Free Republic

If misery loves company, then at least Venezuela is located in the right corner of the globe. A recent study projects that the South American nation has far and away the world's most miserable economy in 2016, nearly four times worse off than second-place Argentina. A survey conducted by Bloomberg Business using the "misery index" projects that Venezuela in 2016 will continue to worsen. Bloomberg estimates that Venezuela's inflation rate will rise from 98.3 percent last year to 152 percent in 2016. Argentina, another South American nation that has flirted with socialist economic policies, is facing many similar problems. With...

Venezuela sent $1.3 billion worth of gold bars to Switzerland in mid-January, according to data from the Swiss Federal Customs Administration. That gold was shipped out just weeks before two big debt payments due this month, totaling $2.3 billion. On Friday alone, Venezuela has to pay bondholders $1.5 billion. Venezuela is running out of cash and many experts believe there's a high chance it will default by this fall when a string of big debt payments are due. "It's a question of when Venezuela will default, not if," says Russ Dallen, managing partner at LatInvest, a firm that invests in...

Years of crippling socialist policies have left Venezuela so bereft of food, average Venezuelans must spent up to six hours waiting in line to received their allotted rations of basic goods like vegetable oil, flour, or milk. Musician Jonathan Acosta has offered to help ease the frustration by visiting supermarkets and performing for those waiting in line.

Three years ago today, I wept for my friend Chavez and myself, for the people of Venezuela and the world.In 2006, shortly after my first peace camp in Crawford, Texas to confront the person who I felt murdered my son Casey: George Bush, I was invited to Caracas, Venezuela to attend the World Social Forum. Amazingly, at the time I really had no idea that the World Social Forum was about socialism, and I really didn't know much more about President Hugo Chavez other than that he was a very vocal opponent of my opponents: George Bush and the U.S....

CARACAS, Venezuela — Venezuelan workers will get Fridays off for the next two months as part of an emergency plan to save electricity, the president said. Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves, but its economy is a mess, with rampant inflation, shortages of goods as basic as soap and toilet paper, and constant blackouts. Now, because of a severe drought that has left levels at hydroelectric dams at extremely low levels, to save on electricity the government is effectively shutting the labor force down for a three-day weekend, starting Friday and lasting until June 6. The decision was...

“Welcome to the Maiquetia Simón Bolívar International Airport,” said the stewardess with a metallic voice as our plane touched down on Venezuelan soil. The excitement of a family reunion and anguish over the situation in the country shook me out of a brief sleep after eight hours flying from Paris. I was coming back to my country after three years of absence, in the company of my almost-2-year-old daughter and her father. The two most important people in my life were going to depend on me for 15 days traveling in Venezuela, a place increasingly unknown to me and radically...

Private gun ownership was banned in Venezuela in June 2012, but their homicide rate went from 73 per 100,000 people in 2012 to 82 per 100,000 people in 2015. The BBC seriously repeats the Venezuelan government’s claim that the ban is an “attempt by the government to improve security and cut crime.” The ban was preceded by an amnesty to get people to turn in their guns. The video gives some idea of what life is like in Venezuela these days. As the homicide rate was already rising before the gun ban and Venezuela is such a mess of a...

Venezuela's government has said it will turn off electricity supply in its 10 most populous states for four hours a day for at least 40 days to deal with a severe power shortage.(Snip)Recently, the country's main brewery Polar, which is part of Venezuela's largest cooperative Empresas Polar, announced that it would stop production as a result of financial difficulties. The company, which produces 80 percent of the country's beer, says thousands of workers will lose their jobs as a result of the stoppage.

Venezuelans grumbling over the scarcity of food and toilet paper may soon face another shortage, beer produced by Empresas Polar SA., the country’s largest private company and biggest beer maker. Polar said on Thursday that it will be forced to stop producing beer next week because it cannot get the U.S. dollars, which are controlled by the government, to import the malted barley needed to brew. Under Venezuela’s stringent currency exchange system, only the government can legally control dollars, which companies need to import raw materials, food, machine parts and other supplies.

Caracas (AFP) - Fridges zapped off in kitchens across Venezuela as the government turned off the electricity supply to help ease a power shortage that is worsening the country's economic crisis.It is the latest drastic measure by the government in a crisis that already has Venezuelans queuing for hours to buy scarce supplies in shops.The government imposed a four-hour blackout in eight states starting Monday and said the measure will last 40 days. The states of Caracas and Vargas had also been on the list for blackouts but were spared at the last minute.The timing of the switch-off caught Pedro...

A disturbing video of a crowd physically beating each other to get at a select few bags of onions outside a supermarket in Venezuela highlights the struggle the average Venezuelan must endure to keep his or her family fed in the increasingly impoverished socialist nation.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Venezuelan cities cleaned up from a night of looting and fiery protests Wednesday as government offices closed their doors for the rest of the week in the face of a worsening energy crisis that is causing daily blackouts. The socialist administration began imposing a four-hour daily blackout around the country this week to save power. Then on Tuesday, President Nicolas Maduro announced that millions of officials will now work only Monday and Tuesday.

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Food Producers Alert They Have Only 15 Days Left of Inventory amid Rampant Inflation. Despair and violence is taking over Venezuela. The economic crisis sweeping the nation means people have to withstand widespread shortages of staple products, medicine, and food. So when the Maduro administration began rationing electricity this week, leaving entire cities in the dark for up to 4 hours every day, discontent gave way to social unrest. On April 26, people took to the streets in three Venezuelan states, looting stores to find food. Maracaibo, in the western state of Zulia, is the epicenter of thefts: on Tuesday...