the neighboring country to get more money, more money, more money. Of course, short-term thinking is easier than long-term thinking.

I wish we would go back to that model of farmers as at least one of our main industries, and away from all the ultra-globalism of recent decades. NAFTA and TPP are dangers to our society, or have been in the past, fueling the 20 year stretch of joblessness that we have had here. If those trade deals can be worked out in a way that our overly rich citizens do not bleed our country dry, I would tend to say, okay, more trade is a good thing. We need BALANCED planning again here, though, and the wisdom never to forget the US people. I can’t accept starvation here like in the ‘20s and ‘30s, and will work for a real Revolution if necessary, not just Bernie’s.

The need to focus strongly on our homeland right now is the only thing that I agree with Donald Trump about, and then not about his hatred of foreigners or his desire to keep the moneyed classes on top, and certainly not his filthy comments. I do want to see foreigners living in the US, making life interesting after all, but not our shipping all of our factories over to some faraway country just because labor is cheap there. Then everybody here has to go on Food Aid because there are no jobs. It just makes no sense. At a certain point, technology won’t take care of all our problems.

In the 1920s and ‘30s our great president Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the considerable help of his wife Eleanor, really took charge in this country of joblessness, and yes, starvation, in a way that Republicans hated, but it helped. He was an organizer, a practical thinker, bold in the extreme and an extremely humanitarian person. He got on the radio nightly and gave his “Fireside Chats,” on what the government was doing to solve our many problems, and what the populace could and should do to help. He issued War Bonds to help finance WWII, started a massive infrastructure program of building roads, bridges, new government buildings and national monuments, all of which gave those poor people a job so they could start to feed their babies and rent a place to live. He also pushed the idea, during his “Fireside chats,” of every person growing a small to large garden on whatever land they had available for their own consumption and to take to local markets.

Interestingly, he even employed such people as artists and writers to decorate our new public buildings and monuments. As a result, we have one of the most beautiful national capitals in the world. Things like that cheered people up, which is no small thing. Hope is a key part of success in life. He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”

He was a person who saw simple ways to solve problems and focused on the 90% -- yes, to the detriment of the 1% -- since they had to pay more of the cost of all that with the graduated income tax. That’s really the only thing he took from Karl Marx, I think. He didn’t nationalize the industries or set up mandatory work camps. He didn’t really have to, after all. It is true, though, that the more money people had, the more tax they had to pay, and the poor were given jobs and economic subsidies to help them survive. His “make work” programs did do just that. People went back to work and began to catch up financially and even thrive.

His “Victory Gardens” movement was instituted because the US had joined the war against Hitler by that time and much of the food produced by large farmers across the country had to go to the use of our soldiers in foreign parts. In other words, it was rationed and people made substitutions. Some didn’t like it, but we considered it our part of the “War Effort.” I can remember my mother talking about getting her cottonseed oil and adding a yellow dye provided by the government to it to make it look like butter. That later became “margarine” and is popular in its own right today as a way of stretching the household budget.

One of the things that really concerns me in the US now is that 90% or so (a guess) of our American population not only do not choose to use their backyards for food production, but they have no idea of how to start doing that. The MASS IGNORANCE in this country of how to live in a self-sustainable way scares me. Back yards are sometimes large enough to produce a considerable amount of food. I wish people in our inner city neighborhoods would do that every year. Many live in what is being called “food deserts,” where the only food store anywhere near their house is gas station/minimart where the prices are high and about all there is to eat there is sweet, like donuts. Okay, donuts are tasty, but sugar is not the basis of a good diet.

On maybe an eighth of an acre my father built a little chicken house and fenced it in for our dozen or so hens and one loud, combative rooster. He also produced bushel basketfuls of tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, cabbages, beans and peas, mustard and turnips, okra, strawberries, cantaloupes, watermelons, three blackberry bushes, and sometimes something quirky just for fun, like Jerusalem artichokes (the sunchoke), a member of the sunflower family. Daddy said that when he was a boy they always grew those. They’re hard to clean (lots of little dimples in them which collect dirt) but they taste very nice raw and can be cooked as a pleasant nutlike tasting starchy veggie.

Of course we did have free access to water, which is a problem, one article said, in Venezuela, and will probably be an increasing problem in the US now due to the Great Unmentionable, Global Warming. I laughed out loud one day when on the TV news several Republicans stumbled all over themselves over the issue of a human caused climate change. It is a part of their bizarre and rigid ideology not to ACKNOWLEDGE it because their pets, the Koch Brothers, want to keep pumping that oil. Oh, yes, and they control the Republican party totally and the Dems to a shocking degree as well. Three and four year-long droughts have already plagued several parts of the US. Governments do need to provide for basic needs, like fresh clean water and access to tillable soil. To see cisterns built in every back yard would be a good idea, too, because when it rains that water, instead of running down into the storm drain will collect there and is usually clean enough to drink. If we aren’t going to get much rain, we need to shepherd wisely what we do get. We may have to study the Middle East to see how they handle the water issue.

See below the several news and Wikipedia articles on the crisis in Venezuela, which I found on our wonderful Internet. Thank heaven for human progress and technology. Now if we could just drop our national conceit and focus on those who do need help, jobs, education, etc. and who can’t always pay for them, I would be 100% happy with America.


From the human perspective

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/venezuela-pets-go-hungry-as-economic-crisis-deepens/

Pets in Venezuela go hungry as economic crisis deepens
AP September 7, 2016, 5:25 PM

Photograph -- In this July 23, 2016 photo, Katty Quintas, part owner of the Funasissi animal shelter, caresses an abandoned dog at the private shelter, in the working-class Caracas neighborhood of El Junquito, Venezuela. FERNANDO LLANO, AP


CARACAS, Venezuela -- Carlos Parra used to love waking up to see his pet albino boxer, Nina. Now, seeing her skeletal body on the floor next to his bed has become a daily reminder of the economic crisis engulfing Venezuela.

