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That's worse than the per capita GDP of even the poorest countries in the entire world!  How do people on the minimum salary not die?
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Feb 10, 2016 16:07
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Woolie Wool posted:That's worse than the per capita GDP of even the poorest countries in the entire world! Hence the eternal queues. If you see a queue, there's a subsidized product being sold there. At least in Caracas (and I assume other cities big enough) there's plenty of small stores and upscale supermarkets which don't carry any of those and where you can still shop "decently" if you have enough money. The real problem is the small towns where everyone shops at the same establishments because there's simply not enough to go around. I haven't heard of starvation cases yet, but I'm assuming we can't be too far off since inventories aren't supposed to last much longer and we're running on fumes.
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Feb 10, 2016 16:25
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The goons living in Venezuela will be able to answer this better than I can, but the testimonies I've heard through the media make it clear that daily life is extremely difficult. When you get a chance, you line up for hours at the local Mercal and grab your maximum-allowed share of corn flour or whatever it is the place happens to have in stock. The minimum monthly salary works as far as groceries are concerned if and only if you can reliably find subsidized items in supermarkets. Non-subsidized items aren't as affected by scarcity, but it just so happens that the subsidized items are also the most basic (sugar, cooking oil, corn flour, butter, milk, eggs, etc). One of my family members who lives in Caracas is a working professional and makes more than the minimum monthly salary, but even she is struggling. She sent us an e-mail yesterday with an inventory of all the food she has at home right now: quote:16 pieces [she calls them "rations"] of chicken, 1 kg of beef, four pork chops, 2 rations of ground beef, four bollos [a traditional Christmas food], 2 hayacas [another traditional Christmas food], 2 cans of beans, 2 Tupperware containers of soup. All of that is frozen and she's very careful about when to treat herself with it. The rest of her diet consists of "bread, pasta and rice". She says that she can no longer afford to have people over because feeding them is too heavy a burden, except for an elderly neighbour who is a close friend of our family. While that may seem like a reasonable amount of food, remember that there's no guarantee that she'll be able to replenish any of that (specially the meat items) in any kind of reliable way. I can throw out every single item I have in my fridge tonight and go to sleep 100% confident that I'll be able to replenish every item with a single hassle-free trip to any supermarket in the city. She does not have that luxury. EDIT: I read a piece by the national association of pediatricians last year talking about how the full effects of the scarcity crisis won't be seen until years down the line when all the children who are growing up today on inadequate diets start becoming adults. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Feb 10, 2016 |
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Feb 10, 2016 16:28
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That rings a bunch of bells. A few years ago my family was in a really bad place financially and our diet was very much the same. Of course, at the time Venezuela's economy was ok, I can't even imagine how things must be for people in that situation with the current crisis. Chuck Boone posted:It's a shame that I can't find it now, but a few weeks ago I saw a video on YouTube of a tourist (I think he was British) talking about his trip to Venezuela and how cheap everything was. I thought the same but when I was there last year, the money didn't go as far as I'd thought. I mean it did go far and we spent a few days in cabins near the beach, plus I took my mom out to eat, but anything else besides tourism and restaurants was still pretty expensive. We did the math and it was a lot cheaper to just buy clothes, gifts and whatnot here than there. It didn't help that we exchanged our Euros (black market, of course) and then like 2 days before our trip the bolivar went down almost 50% and we traveled with a lot less money than we thought. Like sure, you can spend 400€ and have a grand loving vacation time, but once you look pass that the money doesn't get you that far. We just sent 200€ for medication for my father in law and that buys him a month of pills (that he can't find).
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Feb 10, 2016 16:50
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If Venezuela starts to have power generation issues like you noted, food insecurity is going to get even worse due to spoilage from lack of refrigeration. What is a realistic way out of the current hyperinflation trap?
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Feb 10, 2016 22:11
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No one has actually presented a "here's what we need to do to get out of this mess" plan yet, and if they did it'd just get shot down by Maduro as an imperialistic fascist plan trying to bring down the revolution.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:15
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I've been stocking up on food for the past 6 months, and finding contacts that can sell the subsidized products in bulk, at hilariously speculative prices. It's dirty, but I'm not going to wager on my own survival. At least I make some decent money as a programmer, I mean, as far as Venezuelan salaries go.Laphroaig posted:If Venezuela starts to have power generation issues like you noted, food insecurity is going to get even worse due to spoilage from lack of refrigeration. It will only stop if we break free of the currency controls.
