Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Starving in Venezuela

socialism, we will get it right this time .


"Traveling through the country this month I saw endless queues of people trying to buy food - any food - at supermarkets and other government-run shops.

I was stopped at a roadblock in the middle of the countryside by people who said they had eaten nothing but mangoes for three days.

I saw the hopeless expression of a mother, who had been eating so little that she was no longer able to breastfeed her baby.

I met a women affectionately known as la gorda - "the fat one" - whose protruding cheekbones indicated just how much weight she had lost in the last year.

I felt sympathy for all these people, but it was my family who really brought it home to me.

My brother told me all his trousers were now too big. My father - never one to grumble - let slip that things were "really tough". My mother, meanwhile, confessed that sometimes she only eats once a day. They all live in different parts of Venezuela, but none of them is getting enough to eat. It's a nationwide problem.
Image caption The roadblock erected by people who have been surviving on mangoes

A study by three of the country's main universities indicates that 90% of Venezuelans are eating less than they did last year and that "extreme poverty" has jumped by 53% since 2014.

There are a number of causes - shortages of basic goods, bad management, a host of speculators and hoarders, and a severe drop in the country's oil income.

Plus, of course, the highest inflation rate in the world.

The country's official inflation rate was 180% in December, the last time a figure was made public, but the IMF estimates it will be above 700% by the end of the year.
Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption Inflation obliges Venezuelans to carry fistfuls of banknotes

In an attempt to stop speculators and hoarders, the government years ago fixed the price of many basic goods, such as flour, chicken, or bread. But Venezuelans can only buy the goods at these fixed prices once a week, depending on the final digit of the number on their national identity card. If it's 0 or 1, for example, then you're allowed to buy on Mondays. For 2 or 3, it's Tuesdays, and so on.

Because there is a risk of the goods running out, people often arrive at supermarkets in the early hours of the morning, or even earlier. At 6am one morning in Caracas, I met a man who had already been in the queue for three hours. It was pouring with rain, and he didn't have an umbrella.

"I'm hoping to get rice, but sometimes I've queued and then been unable to buy anything because the rice runs out before I get in," he said.

Even if they are lucky, shoppers are only allowed a restricted amount of items per day. Those who can't get enough have to wait a full week until their turn comes round again - the tills will automatically reject anyone's shopping if they arrive on the wrong day ............"



http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36913991

When your entire economy is based upon a single product-Thick Oil and that product tanks your in trouble. Venezuela has never been a safe place for investment and is a wonderful example of how socialism can fail....Feel the Burn yet?

lack of food will cut down on their TP requirement. it will all work out in the end. they just need to get used to eating less. good news is they can get diesel for like 3 cents a gallon.

They also ordered all able bodied people to work on the farms for a period of 60-120 days to increase food production.

Only the "political elite" part of Caracas has electricity 7x24, and I'll bet they have plenty of food also. Socialism just a way to control a population while enriching the elite. I think the people of Venezuela might be realizing there mistake, I predict a change of guard soon.

the hell with the Venezuelans. They voted in these commie fuggers, and they can life with it.
I run into a bunch of the 'elite' ones in Miami. Snotty, full of themselves, obnoxious.

With a socialist government and an economy almost totally dependent on oil, it is no wonder that the economy collapsed when oil prices collapsed.

When Chavez took power they were dancing in the streets like democrats that just nominated hiLIARy. I feel sorry for the little kids, only.

My GAS factor DGAF. Actions have consequences.

As a founding member of opec, where are their brethren?

Socialism sounds real good when they vote for it. Free s h i t. But then you have to live with the consequences.

Hard to work up much sympathy.

That is a bit of a reach don't ya think? Kinda like Trumps claim that 1,000's and 1,000's of Muslims were dancing in the New Jersey streets after 9/11?

there's nothin' quite like free troops (draftee types) in a war congealed into action by the mic (military industrial complex).

venezeula got sucked under by the allure of free money from the oil pumped from under the earth.

they're ahead of the game. it's likely to happen to many more people from other countries. i feel sorry for the rank & file.

Do you know what socialists used to light their homes before candles? Light bulbs!

Surely New Jersey only has a dozen or so museums. They aren't that sophisticated are they to have 1000s?

Each man is a museum unto himself.

You can bet bunches of them are headed our way.

lol. ve humans were originally designed to be capitalists. no doubt.

when the socialists came along we swayed off the road, and fell by the way side.

the only good museum is a dead museum

Venezuela has experienced the worst that Capitalism has to offer. They're now experiencing the worst that Socialism has to offer.

And Chavez's daughter is the wealthiest person in Venezuela. Odd coincidence, don't you think?

George Orwell spelled out how socialism handles inequality in his book "Animal Farm" many years ago:

'All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others."