His other dog’s thick fur barely hides her ribcage as Parra struggles to feed his pets after losing his job at a shoe store.

“It’s terrible to sit and eat, see them watching me with hunger, and not be able to do anything,” said the 30-year-old.

As Venezuela’s economic crunch worsens, food shortages and rising poverty are forcing once middle-class Venezuelans to do the unthinkable: let their pets starve or abandon them in the streets.

No figures are available, but activists and veterinarians say they are seeing a growing number of dogs and cats abandoned at parks, shelters, and private clinics.

In Caracas it has become common to see purebred dogs rummaging in the trash or lying outdoors, filthy and gaunt, in posh neighborhoods.

ap-16250829373133.jpg
In this July 23, 2016 photo, three rescued cats watch from the top of a fridge as their food is prepared at the private shelter Funasissi, in the working-class Caracas neighborhood of El Junquito, Venezuela. FERNANDO LLANO, AP

The animal protection and control center in the capital’s Baruta neighborhood saw as many as 10 animals abandoned each day this summer, head veterinarian Russer Rios said. Up to about a year ago there were almost none.

“Now people just leave them here because they can’t take care of them,” Rios said.

Shelters are running classes teaching pet owners to look for food substitutes in the hopes of helping them maintain their pets through the crisis. At one private shelter in the working-class Caracas neighborhood of El Junquito, a popular alternative for dogs that would never have been considered in better times is chickenfeed.

“We have to give it to them because there’s nothing else,” Katty Quintas, a part owner of the Funasissi shelter, said as three skinny cats looked on hungrily from the top of a refrigerator. The shelter is now home to more than 200 cats and dogs.

One of the country’s largest animal shelters is run by Mission Nevado, a government program set up by socialist President Nicolas Maduro and named in honor of independence hero Simon Bolivar’s four-legged sidekick, dubbed “Nevado” for its white, snow-like fur. Program veterinarian Angel Mancilla said the shelter, which currently houses about 100 cats and dogs, has collapsed under the influx.

“We’re crying every day. You leave each day feeling traumatized,” Mancilla said.

Pet owners say the price of dog food has more than doubled in recent months to $2 a pound, more than a day’s pay for those earning the minimum wage.

ap-16250829203724.jpg
In this July 23, 2016 photo, Dexis Casadiego, a veterinarian and part owner of the Funasissi animal shelter, caresses an abandoned dog at the private shelter in the working-class Caracas neighborhood of El Junquito, Venezuela. FERNANDO LLANO, AP

In August, as Parra and his parents in the central city of Barquisimeto struggled to get by on his father’s $23 monthly pension, he turned in desperation to a Facebook group that donates dog food to families that cannot afford it. But he received just one bag of food, enough to last a few weeks. He said he feels like he’s choosing each day between feeding himself and his parents, or his beloved pets.

“Sometimes we go to bed with empty stomachs,” he said. “It’s really hard.”

The problem is also affecting zoos and racetracks. Zoo workers in Caracas say they do not have enough food for large mammals like tigers and tapirs.

This spring 72 horses died from starvation or malnutrition at the Santa Rita racetrack in the western city of Maracaibo, which was closed due to problems with criminal gangs.

The National Institute of Racetracks said the horses died because owners and trainers were not feeding them.

Some pet owners who can’t bear to watch their animals waste away are looking for others to take them in.

Caracas homemaker Maria Galindo is offering Princess, her 5-year-old golden retriever, for adoption. So far the dog has survived on scraps the neighbors give her.

“We’re very sad to have to give her up, but the crisis is not giving us another option,” Galindo said, looking at Princess’ bones sticking out from her yellow fur. “You’re thinking, ‘If I give the dog something to eat, what will I feed the children?’”



From the Right

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2016/09/venezuelas-doomed-love-affair-socialism-continues/

COFFEE HOUSE
Venezuela’s doomed love affair with socialism continues
Catherine Addington
7 September 2016 1:35 PM

Photograph -- A woman with a sign reading 'There is no food' protests against new emergency powers in Venezuela (Photo: Federico Parra/Getty)
Catherine Addington is a Ph.D. student and instructor in Spanish at the University of Virginia. Her writing has appeared in The American Conservative, First Things, and Unusual Efforts.


It’s hard to imagine now but just decades ago Venezuela was the richest country in South America. The late President Hugo Chávez’s social programs thrived on record oil revenues; Venezuelan industry was left underdeveloped but poverty was glitteringly – yet only temporarily – relieved. Now that the price of oil has plummeted, the country’s hollow economy is dependent on imports it does not have the cash to buy. Normally reliable Chinese lenders are having second thoughts. Inflation has hit triple digits. Venezuela’s economy is in utter recession and is projected to contract eight per cent this year, making it officially the slowest-growing economy in the world.

The litany of consequent disasters is almost routine now. There are massive shortages of everything from bread to fruit to nappies. Venezuelans end up waiting in line for hours at the supermarket only to find the shelves empty. Blackouts are frequent. Hospitals struggle to stock basic medicines. Infant mortality is rising and once-quashed malaria is back. Families stay in bed to save calories, women are seeking sterilisation because raising children is getting to be impossible, and on that note, reports of infanticide are going up. Meanwhile, much-needed foreign aid has not been permitted to enter the country.

Even if he disregards the economic crisis, President Nicolás Maduro can’t ignore the political one; protests have been going strong for about two years now. And the political opposition, a rainbow of popular factions but most strongly represented by frequent presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, led an enormous rally on 1 September called the ‘Taking of Caracas’. The protesters called for a recall referendum to put Maduro out of office, and though popular opinion was on their side, logistics never were. The electoral commission’s timeline would likely delay the recall vote until after 10 January, when a recall would no longer trigger new elections but instead simply replace Maduro with his vice president, radical academic Aristóbulo Istúriz.

Clearly, though, Maduro’s administration is feeling the heat—and furiously cracking down on opposition. The Supreme Tribunal (Venezuela’s highest court) nullified all acts passed by the National Assembly, leaving the country functionally without a legislative branch. The opposition had won last year’s legislative elections in a landslide, and the Assembly was their only real voice in Venezuela’s government.