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Feb 10, 2016 22:57
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fnox posted:I've been stocking up on food for the past 6 months, and finding contacts that can sell the subsidized products in bulk, at hilariously speculative prices. It's dirty, but I'm not going to wager on my own survival. At least I make some decent money as a programmer, I mean, as far as Venezuelan salaries go. Yeah stock up as much as possible, we're sending money to our relatives so they can buy food while there is some to be had. Are you in Caracas? Because I'd love to get info on people selling goods so that my mom can stock up as much as possible.
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Feb 11, 2016 09:34
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How far does something like $10 US reach in terms of food in Venezuela right now? Are there charities I could be helping out? It sounds like the situation for a bunch of goons is really dire 
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Feb 11, 2016 10:57
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Demiurge4 posted:How far does something like $10 US reach in terms of food in Venezuela right now? Are there charities I could be helping out? It sounds like the situation for a bunch of goons is really dire That's over 10.000 at the black market exchange rate, but as far as food goes I'm guessing it would maaaybe last you for three days or so if you buy products at street prices. If you are willing to run around the city and do hours of lines you could probably eat for a week with that. Not eat well, just eat. As for charities, corruption in Venezuela is rampant so I doubt any charity (if there is one) would do much good. You can't easily send money either. What we do is give € to a friend that lives here, and she uses her Venezuelan account that still has money to transfer the money in bsF to our families for a fee. You could potentially help someone by giving him a steam card or similar so he can sell the virtual currency at exchange rates, if he can find a buyer. I did that once with wow prepaid cards in order to help a friend, but I don't think many people are interested in buying games at this point (we pirate everything in Venezuela anyway)
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Feb 11, 2016 12:53
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What about Paypal? I wouldn't mind donating some money if it'll feed someone's family and help them through the worst of it.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:25
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I thought they would have made it as easy they possibly could to get remittance money flowing in? Is that not the case? It is good hard currency coming in with no (or at least very few) strings attached.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:43
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Demiurge4 posted:What about Paypal? I wouldn't mind donating some money if it'll feed someone's family and help them through the worst of it. In order to deposit to someone's paypal don't they need to have a valid bank account? Venezuelan bank accounts hardly work for anything international even when you go trough the thousand hoops in order to make them so. Even then they wouldn't be able to use that money for anything inside Venezuela and would have to resort to reselling the paypal money as virtual goods for bsF. Munin posted:I thought they would have made it as easy they possibly could to get remittance money flowing in? Is that not the case? It's really hard in any virtual way, since you're looking to change dollars for the black market currency rate which is obviously illegal. If you send money legally trough the official exchange rate then you'll be sending a pittance. edit: the absolute best way is to send hard cash trough someone travelling to Venezuela, and even then he needs to be careful, I've heard of people that have been forced to exchange their dollars in the airport at the official rate because they would otherwise obviously sell them in the black market for around 10x times more. Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 15:48
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Munin posted:I thought they would have made it as easy they possibly could to get remittance money flowing in? Is that not the case? Well, you could send money to people using Western Union or Zoom for example, but the people here wouldn't get dollars. They'd get bolivares at the SIMADI rate, which is around Bs200 per dollar, meanwhile, the black market rate already crossed the Bs1000 per dollar line. People who send money to their family members here have to do one of several things: transfer foreign currency to someone else's account and have them pay in bolivares into a Venezuelan account, buy Amazon gift cards (which can be very easily sold), use Paypal (then you'd need to find someone willing to buy those Paypal dollars in exchange for currency), or Bitcoin (then go through an exchange). Hugoon Chavez posted:In order to deposit to someone's paypal don't they need to have a valid bank account? Venezuelan bank accounts hardly work for anything international even when you go trough the thousand hoops in order to make them so. Just a credit card for Venezuela, and there are people who can do that for you. That's how I get paid for my freelance jobs.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:50
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Ah yes, that is a rather obvious issue that I really should have thought of.
