Venezuela's Crash: There's No Toilet Paper In Caracas

[Rumred]

does it matter if they have no toilet paper?

all reports indicate they dont even have chickens.....


so no food, no poop... rite?

Too soon!!!

On Topic: I think their big issue was misuse of their funds when oil was booming. They didn't invest in other sectors so when the oil market crashed they had nothing at all to fall back on.

[Adam Jensen]

Oh for fuck sake OP.

Sanders' policies have more in common with European social democracies like in Scandinavia than with Venezuela. What the fuck is up with all the "Venezuela is bad therefore socialism and Sanders is bad" threads lately?

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This is where socialist say it has nothing to do with socialism, but if other places do bad it is due to capitalism.

Venezuela's problems are in part due to corruption. There are plenty of other mixed economies similar to what Bernie espouses that are doing quite well.

[Endus]

Oh for fuck sake OP.

Sanders' policies have more in common with European social democracies like in Scandinavia than with Venezuela. What the fuck is up with all the "Venezuela is bad therefore socialism and Sanders is bad" threads lately?

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Venezuela's problems are in part due to corruption. There are plenty of other mixed economies similar to what Bernie espouses that are doing quite well.

It's just so silly. They act like any suggestion of any socialist policy at any level, in any form, means you're advocating for complete government control of the entire economy and government ownership of all companies forever. It's no different than the equally loony argument that capitalism will always result in a Mad Max style might-makes-right economy where most people starve for the success of the CEOligarchs. Both are nonsense, and the people making those arguments should be soundly ignored.

[Deleted]

Venezuela was running out of toilet paper months ago, but I guess they've now reached rock bottom.

Although history has proven time and again that things can never be so bad that socialism couldn't make them worse.

[Accelerate]

On another site I go to, I gave a guy from Venezuela $50USD last week, he couldn't thank me enough. First time I have done that and probably the last, just seemed like a top dude who wanted no part of what his government did and never supported it to begin with.

Those $50 would translate to up to 54,000 Bolivares, not a fortune, but enough to feed a family for a month, mind you that the average person earns approximately $20-30usd per month, so an extra $50 would've been a great relief for him.

South America has had this infatuation with leftist governments for the past decade or so, now we're all collectively getting sick of it. Argentina had a change of Government to a right-leaning one, Brazil is about to impeach their leftist president (she's already suspended)

does it matter if they have no toilet paper?

all reports indicate they dont even have chickens.....


so no food, no poop... rite?

lol, tell that to a mother that can't even find milk for their baby though, not like there's diapers. :/

Which reminds me, there's places here that will only sell diapers to people if you bring the baby's birth certificate, or if the baby hasn't been born yet, a medical report or scan that proves the existence of said baby.

[RickJamesLich]

http://www.onenewspage.us/video/2016...ie-Sanders.htm

Just because I know everyone brings up Sanders in these things, the President of Venezuela feels Bernie Sanders would be a great choice for the US and heavily endorses his friend.

[Bushtuckrman]

Oh for fuck sake OP.

Sanders' policies have more in common with European social democracies like in Scandinavia than with Venezuela. What the fuck is up with all the "Venezuela is bad therefore socialism and Sanders is bad" threads lately?

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Venezuela's problems are in part due to corruption. There are plenty of other mixed economies similar to what Bernie espouses that are doing quite well.

Bernies plans will impact the middle class mostly and while most will be worse off, capitalism will keep on churning regardless as more and more manufacturing goes offshore or south of the border. Though arguing about Bernie becoming president is pointless and has been this entire election cycle, nobody was going to beat Hillary as the dems nominee.

[Accelerate]

Just because I know everyone brings up Sanders in these things, the President of Venezuela feels Bernie Sanders would be a great choice for the US and heavily endorses his friend.

It is common talk here that our President killed any chance of Bernie winning the nomination with that comment, not because people give a damn to what our president has to say about it, but because he jinxed Bernie, if there's any Hillary supporters here, you're welcome .

As for the people saying "oh no any mention of socialism this and that bawwww", put yourself in our situation, 18 years of Socialism and this is the result. We want to get off Mr. Socialist's wild ride. Brazil is getting off it, Argentina too, perhaps we shall soon enough, no matter the outcome we've lost our Nation to Socialism.

about 50 years ago or so, when Venezuela's oil business was just starting, a famous person here said we should not rely on it, for it is the Devil's excrement, and that we should instead "plant" the oil to grow other things, he was mocked and ridiculed, in the end he was right.

