Socialist paradise Venezuela introduces food rationing

jank

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/02/us-venezuela-food-idUSBREA410PJ20140502

(Reuters) - President Nicolas Maduro is introducing a controversial shopping card intended to combat Venezuela's food shortages but decried by critics as a Cuban-style policy illustrating the failure of his socialist policies.

The late Chavez is credited with vastly improving the availability of food to the poor during his 14-year-rule through subsidized grocery stores.

The network expanded thanks to rising oil revenue and nationalizations of private supermarkets, boosting consumption of protein and helping Venezuelans eat more and better.

But his policies also paved the way for today's food supply problems. Currency controls have restricted dollars available to import wheat, milk and toilet paper.

Stringent price controls often require products to be sold below cost, pushing many merchants to sell unregulated goods.

Just goes to show that time and again when the state interferes and tries to centrally manage an economy disaster awaits around the corner. Those old enough can remember images of long lines of people queing for basic food products in Russia and the old eastern block. Similar lines can now been seen in Venezuela in 2014. Needless to say things will get worse before it gets better but the end is nigh if history is to be any judge.

darkpagandeath

Were not doing much better and were a capitalist paradise. top 1% have 10% of the wealth.

hjkl

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Were not doing much better and were a capitalist paradise. top 1% have 10% of the wealth.

No we're not. We're a mixture of both capitalism and socialism.

darkpagandeath

frimpong wrote: »

No we're not. We're a mixture of both capitalism and socialism.

Socialist minority in government, How many of their policy's have been implemented since they came in ? And is the Troika not capitalist they have been effectively running the country for the last number of years.

OneEightSeven

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Were not doing much better and were a capitalist paradise. top 1% have 10% of the wealth.

You're just grumpy because you didn't get your food rations today.

pO1Neil

Weren't the scientists at Leinster house handing out cheese to our population on the dole a year or two ago?

darkpagandeath

Was that not the EU cheese

hjkl

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Socialist minority in government, How many of their policy's have been implemented since they came in ? And is the Troika not capitalist they have been effectively running the country for the last number of years.

Ireland is not pure capitalist. No European country is. If the country was pure capitalist there would be no social welfare, child benefit, social housing, student grants etc.

pO1Neil

frimpong wrote: »

Ireland is not pure capitalist. No European country is. If the country was pure capitalist there would be no social welfare, child benefit, social housing, student grants etc.

Do any workers in a EU country control the means of production yet?

I am pie

Anyone misguided enough to think Ireland isn't much better than Venezuela should pay a visit to Caracas whereupon reality would kick them square in the face.

Perspective is a scarce quality.

hjkl

pO1Neil wrote: »

Do any workers in a EU country control the means of production yet?

No that would be a pure socialist system, which we also do not have.

A few people on this thread seem to be having trouble understanding that the world isn't black and white.

jank

I am pie wrote: »

Anyone misguided enough to think Ireland isn't much better than Venezuela should pay a visit to Caracas whereupon reality would kick them square in the face.

Perspective is a scarce quality.

If there ever was a government program I would support it would be a 'cultural' exchange program whereby the biggest moaners and whingers are flown to places like Venezuela or Cambodia or India or mulitple places in Africa and see what real poverty actually looks like. They will all go home with a sense of perspective and thank their lucky stars that they were born in a country that has given them so much...

Gyalist

How about for some context to this post? Are the Venezuelan government just doing it for the craic?

titan18

frimpong wrote: »

Ireland is not pure capitalist. No European country is. If the country was pure capitalist there would be no social welfare, child benefit, social housing, student grants etc.

I'd love to live in that country.

Arthur Beesley

We Irish don't know how good we have it.

bumper234

jank wrote: »

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/02/us-venezuela-food-idUSBREA410PJ20140502





Just goes to show that time and again when the state interferes and tries to centrally manage an economy disaster awaits around the corner. Those old enough can remember images of long lines of people queing for basic food products in Russia and the old eastern block. Similar lines can now been seen in Venezuela in 2014. Needless to say things will get worse before it gets better but the end is nigh if history is to be any judge.

In before some regular posters claim that this report is only being released now because it is politically motivated to undermine sinn fein in the run up.to the European elections

Guy:Incognito

pO1Neil wrote: »

Weren't the scientists at Leinster house handing out cheese to our population on the dole a year or two ago?

No. But the EU have all over Europe for years.

It's just funnier to say "oh look at those silly paddys give the people free cheese"

Guy:Incognito

titan18 wrote: »

I'd love to live in that country.

Till you ended up out of work, sick , with kids to educate and pay for.

Blowfish

Gyalist wrote: »

How about for some context to this post? Are the Venezuelan government just doing it for the craic?

The Venezuelan government nationalized (read stole) a lot of resources from private companies. Predictably enough, they then mismanaged them horribly, including using the governments energy company as a piggy bank to try and keep their exchange rate low.

It worked...for a bit, but the mismanagement (oil production is slowly dropping), distortion of the market (through price controls) and disincentive to invest (why invest in setting up a company if the government is just going to steal it from you through 'nationalisation'?) has caused to Venezuelan economy to weaken to the point that the official exchange rate (6.3 bolivars to the dollar) is an order of magnitude off (on the black market, it's 80-90 to the dollar). Anything imported is getting more and more expensive for the ordinary Venezuelan and now we've reached the point where food is getting too expensive for them.

Guy:Incognito

Blowfish wrote: »

The Venezuelan government nationalized (read stole) a lot of resources from private companies. Predictably enough, they then mismanaged them horribly, including using the governments energy company as a piggy bank to try and keep their exchange rate low.