It’s hard to imagine such authoritarianism will bolster Maduro’s plummeting support. Still, this same right-wing opposition tried a recall referendum against Hugo Chávez in 2004 and lost by a significant margin. The people are overwhelmingly against Maduro – his socialist party was trounced in the last legislative elections, and polls show 80 per cent of the population would vote to remove him – but that hasn’t translated into support for the right, which is still associated with a disastrous neoliberal turn in the nineties.

[Alt-Text]
Yet in some ways the nullification of the legislature is only a formality. Maduro has already been ruling over this chaos as a true authoritarian. A particularly controversial decree passed by the agricultural ministry gave the government power to ‘reassign’ workers at will – which Amnesty International said effectively amounted to ‘forced labour’. Unjust imprisonment of political prisoners, including opposition leader Leopoldo López, has been met with international outrage, but to no avail. In addition, the military grows stronger by the day. Maduro has appointed General Vladimir Padrino López to lead the ‘Sovereign Supply Mission’, which put the military in charge of addressing shortages, inextricably linking the fates of the armed forces and the administration. Fears of military repression are stirring, though the military has no particular reason to prefer Maduro to his vice president. They will likely guarantee a delayed recall vote, but nothing more.

That’s what Venezuelan politics has been about for years now – delaying the inevitable. Maduro is no Chávez, and his successor won’t be either. There is a sense that Venezuela is coming to the end of an era. Latin America as a whole certainly is: the trend toward leftist, personalist leadership, the so-called ‘pink tide’ of which Chávez was the ringleader, has faded fast. Iconic left-wing leaders like Bolivia’s Evo Morales, Ecuador’s Rafael Correa, Brazil’s Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, and Argentina’s Néstor and Cristina Kirchner have all either been ousted or will soon step down. Moderate leaders, particularly Mauricio Macri in Argentina, are attempting a northward pivot and leaving Venezuela somewhat isolated in a region that it used to leading the way ideologically and economically.

In that sense, it is tempting to consider the end of the pink tide as a referendum on socialism. But the majority of Venezuelans remain socialist, if not exactly in the mould of Chávez’s ‘Bolivarian Revolution’, since the movement’s opposition is a complete hodgepodge of people dissatisfied with the status quo from left, right, and centre. The opposition coalition, called the Democratic Unity Roundtable, does not have much of a united agenda beyond the almost mythical desire for more democratic governance.

In fact, for many Venezuelans, this moment represents a crisis of leadership, not ideology. Eva María, a Venezuelan-born member of the International Socialist Organisation, recently wrote in Jacobin that ‘Chávez’s socialism only ever manifested itself rhetorically’. The problem with Venezuela was not socialism, but rather ‘the idea that socialism could be a state-led enterprise’. State leadership brings bureaucracy and corruption, and booming prices can only hide that rot for so long. The earlier commodities boom financed the state’s social programs without any of the associated bottom-up restructuring. And so with the economy has gone the goodwill toward this particular political leadership—but not necessarily the principles they ostensibly stand for.

Even if domestic politics are more complex, one would think that the collapse of Venezuela would produce a reckoning of sorts for the international left, perhaps a smaller-scale version of the one that followed the fall of the Soviet Union. James Bloodworth declaimed the ‘double standard’ on the British left—home to a small, but unflagging, Venezuelan Solidarity Campaign—which denounces political repression at home and overlooks it abroad. He says:

Anyone who is genuinely concerned about the poor (rather than simply interested in sloganeering on their behalf) is obliged to recognise just how bad the situation in Venezuela is becoming as a result of the policies pursued by the government.

Bloodworth is right about the silence. When Chávez called out imperialistic U.S. wars, the left smugly discovered their Latin American solidarity, happy to claim him as one of their own. Now, the left is quickly looking to unpack recent Venezuelan history in such a way that they can keep the rhetoric and discard the policy—which is exactly what they blamed Chávez for in the first place. He was socialist, until he wasn’t.

Unlike the Soviet Union, a superpower with a certain cultural cachet in its day, Venezuela is a sideshow on the world stage. It appears only occasionally, always in translation, to be used as a convenient political bludgeon with a little exotic colour. There is only one ideological reaction to this crisis that will matter in the long term though – that of the people of Venezuela.

Catherine Addington is a Ph.D. student and instructor in Spanish at the University of Virginia. Her writing has appeared in The American Conservative, First Things, and Unusual Efforts.


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From the Left

http://www.mintpressnews.com/us-led-economic-war-not-socialism-tearing-venezuela-apart/218335/

US-Led Economic War, Not Socialism, Is Tearing Venezuela Apart
Americans have been trained by decades of Cold War propaganda to look for any confirmation that ‘socialism means poverty.’ But in the case of Venezuela and other states not governed by the free market, this cliche simply doesn’t ring true.
By Caleb T. Maupin | July 12, 2016

Photograph -- A pro-government supporter wears a T-Shirt with image of Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez, as he waits for results during congressional elections in Caracas, Venezuela, Sunday, Dec. 6, 2015.


WASHINGTON — (ANALYSIS) The political and economic crisis facing Venezuela is being endlessly pointed to as proof of the superiority of the free market.

Images and portrayals of Venezuelans rioting in the streets over high food costs, empty grocery stores, medicine shortages, and overflowing garbage bins are the headlines, and the reporting points to socialism as the cause.

The Chicago Tribune published a Commentary piece titled: “A socialist revolution can ruin almost any country.” A headline on Reason’s Hit and Run blog proclaims: “Venezuelan socialism still a complete disaster.” The Week’s U.S. edition says: “Authoritarian socialism caused Venezuela’s collapse.”

Indeed, corporate-owned, mainstream media advises Americans to look at the inflation and food lines in Venezuela, and then repeat to themselves clichés they heard in elementary school about how “Communism just doesn’t work.”