[RickJamesLich]

It is common talk here that our President killed any chance of Bernie winning the nomination with that comment, not because people give a damn to what our president has to say about it, but because he jinxed Bernie, if there's any Hillary supporters here, you're welcome .

As for the people saying "oh no any mention of socialism this and that bawwww", put yourself in our situation, 18 years of Socialism and this is the result. We want to get off Mr. Socialist's wild ride. Brazil is getting off it, Argentina too, perhaps we shall soon enough, no matter the outcome we've lost our Nation to Socialism.

about 50 years ago or so, when Venezuela's oil business was just starting, a famous person here said we should not rely on it, for it is the Devil's excrement, and that we should instead "plant" the oil to grow other things, he was mocked and ridiculed, in the end he was right.

It's interesting to see folks from Venezuela actually post and discuss this topic. I've seen videos and such that show *massive* waits to get inside grocery stores, is this true? I've also heard that there is very little food in the grocery stores and that it is expensive, is there any truth here?

I ask because I've also heard that a lot of the food is smuggled out of the country, and part of the reason why is because it's so cheap. I was confused on this, because some sources say that flour for example is incredibly expensive, but on the flip side, other countries are buying the food because of the low prices? Is this related to the inflation?

[Mahourai]

Unlike unrepentant cranks such as Sanders -- blame George Orwell, not us, for tagging socialists with the "crank" label -- these countries repented of their evil economic ways.

Considering Orwell was a socialist, this seems rather misleading.

[Accelerate]

It's interesting to see folks from Venezuela actually post and discuss this topic. I've seen videos and such that show *massive* waits to get inside grocery stores, is this true? I've also heard that there is very little food in the grocery stores and that it is expensive, is there any truth here?

I ask because I've also heard that a lot of the food is smuggled out of the country, and part of the reason why is because it's so cheap. I was confused on this, because some sources say that flour for example is incredibly expensive, but on the flip side, other countries are buying the food because of the low prices? Is this related to the inflation?

Its true, all of it. There are places where they've banned waiting in line while the store is closed, people would start to wait outside since midnight (like you Americans do for your new iPhone or cowadooty, but we do it everyday for food)

Everyday food is more and more expensive, 500grams of ham + 500grams of cheese + bread (if you can find it LOL) is already well over 25% of your average salary.

The so called "regulated" products (toilet paper, sugar, butter, flour, toiletries, etc) if you manage to find them, are sold to you if your ID number ends in the day's allowed number (for instance mine ends in 8, I am allowed to buy them only on Fridays), your fingerprint is scanned on EVERY purchase, and you get locked out of purchasing them if you already bought them this week.

The food was at some point being smuggled out to Colombia, because the Government decreed fixed prices on say, toothpaste, butter, toilet paper, flour, etc, people would buy cheap, smuggle out to Colombia, and sell for more, bring the money back, rinse and repeat.

The border between Venezuela and Colombia is closed for like a year now, the only way food is being "smuggled" out is due to complicity between the people doing it and the National Guard. It still doesn't provide enough justification as to why there's food and product shortages on non border States, so the Government has slowly abandoned this excuse, the current excuse is that "Companies produce bigger presentation of products, simplifying the production, selling the same product in less amounts" (they run propaganda on this nonstop)

What they will never tell you is that the Government has seized a lot of companies, neither of which is producing jack shit anymore.

so when you add fixed prices (forcing companies to sell at a loss) + companies not being able to freely exchange currency to import materials to produce stuff, resulting to black market prices + insane "Socialist" laws, this is the end result.

There's constant reports of looting in several Cities now, but there is a complete Media Blackout (Government owns a lot of Media, the rest has self censored)

There is a Socialist Law since 2010 that banned Video Games and "Belligerent" toys, because they're the "main cause of inciting violence thus raising crime", I wish I was joking, I seriously fucking wish.

The Government propaganda is truly nauseating, Chavez's signature, face etc is everywhere, he is the "Supreme/Eternal Commander" they turned the military garrison he hid at when there he did a failed coup in 1992 into his own Temple, I probably should find three magic relics and an ocarina to see what happens if I bring them there and play the song of time, try to watch a stream of Venezolana de Television VTV, and slowly descend into this madness.

It would take me 200 years of saving in order to buy my own place, 150 more years if I wanted a car, but hey, we have the world's cheapest gasoline pricing!

