Posted on 05/16/2013 6:11:14 AM PDT by grundle
First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities toilet paper.
Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.
One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.
"I've been looking for it for two weeks," said Cristina Ramos. "I was told that they had some here and now I'm in line."
Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency.
"State-controlled prices prices that are set below market-clearing price always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union," said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.
President Nicolás Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chávez to carry on his "Bolivarian revolution", claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilise the country.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
50m roll - sorry
When we lived in Japan, there was even a truck which came around to give away TP as an incentive for saving your newspapers and magazines.
Your typical stack which could be carried out to the truck in one hand would garner you a roll. A large bundle which required both hands to carry would get you two or more.
My brother worked one winter vacation in India helping build houses for Habitat for Humanity. The local shop sold single rolls for about US$0.50 which, coincidentally, was the typical take home pay for a day laborer then. So I suppose they would use it very sparingly.
Kind of makes sense. Our government has been blowing smoke up our ass*s for the last five and a half years, too.
Don't recall that one, but, then again, my mom was a major TP hoarder as far back as I can remember. She used to pack a bunch in their car when they would make the Snowbird run from Mass. to Fla. in November.
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Well I won’t say where I have been, but I heard there is a country that still has a TP problem. Every where you go there is a person sitting at a card table inside the bathroom with a roll of TP selling squares off it. You give them $1 and they give you 2 squares. No rolls at all in any stalls. People on planes going in from other countries carry large black trash bags full of partially used rolls home.
If Venezuela were run by real liberals, like we have in NYC, they would ban eating and eliminate the need for toilet paper.
I saw a documentary once about one of our AWOL defectors who decided to stay in Red China at the end of the Korean War. The ChiComs put him to work in a toilet paper recycling plant. The fool was from someplace around here....Vandergrift, PA, I think.
Here you go, info on the Toilet Paper Shortage of ‘73
http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/trivia74.html
Sorry. I don’t have a square to spare.
Heck! I think I used 50 million rolls last week while prepping for Endo!
Venezuela ... send us all your 5.56, .223 Rem, 9mm, and .22LR ammo and we will send toilet paper right away.
As in used toilet paper? Not used paper to be recycled into toilet paper?
If so, he must have been Patricia Bin Murray dumb x 10.
I ordered gobs of adult potty wipes from Walmart....I do not know what they are, but I bet you could throw them at JBT’s and escape! Maybe?
“I ordered gobs of adult potty wipes from Walmart....I do not know what they are,...”
If you don’t know what they are but ordered them anyway, you are really, really, dumb.
Have they run out of Chavez posters, too?
Couldn’t they just use old Chavez speeches? They are already full of crap.
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