In reality, millions of Venezuelans have seen their living conditions vastly improved through the Bolivarian process. The problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy are not due to some inherent fault in socialism, but to artificially low oil prices and sabotage by forces hostile to the revolution.

Starting in 2014, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia flooded the market with cheap oil. This is not a mere business decision, but a calculated move coordinated with U.S. and Israeli foreign policy goals. Despite not just losing money, but even falling deep into debt, the Saudi monarchy continues to expand its oil production apparatus. The result has been driving the price of oil down from $110 per barrel, to $28 in the early months of this year. The goal is to weaken these opponents of Wall Street, London, and Tel Aviv, whose economies are centered around oil and natural gas exports.

And Venezuela is one of those countries. Saudi efforts to drive down oil prices have drastically reduced Venezuela’s state budget and led to enormous consequences for the Venezuelan economy.

At the same time, private food processing and importing corporations have launched a coordinated campaign of sabotage. This, coupled with the weakening of a vitally important state sector of the economy, has resulted in inflation and food shortages. The artificially low oil prices have left the Venezuelan state cash-starved, prompting a crisis in the funding of the social programs that were key to strengthening the United Socialist Party.

Corruption is a big problem in Venezuela and many third-world countries. This was true prior to the Bolivarian process, as well as after Hugo Chavez launched his massive economic reforms. In situations of extreme poverty, people learn to take care of each other. People who work in government are almost expected to use their position to take care of their friends and family. Corruption is a big problem under any system, but it is much easier to tolerate in conditions of greater abundance. The problem has been magnified in Venezuela due to the drop in state revenue caused by the low oil prices and sabotage from food importers.

The Bolivarian experience in Venezuela

Americans have been trained by decades of Cold War propaganda to look for any confirmation that “socialism means poverty.” A quick, simplistic portrait of the problems currently facing Venezuela, coupled with the fact that President Nicolas Maduro describes himself as a Marxist, can certainly give them such a confirmation. However, the actual, undisputed history of socialist construction around the world, including recent decades in Venezuela, tells a completely different story.

Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1999. His election was viewed as a referendum on the extreme free market policies enacted in Venezuela during the 1990s. In December, when I walked through the neighborhoods of central Caracas, Venezuelans spoke of these times with horror.

Venezuelans told of how the privatizations mandated by the International Monetary Fund made life in Venezuela almost unlivable during the 1990s. Garbage wouldn’t be collected. Electricity would go off for weeks. Haido Ortega, a member of a local governing body in Venezuela, said: “Under previous governments we had to burn tires and go on strike just to get electricity, have the streets fixed, or get any investment.”

Chavez took office on a platform advocating a path between capitalism and socialism. He restructured the government-owned oil company so that the profits would go into the Venezuelan state, not the pockets of Wall Street corporations. With the proceeds of Venezuela’s oil exports, Chavez funded a huge apparatus of social programs.

After defeating an attempted coup against him in 2002, Chavez announced the goal of bringing Venezuela toward “21st Century Socialism.” Chavez quoted Marx and Lenin in his many TV addresses to the country, and mobilized the country around the goal of creating a prosperous, non-capitalist society.

In 1998, Venezuela had only 12 public universities, today it has 32. Cuban doctors were brought to Venezuela to provide free health care in community clinics. The government provides cooking and heating gas to low-income neighborhoods, and it’s launched a literacy campaign for uneducated adults.

During the George W. Bush administration, oil prices were the highest they had ever been. The destruction of Iraq, sanctions on Iran and Russia, strikes and turmoil in Nigeria — these events created a shortage on the international markets, driving prices up.

Big oil revenues enabled Chavez and the United Socialist Party to bring millions of Venezuelans out of poverty. Between 1995 and 2009, poverty and unemployment in Venezuela were both cut in half.

After the death of Chavez, Nicolas Maduro has continued the Bolivarian program. “Housing Missions” have been built across the country, providing low-income families in Venezuela with places to live. The Venezuelan government reports that over 1 million modern apartment buildings had been constructed by the end of 2015.

The problems currently facing Venezuela started in 2014. The already growing abundance of oil due to hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, was compounded by Saudi Arabia flooding the markets with cheap oil. The result: massive price drops. Despite facing a domestic fiscal crisis, Saudi Arabia continues to expand its oil production apparatus.

The price of oil remains low, as negotiations among OPEC states are taking place in the hopes that prices can be driven back up. While American media insists the low oil prices are just the natural cycle of the market at work, it’s rather convenient for U.S. foreign policy. Russia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and the Islamic Republic of Iran all have economies centered around state-owned oil companies and oil exports, and each of these countries has suffered the sting of low oil prices.

The leftist president of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff, has already been deposed due to scandal surrounding Petrobras, the state-owned oil company which is experiencing economic problems due to the falling price of oil. Although much of Brazil’s oil is for domestic consumption, it has been revealed that those who deposed her coordinated with the CIA and other forces in Washington and Wall Street, utilizing the economic fallout of low oil prices to bring down the Brazilian president.

The son of President Ronald Reagan has argued that Obama is intentionally driving down oil prices not just to weaken the Venezuelan economy, but also to tamper the influence of Russia and Iran. Writing for Townhall in 2014, Michael Reagan bragged that his father did the same thing to hurt the Soviet Union during the 1980s:

“Since selling oil was the source of the Kremlin’s wealth, my father got the Saudis to flood the market with cheap oil.

Lower oil prices devalued the ruble, causing the USSR to go bankrupt, which led to perestroika and Mikhail Gorbachev and the collapse of the Soviet Empire.”

The history of socialist construction

Prior to the 1917 revolution, Russia was a primitive, agrarian country. By 1936, after the completion of the Five-Year Plan, it was a world industrial power, surpassing every other country on the globe in terms of steel and tractor production. The barren Soviet countryside was lit up with electricity. The children of illiterate peasants across the Soviet Union grew up to be the scientists and engineers who first conquered outer space. The planned economy of the Soviet Union drastically improved the living standards of millions of people, bringing them running water, modern housing, guaranteed employment, and free education.

