Posted on 05/01/2018 10:47:10 AM PDT by Red Badger
CARACAS (AFP) -
When Yolanda Abreu got her check for severance pay after five years working as a cardiologist, she let out a laugh of sheer disbelief: it was barely enough for a cup of coffee.
Like her, millions of Venezuelans have seen their salaries decimated by rampant hyperinflation that is expected to drive prices up by 13,000 percent this year, IMF figures show.
Her story hit the headlines after she tweeted a photo of the check for 156,584.29 bolivars, which equates to about $0.20 on the black market.
"They called me from Caracas University Hospital to come and collect my check for benefits accrued over five years of service as a level 2 specialist in cardiology and electrophysiology," she wrote on Twitter.
And what will it buy, she wondered indignantly. "A coffee?"
If she had received the check when she resigned in January 2017, it would have been worth $45.
But her severance pay was decimated by the country's chronic hyperinflation and the accelerated collapse of the bolivar.
Within a week, her indignant outburst had been retweeted 11,000 times, and commented on more than 1,400 times, with many relating similar stories or empathizing: "Friend, they robbed you blind."
"I never thought it would have such an impact. I wrote it because the check was so ridiculous that it made me laugh, and suddenly you find so many people who feel like you that all your work, your effort is just disregarded," she told AFP.
- 'Hopeless cause' -
On the eve of International Workers Day, Venezuela's embattled President Nicolas Maduro moved to double the monthly minimum wage, raising it by 95.4 percent to 2,555,500 bolivars -- or $37 (30 euros), according to the central bank's official DICOM rate.
But access to such a favorable rate is very limited for Venezuelan citizens and companies, meaning they have to use the black market where the same sum is worth just $3.20 -- just about enough for two kilos (4.4 pounds) of chicken.
It is the 22nd such readjustment by Maduro, the self- declared "workers' president" who took office in 2013 following the death of Hugo Chavez.
"In times of revolution, as never before, the policy of comandante Hugo Chavez, which I have perfected... is to care for the working class," said Maduro, who will seek reelection when Venezuela goes to the polls for a controversial presidential election on May 20 -- which the opposition is boycotting.
With the country facing its worst economic crisis in decades, the government has accused Washington and the opposition of waging an "economic war" on Venezuela in a bid to overthrow Maduro.
For Asdrubal Oliveros, an analyst with consultancy Ecoanalitica, the constant hiking of salaries is "a hopeless cause" in the face of such inflation without correcting the imbalances in the Venezuelan economy, which is running a fiscal deficit of an estimated 20 percent of GDP that the government is trying to resolve through printing money.
A graduate of the Central University of Venezuela -- the country's best -- who went on to do specialized studies in Madrid, Abreu has borne the brunt of such a policy.
She survives through offering private consultations, but still works in public hospitals "to help train" junior doctors.
"You almost have to pay to work. It is painful to see them graduate and leave, but I understand. We are not a bunch of money-grabbing quacks, you just can't live on these salaries," she says.
According to a joint university study carried out with the Medical Federation, 40 percent of graduate surgeons have left Venezuela over the past decade in an exodus driven by the socioeconomic crisis.
And a study by the country's main universities found that in 2017, some 87 percent of the people were living in poverty, despite government statistics claiming the figure stands at 23 percent.
- 'Delusion' -
The cost the so-called fixed basket of goods -- tracked to measure the cost of living -- has just soared.
When Maduro took over in 2013, it was 32.4 percent of the monthly income. Today the figure stands at around 60 percent, although that has come down from previous highs of around 70 percent.
Speaking to AFP, Marcela Maspero of the UNETE, one of Venezuela's biggest unions, described the measure as a "delusion" because it undermines the basis for calculation of employee benefits.
For this reason, after retiring from 16 years of work as a university professor, Mery Rojas could scarcely afford to buy two liters of ice cream with the money she invested in a ministry of education savings scheme.
And it was five years before she could draw on that.
Like Abreu, she let out a bitter laugh of frustration.
"I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," she told AFP.
Ain’t socialism grand.
Socialism / communism is a death cult that sows murder and chaos everywhere it goes.
Not sure why she’s complaining. She got a massive pay raise.
The whole country is getting massive pay raises.
>> the check for 156,584.29 bolivars, which equates to about $0.20 on the black market.
They can get a coffee for $0.20 in Venezuela? And how much do people pay at Starbucks in the States? No doubt, Bernie will be claiming that as a win for socialism...
Capitalism is a hundred grand..................
She can still laugh because as a cardiologist, she has skills she can offer on the black market, or sell for large bribes from patients at whatever government hospital she may be at.
That's how the system works in socialist countries.
Yeah, they got a whole bunch of guys named Juan Valdez .................
If they keep deflating the dollar this is coming to the USA. If Trump wants MAGA then Make the Dollar Great Again (MDGA) that’s why we have cents. America makes cents, not pennies.
Bernie....your paradise awaits you. Sell your 3 homes and move down there.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
Foreign and domestic plunder ALERT!
Wake up, Venezuelans. MVGA.
He's right about the "perfected" part. The rest, not so much.
20 cents—””And what will it buy, she wondered indignantly. “A coffee?”
Not at Starbux.
It would still be overpriced....................
Methinks Venezuela is on the list after NK and Iran.
Venezuelans are ripe for a Ceausescu Solution................
I was going through some shoeboxes of unsorted stamps my late father left us, and I came across about a hundred from Weimar Germany. The series starts out normal enough, but the stamps quickly rise from pfennigs to marks to tens and hundreds of marks before they just started overprinting the new values on older stamps. The largest denomination stamp I’ve found so far is 2 BILLION marks.
The Iranians and Cubans in Venezuela undoubtedly get paid in gold, emeralds, oil and cocaine, not bolivars.
The Iranians and Cubans in Venezuela are paid by their home countries................
How many years or decades will be get a Hollywood film about the lessons of Venezuela?
Venezuelans rather made their own bed, IMHO.
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