Posted on 01/31/2015 6:28:40 AM PST by thackney
Mary Noriega heard there would be chicken.
She hated being herded “like cattle,” she said, standing for hours in a line of more than 1,500 people hoping to buy food, as soldiers with side arms checked identification cards to make sure no one tried to buy basic items more than once or twice a week.
But Ms. Noriega, a laboratory assistant with three children, said she had no choice, ticking off the inventory in her depleted refrigerator: coffee and corn flour. Things had gotten so bad, she said, that she had begun bartering with neighbors to put food on the table.
“We always knew that this year would start badly, but I think this is super bad,” Ms. Noriega said.
Venezuelans have put up with shortages and long lines for years. But as the price of oil, the country’s main export, has plunged, the situation has grown so dire that the government has sent troops to patrol huge lines snaking for blocks. Some states have barred people from waiting outside stores overnight, and government officials are posted near entrances, ready to arrest shoppers who cheat the rationing system.
Because Venezuela is so dependent on oil sales to buy imports of food, medicine and many other basics, the drop in oil prices means that there is even less hard currency to buy what the country needs....
One of the nation’s most prestigious public hospitals shut down its heart surgery unit for weeks because of shortages of medical supplies. Some drugs have been out of stock for months, and at least one clinic performed heart operations only by smuggling in a vital drug from the United States. Diapers are so coveted that some shoppers carry the birth certificates of their children in case stores demand them.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
But socialism works! We just have to give Obama a chance!
You’re just an evil capitalist pig!
The US media wants to blame Venezuela’s problems on the price of petroleum, which it is not.
The real culprit is Venezuela’s socialist dictatorship, but don’t tell the New York Times.
So what are you complaining about lady? I saw a bunch of dog food and puppy chow on the shelves. Eat some of that.
I guess when this happens in the US, we'll be hearing "I've always been an Obamista - I voted for him a bunch of times!"
"We have to keep him in Presidente."
The NYSlimes are also tacitly admitting that Venezuela’s entire lifeline normally are the proceeds of overpriced oil,
That’s because the entire passenger complement would probably be kidnapped for ransom.
The oil price is the "other people's money" that Venezuela socialism no longer is able to take.
And nationalize the ship....
They should print more money, problem solved. This story will never be in the NYT or any other Marxist rag.
Pray America is waking
I would have long since gone back to cloth diapers. I’m old enough to remember them. I used to hang them in the sun to bleach out the stains. Right now I’m reading The Book Thief about a young girl in Nazi Germany. Lack of food was a constant issue. hmmm. I think I’ll go check the pantry. We’ve started making our own dog food so that has depleted some cans of stuff.
It continues to amaze me that people want more socialism. Yet, we see time and time again that it always ends the same way. The eventual collapse of the country subscribing to those policies: Venezuela, Greece, Argentina, USSR, Nicaragua, North Korea, etc.
It just never works.
UHhhmmm.... This article is the New York Times....
She asked for it.
She got it.
What a mess!
“She asked for it.
She got it.”
Good and hard, apparently. Mencken was right.
L
I will be in Poland next week. The shelves are overflowing with affordable goods despite the crash in oil prices. Venezuela ran out od other people’s money.
Venezuela should have been one of the richest countries in all of South America just from its extensive oil reserves. But their zeal for a socialist state ruined everything, and it may take reforms like what happened in China in the early 1980’s to bring that country back.
There will be blood.
And not just in Venezuela.
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