No one is engaging in relationships because it is simply too much money, no one is having kids for the same reason (condoms are hard to find too).

If you want to get surgery in our Socialist Public Health hospitals, you must bring every single supply, from serums to syringes, good luck finding any of those.

[SunspotAnims]

I'm pretty sure economic systems can work more like a spectrum than a binary thing, and I'm also pretty sure that going too far in either direction tends to result in bad things happening. It's almost like it's smart to balance separate ideas in a moderate fashion so they complement each other rather than work against each other.

Though bear in mind this is more of a comment on the discussion going on in this thread than on the situation this thread is supposedly about, as I'm aware a few vague words of wisdom can't really end a nation's economic crisis.

[Adam Jensen]

It's just so silly. They act like any suggestion of any socialist policy at any level, in any form, means you're advocating for complete government control of the entire economy and government ownership of all companies forever. It's no different than the equally loony argument that capitalism will always result in a Mad Max style might-makes-right economy where most people starve for the success of the CEOligarchs. Both are nonsense, and the people making those arguments should be soundly ignored.

It's almost as if capitalism and socialism are on a spectrum . . .

[RickJamesLich]

Its true, all of it. There are places where they've banned waiting in line while the store is closed, people would start to wait outside since midnight (like you Americans do for your new iPhone or cowadooty, but we do it everyday for food)

Everyday food is more and more expensive, 500grams of ham + 500grams of cheese + bread (if you can find it LOL) is already well over 25% of your average salary.

The so called "regulated" products (toilet paper, sugar, butter, flour, toiletries, etc) if you manage to find them, are sold to you if your ID number ends in the day's allowed number (for instance mine ends in 8, I am allowed to buy them only on Fridays), your fingerprint is scanned on EVERY purchase, and you get locked out of purchasing them if you already bought them this week.

The food was at some point being smuggled out to Colombia, because the Government decreed fixed prices on say, toothpaste, butter, toilet paper, flour, etc, people would buy cheap, smuggle out to Colombia, and sell for more, bring the money back, rinse and repeat.

The border between Venezuela and Colombia is closed for like a year now, the only way food is being "smuggled" out is due to complicity between the people doing it and the National Guard. It still doesn't provide enough justification as to why there's food and product shortages on non border States, so the Government has slowly abandoned this excuse, the current excuse is that "Companies produce bigger presentation of products, simplifying the production, selling the same product in less amounts" (they run propaganda on this nonstop)

What they will never tell you is that the Government has seized a lot of companies, neither of which is producing jack shit anymore.

so when you add fixed prices (forcing companies to sell at a loss) + companies not being able to freely exchange currency to import materials to produce stuff, resulting to black market prices + insane "Socialist" laws, this is the end result.

There's constant reports of looting in several Cities now, but there is a complete Media Blackout (Government owns a lot of Media, the rest has self censored)

There is a Socialist Law since 2010 that banned Video Games and "Belligerent" toys, because they're the "main cause of inciting violence thus raising crime", I wish I was joking, I seriously fucking wish.

The Government propaganda is truly nauseating, Chavez's signature, face etc is everywhere, he is the "Supreme/Eternal Commander" they turned the military garrison he hid at when there he did a failed coup in 1992 into his own Temple, I probably should find three magic relics and an ocarina to see what happens if I bring them there and play the song of time, try to watch a stream of Venezolana de Television VTV, and slowly descend into this madness.

It would take me 200 years of saving in order to buy my own place, 150 more years if I wanted a car, but hey, we have the world's cheapest gasoline pricing!

No one is engaging in relationships because it is simply too much money, no one is having kids for the same reason (condoms are hard to find too).

If you want to get surgery in our Socialist Public Health hospitals, you must bring every single supply, from serums to syringes, good luck finding any of those.

Thanks for sharing the information, man it's crazy how bad that is. I've heard that Maduro is slowly losing power but it's almost impossible to get rid of him since he has a lot of loyal people in the government, in particular in courts, which is the only place where they can actually do it. Have you considered leaving? I'm imagining that would be extremely difficult to do but is it possible?

Just a few more questions:

- You mentioned the government controls a lot of the small businesses. How is this done? Does the government just literally come in and pretty much say "we are taking over"? Do they offer the businesses money or anything in return at least?

- Also, does the government not report when they take over a business through the media? I mean is it generally kept secret?

