Venezuela's 'socialist paradise' turns into a nightmare: medical shortages claim lives (shortened)

The Telegraph ^ | 2/3/15 | Peter Foster,

[Kartographer]

Mr Chavez might be dead, but as one of Latin America’s most charismatic political performers, he is far from forgotten.

His placid features still stare out from billboards in Caracas, while Venezuelan television still plays his rambling speeches denouncing America, capitalism and the West.

He promised the people the riches of the revolution, and for a while he was able to deliver, thanks to his country being blessed with the world’s largest proven oil reserves.

[blam]

"Learned that first hand as a young adult during Nixon’s Price Controls"

Me too. I was working at Signetics when my wages were frozen. We 'got-around' that problem by giving me a promotion which was legal to give an increase in salary after a promotion.

LOL. Everyone that was an engineer got promoted to senior engineer,senior technician, etc.

[greeneyes]

We were teaching, and our wages really were frozen. No way around it. Hubby already had quite a few years in by then, and the retirement was going to be good since we were contributing 10% with an employer match.

So I quit, and went to work for a bank. I got a 65% raise counting benefits. So that got us out of the cash flow mess.
All the benefit plans were non-contributory, so the Employer paid those (except social security).

They also had deferred comp which was voluntary, which later became a 401K with match, and replaced the Stock plan with a voluntary plan which they matched. We had the best benefits package for banking in the entire St. Louis area.

At any rate, it got us through the Nixon years without some of the pain everyone else went through.