There is no contradiction between central planning and economic growth. In 1949, China had no steel industry. Today, more than half of all the world’s steel is produced in China’s government-controlled steel industry.

Cuba has wiped out illiteracy, and Cubans enjoy one of the highest life expectancies in Latin America.

When the Marxist-Leninist governments of Eastern Europe collapsed in the early 1990s, economists like Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who can be counted among capitalism’s “true believers,” predicted rapid economic growth. Since the 1990s, conditions in what George W. Bush called the “New Europe” have become far worse than under socialism. The life expectancy has decreased and infant mortality has risen. Human and drug traffickers have set up shop. In endless polls, the people of Eastern Europe repeatedly say life was better before the defeat of Communism.

Russia’s recovery from the disaster of the 1990s has come about with the reorientation of the economy to one centered around public control of its oil and natural gas resources — much like Venezuela. The Putin government has also waged a crackdown on the small number of “oligarchs” who became wealthy after the demise of the Soviet Union. Once strong state to control the economy was re-established, Russia’s gross domestic product increased by 70 percent during the first eight years of Putin’s administration. From 2000 to 2008, poverty was cut in half, and incomes doubled.

Neoliberal capitalism has failed

It is only because these facts are simply off-limits in the American media and its discussions of socialism and capitalism that the distorted narrative about Venezuela’s current hardships are believed.

Photograph -- tea_party_placard_obamafascism-001, American media has perpetuated a cold-war induced false narrative on the nature of socialism.

When discussing the merits of capitalism and socialism, American media usually restricts the conversation to pointing out that socialist countries in the third world have lower living standards than the United States, a country widely identified with capitalism. Without any context or fair comparison, this alone is supposed to prove the inherent superiority of U.S.-style capitalism.

If the kind of neoliberal “free trade” advocated by U.S. corporations was the solution to global poverty, Mexico, a country long ago penetrated with the North American Free Trade Agreement, would be a shining example of development, not a mess of drug cartels and poverty. The same can be said for oil-rich countries like Nigeria, where exports are massive but the population remains in dire conditions.

The governments of Bangladesh, Honduras, Guatemala, Indonesia, and the Philippines have done everything they can to deregulate the market and accommodate Western ”investment.” Despite the promises of neoliberal theoreticians, their populations have not seen their lives substantially improve.

If one compares the more market-oriented economy of the U.S., not to countries in the global south attempting to develop with a planned economy, but to other Western countries with more social-democratic governments, the inferiority of the “free market” can also be revealed.

The U.S. is rated 43 in the world in terms of life expectancy, according to the CIA World Factbook. People live longer in Germany, Britain, Spain, France, Sweden, Australia, Italy, Iceland — basically, almost every other Western country. Statistics on the rate of infant mortality say approximately the same thing. National health care services along with greater job security and economic protections render much healthier populations.

Even as the social-democratic welfare states of Europe drift closer to the U.S. economic model with “austerity cuts,” the U.S. still lags behind them in terms of basic societal health. Western European countries with powerful unions, strong socialist and labor parties, and less punitive criminal justice systems tend to have healthier societies.

The American perception that socialism or government intervention automatically create poverty, while a laissez faire approach unleashes limitless prosperity, is simply incorrect. Despite the current hardships, this reality is reflected in the last two decades of Venezuela’s history.

A punishment vote, not a vote for capitalism

The artificially low oil prices have left the Venezuelan state cash-starved, prompting a crisis in the funding of the social programs that were key to strengthening the United Socialist Party.

It is odd that the mainstream press blames “socialism” for the food problems in Venezuela, when the food distributors remain in the hands of private corporations. As Venezuelan political analyst Jesus Silva told me recently: “Most food in Venezuela is imported by private companies, they ask for dollars subsidized by the government oil sales to do that; they rarely produce anything or invest their own money.”

According to Silva, the economic sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the U.S., in addition to the oil crisis, have made it more difficult for the Venezuelan government to pay the private food importing companies in U.S. dollars. In response, the food companies are “running general sabotage.”

“Venezuela’s economy depends on oil sales. Now that oil prices are dropping down, the challenge is to get other sources of economic income,” he explained. “Meanwhile, the opposition is garnering electoral support due to the current economic crisis.”

When the United Socialist Party and its aligned Patriotic Pole lost control of Parliament in December, many predicted the imminent collapse of the Bolivarian government. However, months have passed and this clearly has not taken place.

While a clear majority cast a voto castigo (“punishment vote”) in December, punishing the government for mismanaging the crisis, the Maduro administration has a solid core of socialist activists who remain loyal to the Bolivarian project. Across Venezuela, communes have been established. Leftist activists live together and work in cooperatives. Many of them are armed and organized in “Bolivarian Militias” to defend the revolution.

Even some of the loudest critics of the Venezuelan government admit that it has greatly improved the situation in the country, despite the current hardships.

In December, I spoke to Glen Martinez, a radio host in Caracas who voted for the opposition. He dismissed the notion that free market capitalism would ever return to Venezuela. As he explained, most of the people who voted against the United Socialist Party — himself included — are frustrated with the way the current crisis is being handled, but do not want a return to the neoliberal economic model of the 1999s.

He said the economic reforms established during the Chavez administration would never be reversed. “We are not the same people we were before 1999,” Martinez insisted.

The United Socialist Party is currently engaging in a massive re-orientation, hoping to sharpen its response to economic sabotage and strengthen the socialist direction of the revolution. There is also talk of massive reform in the way the government operates, in order to prevent the extreme examples of corruption and mismanagement that are causing frustration among the population.

The climate is being intensified by a number of recent political assassinations. Tensions continue to exist on Venezuela’s border with the U.S.-aligned government of Colombia. The solid base of socialist activists is not going to let revolution be overturned, and tensions continue to rise. The Maduro and the United Socialist Party’s main task is to hold Venezuela together, and not let the country escalate into a state of civil war.