- Are the people generally aware that the government is massively corrupt? Or does the propaganda actually fool some people into believing that Maduro is doing a good job?

Thanks again man, I hope you stay safe.

[Orbitus]

Nailed it

http://www.investors.com/politics/co...-its-supplies/

ocialism has found in Venezuela the bottom that socialism always finds. The country is now running out of toilet paper. And food. And medicine. All this want in an extraordinarily oil-rich nation with eight times the crude reserves found in the U.S. and maybe the most in the world.

Venezuela is Bernie Sanders' kind of country. The semi-Democrat likes to say that the version of socialism he advocates is the sort found in Scandinavia, where everyone is taken care of. But the fact is those countries tried welfare statism and found that it didn't work.

Unlike unrepentant cranks such as Sanders -- blame George Orwell, not us, for tagging socialists with the "crank" label -- these countries repented of their evil economic ways. Sweden has reformed its system, while Denmark has told Sanders to stop smearing its market economy as a socialist program in which "it is very hard to become very, very rich, but it's pretty hard to be very, very poor."

Neither one is fully a capitalist nation -- no country, not even the U.S., is -- but they have moved on from their socialist mistakes.

So Sanders is stuck with Venezuela. He's even been named by the country's president Nicolas Maduro as "our revolutionary friend."


But he's tried to create some distance between its failure and his never-ending high-school fixation with government-mandated fairness. When asked about the country's socialist crash, he avoided answering a hard but highly relevant question by saying, "I am very interested, but right now I'm running for president of the United States."

Earlier in the campaign Sanders said he was "not looking at Venezuela ... not looking at Cuba" when endorsing "democratic socialism." But that's the new Bernie Sanders who's running for president and can't afford to appear to be the radical he is. The truth is, Paul Sperry writes, Sanders has a "radical pro-communist past" and even took "goodwill" trips to the U.S.S.R., Cuba and Sandinista Nicaragua. He has also recommended Castro and the Daniel Ortega regime in Managua.

Socialism is actually just another name for misery. Everywhere it's been genuinely tried, the people it's supposed to have benefited have suffered: Venezuela, Cuba, Red China, the Soviet Union. Maybe Sanders' rabid supporters would be willing to help the deprived of Venezuela by sending them toilet paper, which capitalist nations have in abundance. They could even send deodorant, too -- but it would have to be a single brand.

Remember, Sanders is the bossy nabob who has gone on record as saying Americans "don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants." Yes, that's socialism -- and someone who's never outgrown his teen fling with the myth of a worker's paradise -- talking.

Again, this isn't a problem with socialism, this is a problem with doing 90% of your economy with OIL ALONE. They put all their eggs in one basket and that is it. We have already had this discussion before with a similar thread by someone who apparently doesn't understand what happened. Just like you did here supertony.

[THE Bigzoman]

Venezuela is a dictatorship. Dictatorships tend to end up badly, regardless of the economical system they feature; Venezuelan model is just extremely ineffective and ultra-centralized, aimed to serve the interests of the ruling class. Saying that Venezuela is an argument against democratic socialism is like saying that modern Russia is an argument against democratic capitalism.

Also, I see no reason to dig in Sanders' past; people change, their preferences change, political views change.

That said, I don't support Sanders, and I do not like the government to interfere in economy too much - but your point of criticism doesn't seem very relevant to me.

Their government was very anti capitalist.

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Again, this isn't a problem with socialism, this is a problem with doing 90% of your economy with OIL ALONE. They put all their eggs in one basket and that is it. We have already had this discussion before with a similar thread by someone who apparently doesn't understand what happened. Just like you did here supertony.

They also decided to seize most foreign assets. So their prospects of any kind of meaningful growth are shot barring intervention from the IMF.

This isn't just an issue with oil prices dropping. This shitstorm was years in the making because of things aside from the global market.

Economies go through booms and busts. Well no fucking shit. These busts become an even bigger issue when your government mismanages the money made during economic booms and decides to piss off foreign investors propping their growth.

Advocating for distribution of wealth in a growing country like Chavez did is fucking retarded. It's like taking a pizza out the oven half cooked and distributing the only well cooked slice among 10 people. You need produce a high quantity of output first before even worrying about its distribution.

[Accelerate]

Thanks for sharing the information, man it's crazy how bad that is. I've heard that Maduro is slowly losing power but it's almost impossible to get rid of him since he has a lot of loyal people in the government, in particular in courts, which is the only place where they can actually do it.