It worked...for a bit, but the mismanagement (oil production is slowly dropping), distortion of the market (through price controls) and disincentive to invest (why invest in setting up a company if the government is just going to steal it from you through 'nationalisation'?) has caused to Venezuelan economy to weaken to the point that the official exchange rate (6.3 bolivars to the dollar) is an order of magnitude off (on the black market, it's 80-90 to the dollar). Anything imported is getting more and more expensive for the ordinary Venezuelan and now we've reached the point where food is getting too expensive for them.

I see their problem right there. Their currency seems to be Bolivian people.

Tail Docker

jank wrote: »

Just goes to show that time and again when the state interferes and tries to centrally manage an economy disaster awaits around the corner. Those old enough can remember images of long lines of people queing for basic food products in Russia and the old eastern block. Similar lines can now been seen in Venezuela in 2014. Needless to say things will get worse before it gets better but the end is nigh if history is to be any judge.

Depends entirely on which State you meant by "Interferes". If you meant outside states, fair enough - the Venezuelans are much shat-upon by bigger powers..

Mayweather vs Maidana

Cue an end endless debate about what real capitalism and socialism are and how there are no true examples of them.

Allowing the government to run businesses generally speaking is a bad idea, it is inefficient and wastes resources, allowing profit maximisers to run businesses is a much more leads to a more efficient use of resources, which ultimately is what wealth is.

Blowfish

Tail Docker wrote: »

Depends entirely on which State you meant by "Interferes". If you meant outside states, fair enough - the Venezuelans are much shat-upon by bigger powers..

Their GDP is growing and they've a significant trade surplus, yet there are shortages of even the basics of food, medicine and electricity, why do you think that is? It wasn't any outside states that caused this, but the Venezuelan governments ludicrous economic controls.

Gyalist

Tail Docker wrote: »

Depends entirely on which State you meant by "Interferes". If you meant outside states, fair enough - the Venezuelans are much shat-upon by bigger powers..

Indeed. These days these outside powers don't even need to invade. They do it by setting up Trojan Horse NGOs who, ostensibly, are meant to be spreading democracy but end up funding and promoting regime change.

wendell borton

pO1Neil wrote: »

Do any workers in a EU country control the means of production yet?

It not a failure of socialism but of democratic centralism.

There was a very successful co-op movement in this country like Kerry and glanbia who are world players now , but have become limited companies and now are just another multi national looking to make a quick buck keep the shareholders happy.
A return to genuine co-op's is the only way rural Ireland can be sustainably in the future for small farmers and sme's.

Boombastic

pO1Neil wrote: »

Weren't the scientists at Leinster house handing out cheese to our population on the dole a year or two ago?

it had nothing to do with if you were on the dole or not, it was given on the basis of who you know I got a couple of kgs of it.





Venezuela should take a leaf out of our book, imagining giving it to everyone :rolleyes: don't they realise some of us are more worthy of free stuff than others?

Calibos

Ship the Anti-Austerity crowd over there on the first junket. We haven't had any austerity in this country. We've had reduced spending and bringing back some taxes/charges that exist in every other developed country but which we got rid of over the last few decades to buy elections. Unfortunate they all had to be brought back in such a short space of time but not unfortunate that they were brought back. The evil Troika? Yes, so evil they gave us enough breathing room to bring our budget deficit back to sane levels without having to impose much if any austerity at all. Our children will be paying for this/the evil bondbholders for ever??? Our children always have and always will have a national debt to pay off. Its just that our gob****e government with their policies effectively blew the last 2 decades of paying the NB down and reset the national debt to 1990 levels. We paid it down in the last 2 decades and after the reset we'll pay it down again. No biggie!!

We don't know how lucky we are in this country compared to the rest of the 'West' never mind how lucky the 'West' is compared to the 'Rest'

drumswan

Calibos wrote: »

We paid it down in the last 2 decades and after the reset we'll pay it down again. No biggie!!

Can you explain how we pay down a debt of 180bn while running a deficit so?

We are an economic basket case, need to be looking closer to home before disparaging other countries economies.

wes

How is this any different than the proliferation of food banks across the UK for example? Its seems extremes in both systems are failures.

suicide_circus

I live near an "english school" whose "students" are almost exclusively Venezuelan. Things must be rough there if they're coming to this economy to "learn english".

Wibbs

titan18 wrote: »

I'd love to live in that country.

I wouldn't. Sure it sounds great when you're doing OK while working hard watching some on social welfare apparently having it "handed to them on a plate" and yes that shít needs looking at. That said the danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater is very high.

The way I see it is this; life isn't fair. However I also see the evolution of human society is or should be an attempt to mitigate that truism by various means, socially. economically and scientifically as much as possible. Not much more than a century ago and in the west not far off half of the people reading this wouldn't have made it to their 20th birthday. Not fair. Science(and economics) stepped in and now that "unfairness" has been massively overturned and a more level playing field in longevity is in play and few would argue that this hasn't been a major achievement. If one was to apply a pure dog eat dog, survival of the fittest type philosophy then this would never have happened.

Access to education is another area where most of western society has attempted and mostly succeeded in leveling the playing field.

Access to housing ditto.

The problem is where it's taken too far in both "pure" socialist and "pure" capitalist philosophies. Both philosophies have many merits, the trick is to apply the right merits to the problems of society. Going one way or the other won't. As Wes points out extremes in both systems are failures(though I'd not equate the UK with a purely capitalist society or anything like it). Fairness is always the casualty.