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The Real Causes?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela

Shortages in Venezuela
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shortages in Venezuela have been prevalent following the enactment of price controls and other policies during the economic policy of the Hugo Chávez government.[1][2] Under the economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro government, greater shortages occurred due to the Venezuelan government's policy of withholding United States dollars from importers with price controls.[3] Shortages occur in regulated products, such as milk, various types of meat, chicken, coffee, rice, oil, precooked flour, butter prices; and also basic necessities like toilet paper, personal hygiene products and medicine.[1][4][5] As a result of the shortages, Venezuelans must search for food, occasionally resorting to eating wild fruit or garbage, wait in lines for hours and sometimes settle without having certain products.[6][7][8][9][10]

History[edit]

Graph showing the food scarcity rate in Venezuela.
Sources: Central Bank of Venezuela,[11][12] Americas Society/Council of the Americas[13]
External image

Contrasting satellite images of Puerto Cabello in February 2012 and June 2015, showing import shortages.

Since the 1990s, food production in Venezuela has continuously dropped, with the Bolivarian government beginning to import food using the country's then-large oil profits.[13] In 2003, the government created CADIVI (now CENCOEX), a currency control board charged with handling foreign exchange procedures in order to control capital flight by placing currency limits on individuals.[14][15] Such currency controls have been determined to be the cause of shortages according to many economists and other experts.[16][17][18] However, the Venezuelan government blamed other entities for shortages, such as the CIA and the smugglers, and has stated that an "economic war" had been declared on Venezuela.[16][17][18][19][20][21][22]

Before the Nicolas Maduro presidency, Venezuela faced occasional shortages due to high inflation and financial inefficiencies of the government.[23] An increase in shortages began to occur in 2005, with 5% of items being unavailable according to the Central Bank of Venezuela.[24] In January 2008, 24.7% of goods were reported to not be available in Venezuela, with the scarcity of goods remaining high until May 2008, when there was a shortage of 16.3% of goods.[25] However, shortages increased again in January 2012 to nearly the same rate as in 2008.[25] Shortage rates continued to increase, and reached a new record high of 28% in February 2014.[26] Venezuela has stopped reporting its shortage data after the rate stood at 28%.[27] In January 2015, the hashtag AnaquelesVaciosEnVenezuela or EmptyShelvesInVenezuela was the number one trending topic on Twitter in Venezuela for two days, with Venezuelans posting pictures of empty store shelves around the country.[28][29]

File:Por qué hay desabastecimiento en Venezuela.ogv
Play media

A video with English subtitles produced for El Tiempo explaining the shortages.

In August 2015, American private intelligence agency company Stratfor used two satellite images of Puerto Cabello, Venezuela's main port of imported goods, to show how severe shortages became in Venezuela. One image from February 2012 showed the ports full of shipping containers when the Venezuelan government's spending was near a historic high for the 2012 Venezuela presidential election. A second image from June 2015 shows the port with much fewer containers, since the Venezuelan government could no longer afford to import goods, as oil revenues dropped.[23] At the end of 2015, it was estimated that there was a shortage of over 75% of goods in Venezuela.[30]

Into 2016, experts feared that Venezuela was possibly entering a period of famine, with President Maduro encouraging Venezuelans to cultivate their own food.[13] In January 2016, it was estimated, that the scarcity rate (indicador de escasez)[12] of food was between 50% and 80%.[13] The newly-elected National Assembly, primarily composed of opposition delegates, "declared a national food crisis" a month later in February 2016.[13] Many Venezuelans then began to suffer from shortages of common utilities, such as electricity and water due to the prolonged period of mishandling and corruption under the Maduro government.[31][32][33] By July 2016, Venezuelans desperate for food pressed onto the Colombian border with over 500 women storming past Venezuelan National Guard troops into Colombia for food on 6 July 2016.[34] By 10 July 2016, Venezuela temporarily opened its borders for 12 hours, which were closed since August 2015, with over 35,000 Venezuelans traveling to Colombia for food within the period.[35] Between 16-17 July, over 123,000 Venezuelans crossed into Colombia seeking food with the Colombian government setting up what it called a "humanitarian corridor" to welcome Venezuelans.[35]

Potential causes[edit]

CHART -- Currency and price controls[edit]

Blue line represents implied value of VEF compared to USD. The red line represents what the Venezuelan government officially rates the VEF.

*March/April 2013 data is missing

Sources: Banco Central de Venezuela, Dolar Paralelo, Federal Reserve Bank, International Monetary Fund.

In the first few years of Chavez's office, his newly created social programs required large payments in order to make the desired changes.[14] On February 5, 2003, the government created CADIVI, a currency control board charged with handling foreign exchange procedures.[14] Its creation was to control capital flight by placing limits on individuals and only offering them so much of a foreign currency.[14] The Chávez administration also enacted agricultural measures that caused food imports to rise dramatically, and such agricultural mainstays, such as beef, rice, and milk, slowing in domestic production.[36] With Venezuela's reliance on imports and its lack of having dollars to pay for such imports, shortages resulted.[37]

With such limits to foreign currency, a currency black market was created since Venezuelan merchants relied on the import of goods that require payments with reliable foreign currencies.[38] As Venezuela printed more money for their social programs, the bolívar continued to devalue for Venezuelan citizens and merchants since the government held the majority of the more reliable currencies.[38] Since merchants could only receive so much necessary foreign currency from the Venezuelan government, they had to resort to the black market, which in turn raises the merchant's prices on consumers.[39] The high rates in the black market make it difficult for businesses to purchase necessary goods or earn profits since the government often forces these businesses to make price cuts, such as Venezuelan McDonald's franchises offering a Big Mac meal for $10.90 in January 2014, though only making $1 at the black market rate needed for imports.[40] Since businesses made low profits, this led to shortages since they cannot afford to import or produce the goods that Venezuela is reliant on.[41][42]