A quick rundown of the whole court/congress thing, bear with me its a big long:

-Congress is elected every 5 years, from 2010 to 2015 Socialist Party had the majority, people are getting tired of this shit so in our last Congress elections (Dec 06, 2015), Socialist party only won 55 out of 167, meanwhile the opposition won 99 + the 3 seats that belong to indigenous representation. Depending on what you want to do you need certain amounts of majority (Like half +1 for some stuff, 2/3rds for some, more major stuff)

-the members of the Justice Court have to be reelected by congress, the Socialist party didn't do it when it was the right time to do so, they did vote for new members of the Court days before their mandate expired (last days of December 2015, the new Congress began on Jan 5) of course they choosed people that supports the Socialist Party (one guy literally voted for himself and now he's a Judge).

-Seeing as the opposition had enough congressmen for the really big changes, including calling for a re foundation of the Nation (which would allow to rewrite the constitution, call for new elections of President, Governors, Major, Congress et all, exactly what Chavez did in 2000), they came up with some bs injunction of three congressmen elected in the state of Amazonas, thus these 3 guys could not be sworn into office while the injuction is resolved, therefore no 2/3rds majority.

-Current Congress can't pass new laws since they are all blocked by the Socialist Party controlled Court, Congress sessions are a flame/qqfest you'd expect from a bunch of kids, except these are all grown up adults, it doesn't help that opposition is also a bunch of retards and that the only reason they had such a high amount of votes is because people are sick of the Socialist Party.

-Our constitution says that when an elected official, including the President, has spent at least half of its term, the people can call for an election to remove said person from office. Maduro's term officially hit this threshold on March, so the process to start this election began (you need 20% of the registered electors to sign the petition)

-the Electoral Center (also gov't controlled) is stalling the process in every single step, the Socialist Party is trying to denounce that the signatures are fake etc. The whole purpose is to attempt to stall this election till next year because if the referendum is this year and Maduro looses, new elections must take place to choose a President. however, if its next year, the Vicepresident is the one that ends his term until 2019.

Have you considered leaving? I'm imagining that would be extremely difficult to do but is it possible?

There isn't a single day when I don't think about bailing this country, its as simple as buying a plane ticket, but good luck affording them now, airlines are stopping services here (Lufthansa being the latest), USA Embassy has stopped issuing visas here, and you need a considerable amount of cash to start anew in a new country in addition to all the legal requirements if you do want to immigrate legally, so not everyone can afford leaving, we're stuck in a prison-country basically.

- You mentioned the government controls a lot of the small businesses. How is this done? Does the government just literally come in and pretty much say "we are taking over"? Do they offer the businesses money or anything in return at least?

They don't take over small business, they've expropriated a lot of large companies that once used to produce, from supermarkets, to construction companies, airlines, you name it. Some where paid, others not. Small business are heavily punished and scrutinized, the slightest mistake ends in very high fines, 72 hour forced closures etc.

- Are the people generally aware that the government is massively corrupt? Or does the propaganda actually fool some people into believing that Maduro is doing a good job?

There are people that actually believe in the propaganda, that our current economical situation is due to an "economic warfare originated from Imperial forces in conjunction with local businessmen and oligarchs" and all that bs. Some naturally don't believe in it, some ignore it because they have hefty benefits/contracts/etc, the military are pretty much under socialist control, almost as a sort of first class citizen group.

But you have to understand that we do have poor people that have had nothing before, and they do have received benefits, but even then they're slowly starting to realize the truth.

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Their government was very anti capitalist.

Advocating for distribution of wealth in a growing country like Chavez did is fucking retarded. It's like taking a pizza out the oven half cooked and distributing the only well cooked slice among 10 people. You need produce a high quantity of output first before even worrying about its distribution.

He also bailed Cuba, Argentina, Nicaragua, among others, gave cheap oil to caribbean countries with a 40 year payback timeline, that's why you see some of these nations fellating and defending Venezuela on the Organization of American States, UNASUR and other groups.

You can imagine Maduro's salt when the Cuba-US relationship talks began recently.

[Crispin]

Atleast it's positive that Americans are starting to realise, that Scandinavian countries arent socialist countries.

[tss]

Hey dummies, pointing out that this article is an opinion isn't an argument against it.

[Blobfish]

Well i wont be shaking hands with any Venezuelan's until they sort this matter out