Blog: My Venezuela Nightmare: A 30-day hunt for food in a starving land

jthomas666

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Aug 14, 2002
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Anyone who can should cultivate a small garden in their back yard, if for no other reason than to better appreciate the effort and land required to grow all of the produce you see in your local grocery store. It is a staggering revelation.
 

Displaced Bama Fan

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Jun 5, 2000
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Anyone who can should cultivate a small garden in their back yard, if for no other reason than to better appreciate the effort and land required to grow all of the produce you see in your local grocery store. It is a staggering revelation.
Even just tomatoes, beans, and potatoes. 3 easy veggies to grow. Bell peppers and jalepenos are fairly easy as well.
 

Tidewater

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Mar 15, 2003
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Governments are excellent at blaming others for the problems governments themselves create.

During the government-created hyperinflation during the American Revolution:

A June 1777 letter from Boston read, "We are all starving here. [P]eople will not bring in provision, & we cannot procure the common necessaries of life." Two years later, the same person wrote: "We are likely to be starved throughout Boston. Never such a scarcity of provisions."
Gee, you don't say. When farmers are required to accept worthless inflated currency for their produce, they don't bring the produce to that market. Who could have foreseen that?
 
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Elefantman

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Sep 18, 2007
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Now they are running out of gasoline.


The hunt for gasoline is just the latest headache for consumers after years of severe economic contraction and triple-digit inflation have produced shortages of everything from bread to antibiotics. Long accustomed to the world’s cheapest gasoline in the country with the world’s largest oil reserves, now Venezuelans are worried they’ll lack fuel, too.
LINK
 

Bama Reb

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Nov 2, 2005
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On the lake and in the woods, AL
Anyone who can should cultivate a small garden in their back yard, if for no other reason than to better appreciate the effort and land required to grow all of the produce you see in your local grocery store. It is a staggering revelation.
I would also suggest that everyone buy at least a couple of large plastic barrels for storing water. This is a wonderful time of year to collect it from your gutters and other runoff locations.
 

AUDub

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Dec 4, 2013
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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
Last year, a journalist from Caracas described a country teetering on the brink of civil war, with the majority of military officers fed up with and likely opposed to Maduro. She described a breakdown in social order due to police corruption, with more affluent neighborhoods patrolled by vigilantes, and the wealthiest neighborhoods patrolled by armed, private security firms. She described food riots in the poorest neighborhoods, markets being looted by hungry mobs.

Rough time to be Venezuelan.
 

AUDub

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Dec 4, 2013
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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
The oil glut has left the government unable to support the generous subsidy programs enacted in palmier days, and with the Chavistas screwing up their other good industry (steel), they don't have much to fall back on.

In Venezuela, Chavez subsidized many aspects of everyday life, including food costs, that Maduro can no longer sustain. With high oil prices, the day of reckoning could be postponed indefinitely, but now everywhere in the world of oil producers, the chickens are coming home to roost. There are even cracks in the facade of Saudi Arabia for exactly the same reasons.

In many respects (not all), this is not the product of a social, economic or political system, but of the collapse of oil prices.
 

Displaced Bama Fan

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The oil glut has left the government unable to support the generous subsidy programs enacted in palmier days, and with the Chavistas screwing up their other good industry (steel), they don't have much to fall back on.

In Venezuela, Chavez subsidized many aspects of everyday life, including food costs, that Maduro can no longer sustain. With high oil prices, the day of reckoning could be postponed indefinitely, but now everywhere in the world of oil producers, the chickens are coming home to roost. There are even cracks in the facade of Saudi Arabia for exactly the same reasons.

In many respects (not all), this is not the product of a social, economic or political system, but of the collapse of oil prices.
The Saud family are large property holders in the US. Farmland, commercial buildings, etc.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/15/saudi-arabia-buying-up-farmland-in-us-southwest.html
 

AUDub

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Dec 4, 2013
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Give me ambiguity or give me something else.
The Saud family are large property holders in the US. Farmland, commercial buildings, etc.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/01/15/saudi-arabia-buying-up-farmland-in-us-southwest.html
Both economies are a house of cards waiting to come crashing down, but Saudi Arabia can tread water longer than Venezuela because they made some moves to save for a rainy day. For example, instead of putting fossil fuel revenues above a certain price (eg 60$/bl) into a reserve fund, the entirety of the Venezuela's receipts were spent. Saudi Arabia, which has much less human capital, was able to figure this out in the 70s. Surely the Chavistas were made aware, but chose to ignore this. Either way, the Saud family must make some market reforms and diversify or they will soon be in the same boat as Maduro.
 

Bodhisattva

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Aug 22, 2001
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I have an acquaintance who loves him some socialism. Starring about 15 years ago Venezuela was his gold standard, and I've been telling him for 15 years that he is a moron. I wonder if he has awakened to reality yet.
 

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