With the short supply of foreign currencies and Venezuela's reliance on imports, debt is created. Without settling the outstanding debt, Venezuela could also not import materials necessary for domestic production. Without such imports, more shortages could be created since there would be a larger lack of production as well.[42]

Expropriations[edit]

According to economist Ángel Alayón, "the Venezuelan government has direct control over food distribution in Venezuela" and that the movement of all food, even among private companies, is controlled by the government.[42] Alayón states that the problem is not distribution, however, but production since "nobody can distribute what is not produced"[42] Expropriations performed by the Venezuelan government resulted in a drop in production in Venezuela.[42][43][44] According to Miguel Angel Santos, a researcher at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University, as a result of expropriations of private means of production since 2004, "production was destroyed", while a "wave of consumption based on imports" occurred when Venezuela had abundant oil money.[45]

Smuggling[edit]

In an interview with President Maduro by The Guardian, it was noted that a "significant proportion" of the subsidized basic goods in short supply were being smuggled into Colombia and sold for far higher prices.[46] The Venezuelan government claims that as much as 40% of the basic commodities it subsidizes for the domestic market are being smuggled out of the country, into neighboring countries, like Colombia, where they are sold at much higher prices.[19] However, economists disagree with the Venezuelan government's claim stating that only 10% of subsidized products are smuggled out of the country.[47] The creation of currency controls and subsidies were also noted by Reuters as being a main factor that contributes to smuggling.[48]

Food consumption[edit]

In 2013, President of the Venezuelan government's Instituto Nacional de Estadística (INE) Elias Eljuri suggested that all shortages in the country were due to Venezuelans' eating, saying that “95% of people eat three or more meals a day” while referencing a national survey.[49][50][51] Data provided by the Venezuelan government's statistical office instead showed that in 2013, food consumption by Venezuelans actually decreased.[52]

Rationing[edit]

Photograph -- Empty shelves in a store due to shortages. March 2014.

Food[edit]

Economists state that the Venezuelan government began rationing in 2014 due to multiple issues, including an unproductive domestic industry that has been negatively affected by nationalizations and government intervention, and confusing currency controls that made it unable to provide the dollars importers need to pay for the majority of basic products that enter Venezuela.[47] According to Venezuelan residents, the government also rations public water to those who use water over 108 hours a week due to the nation's poor water delivery systems.[47] Gasoline is also rationed in Venezuela allegedly due to smuggling of the subsidized Venezuelan gasoline to Colombia where it is sold for a higher price.[47]

In February 2014, the government stated that it had confiscated more than 3,500 tons of contraband on the border with Colombia—food and fuel which, it said, was intended for "smuggling" or "speculation." The President of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, said that the confiscated food should be given to the Venezuelan people, and should not be “in the hands of these gangsters.”[53] One month later, President Maduro introduced a new "biometric card" that requires the users fingerprint called Tarjeta de Abastecimiento Seguro for purchases in state-run supermarkets or participating businesses that is allegedly meant to combat smuggling and price speculation.[54][55] It has been described as being both like loyalty programs and a rationing card.[56][57][58] In May 2014, months after the card was introduced, it was reported that 503,000 Venezuelans had registered for the card.[59] In August 2014, it was reported that the Tarjeta de Abastecimiento Seguro failed to go past the trial phase and that another "biometric card" was going to be developed according to President Maduro.[60]

Soon thereafter, in August 2014, President Maduro announced the creation of a new voluntary fingerprint scanning system that was allegedly aimed at combating food shortages and smuggling.[61][62] The Venezuelan government announced that 17,000 troops would be deployed along its border with Colombia,[63] where they will assist in closing down traffic each night to strengthen anti-smuggling efforts.[64][65] The effect of the nightly closings will be assessed after 30 days.[19] Following large shortages in January 2015, Makro announced that some stores would begin using fingerprint systems and that customers would be rationed both daily and monthly.[66]

Utilities[edit]

"The blackouts are just more evidence of an utterly dysfunctional government ... This is a government that is not governing."

Michael Shifter, president of Inter-American Dialogue[33]

Rationing of utilities of electricity and water began to increase into 2016. Shortages of water in Venezuela resulted in the Bolivarian government mandating the rationing of water, with many Venezuelans no longer being able to freely have water enter their homes and instead relied on the government to provide water a few times monthly. Desperate Venezuelans often displayed their frustrations through protests and began to steal water "from swimming pools, public buildings, and even tanker trucks" in order to survive.[67] Due to the shortages of water, there were "increased cases of diseases such as scabies, malaria, diarrhea and amoebiasis in the country", according to Miguel Viscuña, Director of Epidemiology of the Health Corporation of Central Miranda[68]

Venezuela also experienced shortages of electricity and was plagued by common blackouts. On 6 April 2016, President Maduro ordered public workers to not go to work believing it would cut down on energy consumption.[33] However, the workers actually used more energy at their homes using air condition, electronics and appliances.[69] On 20 April 2016, the government ordered the rationing of electricity in ten Venezuelan states, including the capital city of Caracas; a week after moving Venezuela's time zone ahead and telling Venezuelan women to stop using hairdryers, all attempts to curb electricity usage.[70] Two days later on 22 April 2016, minister of electricity, Luis Motta Dominguez, announced that beginning the next week, forced blackouts were to occur throughout Venezuela four hours per day for the next 40 days.[33]

Reaction to rationing[edit]

Venezuelan consumers mainly had negative feelings toward the fingerprint rationing system, stating that it created longer lines; especially when fingerprint machines malfunctioned, and that the system does nothing to relieve shortages because it only overlooks the large economic changes that the country needed to make.[47] Following the announcement of the fingerprint system, protests broke out in multiple cities in Venezuela denouncing the proposed move.[71][72][73][74] The MUD opposition coalition called on Venezuelans to reject the new fingerprinting system and called on supporters to hold a nationwide cacerolazo[75][76] that were primarily heard in traditionally government opposing areas.[74] Students in Zulia state also demonstrated against the proposed system.[77] Lorenzo Mendoza, the president of Empresas Polar, Venezuela's largest food producer, expressed his disagreement with the proposed system, saying it would penalize 28 million Venezuelans for the smuggling carried out by just a few.[78] Days after the announcement, the Venezuelan government scaled back its plans on implementing the new system, saying the system is now voluntary and is only for 23 basic goods.[79]

Despite the displeasure of the system, in an October 2014 Wall Street Journal article, it was reported that the fingerprint rationing system expanded to more state owned markets.[47]

Effects[edit]

Shoppers waiting in line at a Mercal store for government subsidized products. March 2014.

