Sunday 22 November 2015

How mental is Chavismo? Economics of an egg



It is hard to convey how screwed up Venezuela's economy is. Take the case of eggs...just conventional chicken eggs, not those of an ostrich.

Since 12 November the "fair price" for an egg is 14 Bolivars, which is equivalent to 2 euros at the official exchange rate. If you think that rate is not quite suitable because it does not reflect the real purchasing power, consider how many dozens of eggs the average school teacher in Venezuela can buy: 33.58 dozens or about 403 eggs. In reality, unless you spending hours every week queuing up for eggs, you are bound to find them at a much higher price. I could tell you stories of despair from my relatives and friends queuing up. Useful idiots in Venezuela and abroad still say the shortage economy has to do with capitalism and an economic war.

The video you see above is heart-breaking. it shows a chicken farm. The owners cannot find chicken food, which is imported, so they have to let the chicken run around the farm and find whatever they can. The chicken are desperate for grain, for anything. You cannot feed them nowadays like you use to do a hundred years ago...not if you need to feed a very urbanized nation.

At the same time as this is happening, Chavismo is 

1- importing massively chicken and other products from other South American nations - the ones with governments supporting the Chavista regime
2- still maintaining a currency control system whereby middle to upper middle class Venezuelans can buy a quota of highly subsidized foreign currency in order to spend it abroad. An expression of 21 Century Socialism is "raspar el cupo". That means: people who have credit cards and can afford that go abroad, buy some stuff but also simply get the cash in dollars or euros and then deposit it abroad. This is simply state-sponsored theft from the poor.

You can fairly say there is no one with lofty values running the so-called revolution nowadays. The people are taking umbrage and no matter how much the regime will try to cheat 6 December, things will become very hard for officialdom.

Hats off to Setty and Daniel for the video.















No comments:

Post a Comment

1) Try to be constructive and creative. The main goal of this blog is not to bash but to propose ideas and, when needed, to denounce
2) Do not use offensive language
3) Bear in mind that your comments can be edited or deleted at the blogger's sole discretion
4) If your comment would link back to a site promoting hatred of ethnic groups, nations, religions or the like, don't bother commenting here.
5) Read point 4 again