Venezuela Is Falling Apart. Scenes from daily life in the failing state
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
The resource I'm reading is www.caracaschronicles.com. The article I'm specifically referring to is [0].
Basically, when oil prices were high, the government would subsidize everything extremely heavily. They would give a lot of cash directly to consumers on a card (in the article).
The card was supposedly to buy international goods (trips abroad), but Venezuelans would then go to Colombia where there would be merchants to do all the paperwork and just give them the cash value on the card minus a cut.
Of course the government was extremely popular and got elected by landslide victories. Now, once oil prices/the economy tanked, the government did other stuff to try to curry favor with the electorate.
They would go into electronic stores and demand immediate 30% price cuts on luxury goods, like flat screen TVs, to basically legally buy votes. Once the in-stock goods sold out, guess what? Nobody wanted to produce or import goods to Venezuela for no profit. So the store shelves stay bare, and they claim an international economic war for the hardships.
But it's still technically a democracy until recently, because one person, one vote, and the government gave out massive handouts.
[0] https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-cuc...
They also have large popular support. And the troubles are not exactly their fault, at least not in the way the foreign sources picture it.
And when one reads stories like the one below (with which the article starts), it's almost always BS naive propaganda and there's a far more coherent reason behind the whole story:
"Toilet-paper theft may sound like a farce, but it’s a serious matter for the entrepreneur: Failing to stock the restrooms puts him in violation of his agreement with the union, and that puts his factory at risk of a prolonged strike, which in turn could lead to its being seized by the socialist government under the increasingly unpopular President Nicolas Maduro."
I'm keen to believe this, since it's close to past real events I know of from eastern Europe. Shortage of basic goods, massive queues for toilet paper, barter and stealing small things from public/work places, "I know a guy" access to important resources, gov enforcing only the selected rules convenient at the time.
Nah, we just got tired of doing dance-therapy protests on highways after 17yrs of trying to oust the communists. So most of the people how could leave, left.
The last remaining support the government has is from corrupt military or those people so poor that they are dependent on small government handouts.
After 18 years of the highest oil prices there is no reason for Venezuela to have people regularly eating from the trash or looting food trucks in the highways, even while the trucks are moving.[1][2] [1]https://twitter.com/victoria1039fm/status/841661359569932288 [2]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4cdtXrCId4
It's not just toilet paper that is scarce. It's everything. From food to medicine.
And the cycle continues...
Apparently things are even worse now.