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Feb 11, 2016 15:59
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Yeah stock up as much as possible, we're sending money to our relatives so they can buy food while there is some to be had. Are you in Caracas? Because I'd love to get info on people selling goods so that my mom can stock up as much as possible. I live in the outskirts of Caracas though, and most of the contacts I had no longer sell anything. This year has been particularly tough. Munin posted:Ah yes, that is a rather obvious issue that I really should have thought of. You could send money through PayPal anyway but the problem is finding the products, not the money, everything you turn into Bolivares kind of evaporates anyhow so you have to spend it right away. And I mean, I could use the money as I am trying to move abroad and my life savings amount to like, a month of labor in the US, but I don't really want to ask for donations. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Feb 11, 2016 |
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Feb 11, 2016 17:11
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fnox posted:And I mean, I could use the money as I am trying to move abroad and my life savings amount to like, a month of labor in the US, but I don't really want to ask for donations. Good luck man, you moving to the US? I'd be more than happy to help out people moving to Madrid (at least to get their bearings or find info), but yeah I can't imagine how tough it must be. When we came here we stayed with some of my family (that didn't really get along with me, but were kind enough to accept us) and things weren't that bad in Venezuela and yet it was pretty loving hard, but it's doable.
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Feb 11, 2016 17:28
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Let's be honest, we are all poor as poo poo now, even if you earn Bs. 200000 a month which is 20 times what the average person earns in a month you're still poor as poo poo since that's only $200.
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Feb 11, 2016 19:46
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I'm sorry to hear that there aren't good options to help out and the only decent choice for prosperity is leaving Venezuela  It's kinda surreal there isn't violent riots in the streets everywhere. You had such a good gig going with the oil money when it was $100 a barrel but it was wasted on corruption and petty greed instead of invested back into diversifying the economy.
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Feb 11, 2016 22:16
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We are like the guy who wins the lottery and a few years later he's completely broke and more indebted than ever.
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Feb 11, 2016 22:30
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The Supreme Tribunal of Justice has declared that the Decree of Economic Emergency promulgated by Maduro, which was shot down by the National Assembly in its ordinary session, is now active. The sentence emitted by the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ to support this is based on some extremely wild interpretations of the constitution, the sentence itself is hard to translate due to its heavily verbose nature, but it's based on the thesis that the National Assembly's decision has no say in the validity of the decree...Despite the law explicitly stating otherwise. http://www.el-nacional.com/politica/TSJ-Decreto-Emergencia-Economica-vigente_0_791921004.html
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Feb 12, 2016 03:36
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It doesn't matter what the AN says because they have no way of enforcing any of their acts, Maduro and the PSUV can do whatever they want with impunity like what they are doing right now once again blatantly violating the constitution.
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Feb 12, 2016 03:55
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fnox posted:The Supreme Tribunal of Justice has declared that the Decree of Economic Emergency promulgated by Maduro, which was shot down by the National Assembly in its ordinary session, is now active. The sentence emitted by the Constitutional Chamber of the TSJ to support this is based on some extremely wild interpretations of the constitution, the sentence itself is hard to translate due to its heavily verbose nature, but it's based on the thesis that the National Assembly's decision has no say in the validity of the decree...Despite the law explicitly stating otherwise. Wow, that's pretty loving brazen even for the TSJ.
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Feb 12, 2016 07:27
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El Hefe posted:It doesn't matter what the AN says because they have no way of enforcing any of their acts, Maduro and the PSUV can do whatever they want with impunity like what they are doing right now once again blatantly violating the constitution. I know people are loving frightened about recall referendums, but now is the time and place to start getting really, really loving serious about removing Maduro, as fast as possible, and take back control of the country. I'm not sure if we're too late to actually maybe avoid the worst case scenarios, but there just won't be a country left to rule if that moron is allowed to be president even for just 6 more months.
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Feb 12, 2016 09:06
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beer_war posted:Wow, that's pretty loving brazen even for the TSJ. Well, we all expected something like it, honestly. The opposition having the control of the AN mostly means that PSUV's corruption and law-breaking are all the more apparent, but it was obviously going to be a power struggle that the party with 4/5s of the political power in Venezuela was going to win by just ignoring the constitution and doing whatever the gently caress they want because, who's going to stop them? The only reason PSUV doesn't go full dictatorship and just incarcerates everyone that speaks against it is because they are still trying to sell Chavez' spiel to save face internationally. Probably a good idea since when everything eventually explodes the PSUV primary faces are going to be desperate for political asylum and dropping the act would limit their options a bunch.
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Feb 12, 2016 09:09
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fnox posted:I know people are loving frightened about recall referendums, but now is the time and place to start getting really, really loving serious about removing Maduro, as fast as possible, and take back control of the country. I'm not sure if we're too late to actually maybe avoid the worst case scenarios, but there just won't be a country left to rule if that moron is allowed to be president even for just 6 more months. * Assuming the CNE even bothers to certify the recall.