Arbitrage and hoarding[edit]

As a result of the shortages and price controls, arbitrage (or bachaqueo), the ability to buy low and sell high, was created in Venezuela.[42] Goods subsidized by the Venezuelan government and smuggled out of the country where they are sold for a profit are an example of this.[46] Hoarding had also increased as consumers in Venezuela grew nervous of shortages.[42]

Crime[edit]

Due to shortages of particular goods, violent thefts had occurred in Venezuela so individuals can acquire those items. Venezuelan motorcycle organizations have reported that motorcyclists have been murdered for their motorcycles due to the shortage of motorcycles and spare parts. There have also been reports of Venezuelan authorities being killed for their weapons and trucks full of goods being attacked in order to steal desired merchandise inside of them.[80]

Hunger[edit]

The Bolivarian government originally took pride in its reduction of malnutrition when it had oil revenues to resource its social spending in the 2000s.[86] However by 2016, the majority of Venezuelans were eating less[13][87] and spending the majority of their wages on food.[88]

The New York Times stated in their article Venezuelans Ransack Stores as Hunger Grips the Nation that "Venezuela is convulsing from hunger ... The nation is anxiously searching for ways to feed itself".[89] The hunger Venezuelans often experienced resulted in growing discontent that culminated into protests and looting.[88][89]

"The Maduro Diet"[edit]

While suffering from lack of food due to the shortages under President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuelans called their weight loss from malnourishment and hunger the "Maduro Diet".[86] The "diet" was described as "a collective and forced diet"[90] with many Venezuelans resorting on extreme measures to feed themselves, including eating garbage,[8][9] wild fruits[10] and selling personal possessions.[91]

. . . .

Statistics[edit]

In February 2015, there was an 80-90% shortage rate of milk (powdered and liquid), margarine, butter, sugar, beef, chicken, pasta, cheese, corn flour, wheat flour, oil, rice, coffee, toilet paper, diapers, laundry detergent, bar soap, bleach, dish, shampoo and soap toilet.[97]

In March 2016, it was estimated that 87% of Venezuelans are consuming less due to the shortages. There was a 50% to 80% rate of food shortages with 80% of medicine was in short supply or not available.[13]



https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-wary-venezuela-opens-tourist-dollars-071723669.html

US-wary Venezuela opens up to tourist dollars
Carola Sole•
September 10, 2016

Photograph -- The Venezuelan government controls the supply of dollars, outlawing transactions in greenbacks and fixing an official exchange rate (AFP Photo/Juan Barreto)


Caracas (AFP) - A cash crisis has forced Venezuela's socialist government to ease its currency restrictions by letting tourists pay their hotel bills in dollars with bank cards.

Recent foreign visitors to Venezuela have got used to cramming into their pockets and backpacks unwieldy wads of bolivars, the local currency.

President Nicolas Maduro has accused the United States of waging "economic war" against his country. The Venezuelan government controls the supply of dollars, outlawing transactions in greenbacks and fixing an official exchange rate.

But it needs dollars to buy crucial imports -- and the economic crisis that erupted in 2014, causing food shortages, riots and looting, has left it dangerously short of greenbacks.

"It needs foreign currency and is looking at all the ways it can maximize its dollar holdings," said Asdrubal Oliveros, director of the consultancy Econanalitica.

- Hotels need dollars -

The luxury Eurobuilding hotel in Caracas in June became the first to start charging in dollars under the new scheme.

Meanwhile on the country's top tourist destination, the Caribbean island of Margarita, hotels are rushing to get the paperwork done.

"It was essential that they permit this kind of transaction so tourists can pay with their credit cards and so hotels can get the dollars for what they need to import," said the president of the Margarita hotels' association, Martin Espinosa.

- Limits of tourism -

The measure came into force six months ago but the complex banking procedures needed to get permission to charge in dollars take time.

The hotels may keep 40 percent of the dollars they receive to buy imported goods for running their business. The rest they must sell to the central bank.

Analysts are skeptical about how much good it will do.

Venezuela received about a million foreign visitors in 2014, before the worst of the crisis hit.

If each of those spent $100 a day for a week, as the government estimates, that could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars a year -- a fraction of Venezuela's $12.5 billion of overseas commercial debt.

Despite the attraction of the country's pristine beaches and mountains, the number of visitors is expected to decline as violence and instability mounts.

"Tourism is not one of the main generators of foreign currency" in Venezuela, said Oliveros.

"It will not provide a long-term solution."

- Inflation -

Foreigners visiting Venezuela used to live like kings, changing their dollars into bolivars at the black market exchange rate.

But high inflation has now all but wiped out that advantage, sending prices in shops and restaurants soaring.

Tourists risk paying more if they use their bank cards to pay for services billed at official exchange rates.

"This is going to be a disadvantage to tourists. They benefited in a way from the difference between the official rate and the black market rate," said Oliveros.

"So a lot of people now might think twice before coming."

- 'Unsustainable' currency rules -

The government fixes a low exchange rate for the purchase of essential goods, but those are in short supply at official shops. Black market retailers sell them at big mark-up.

The International Monetary Fund forecasts that inflation in Venezuela will top 700 percent this year.

"The exchange rate controls have exploded. They are no longer sustainable," said Angel Garcia Banchs, director of the consultancy Econometrica.

"What we are seeing now is an experiment. It will not substantially change anything."