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Feb 12, 2016 09:11
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ComradeCosmobot posted:* Assuming the CNE even bothers to certify the recall. I don't know, I think if there IS referendum, even the PSUV is going to vote against Maduro. Keep in mind that after a successful Referendum there would be a presidential election, it's a good time for them to campaign for the people's approval once more with a new face, and use Maduro as a scapegoat for all the things that are wrong right now. Hell even if they win it would probably still be an improvement over the current government.
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Feb 12, 2016 10:28
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The problem with a recall referendum is that the CNE has made it stupidly hard, which is why other options are in play as well. Off the top of my head, we would need to collect approximately 3 million signatures in three days just to start the process; this in a country where there's a long history of people getting shafted by the government for signing against them or just rubbing them the wrong way. Then, if the referendum proceeds, the number of votes for it would need to be higher than those he was elected by in the first place in order for it to be accepted. The other option being considered is a constitutional amendment to shorten the presidential period from six to four years, which would result in presidential elections this December, alongside those for governors. My bet, however, is that he's forced out of the presidency earlier by a faction of the government willing to save a little face in order to see if the can come to some sort of living arrangement with the opposition.
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Feb 12, 2016 14:07
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I do think that the PSUV is being hideously shortsighted here blocking the new assembly from doing anything. They had the perfect chance to set up a scapegoat, or at least someone to share the blame when the current nearly irresolvable crisis doesn't get resolved, and instead they ram through all their own stuff by decree and hence will be left holding the baby at the end. They could have focused on brush war action in the background to maintain their cronies etc whilst leaving the floor to the assembly to resolve the mess which they would obviously fail at leaving the assembly open to facing a popular backlash. Obviously Maduro and many of his party are too proud and stupid to even consider letting someone else seem to be in power.Either that or they genuine do believe their own bullshit and that the new assembly are all fith columnist traitors which would be an even more unsettling proposition.
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Feb 12, 2016 15:09
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Labradoodle posted:The other option being considered is a constitutional amendment to shorten the presidential period from six to four years, which would result in presidential elections this December, alongside those for governors. My bet, however, is that he's forced out of the presidency earlier by a faction of the government willing to save a little face in order to see if the can come to some sort of living arrangement with the opposition. December is too far away, there needs to be some action taken right away.
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Feb 12, 2016 17:00
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The TSJ decision is every bit as absurd as you'd expect. The TSJ ruled that the National Assembly had 48 hours to vote on the economic emergency decree, not the eight days it actually took. By waiting more than 48 hours to vote on whether or not to accept the decree, the National Assembly essentially allowed it to come into effect automatically. "Makes sense", you might say. Except that Allup personally asked Maduro and the chief magistrate of the TSJ if the National Assembly had 48 hours or eight days to vote on the decree, and he was told that it was eight days. On January 15, Maduro spoke before the National Assembly, and Allup gave a speech afterwards. Here is the relevant exchange: quote:Allup: Look – another thing. You’ve brought us the economic emergency decree today. There are two interpretations: one which says that we have to make a decision on this in 48 hours, and another that we have eight days to do it. It's eight days? Ok, great; then we have 8 days to examine this thoroughly and ask — it’s better to have eight days because we can talk about it more Start at 26:30 in this video to see the bit where Allup asks and is told unequivocally that it's eight days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYJV61Z4AdU (EDIT: You don't see it in that video because the camera is zoomed in to Allup, but he's speaking directly to Maduro who is sitting immediately to his right. TSJ chief magistrate Gladys Gutierrez was sitting to Allup's immediate left). It's not a stretch to imagine that if the National Assembly had voted on this within 48 hours the TSJ would have ruled they needed to take the full eight days. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Feb 12, 2016 |
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Feb 12, 2016 22:33
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Munin posted:I do think that the PSUV is being hideously shortsighted here blocking the new assembly from doing anything. They had the perfect chance to set up a scapegoat, or at least someone to share the blame when the current nearly irresolvable crisis doesn't get resolved, and instead they ram through all their own stuff by decree and hence will be left holding the baby at the end. The decree is set to expire on March 16 with the possibility of being extended for another 30 days. Just a few minutes ago, Maduro said that he planned to extend the economic emergency decree into 2017: quote:This emergency will last all of 2016 and part of 2017 because we have to recover all of this country and make a productive system, a system of distribution and commercialization and setting prices for all products. In other words, if you were worried that the MUD would get at least some of the blame for the imminent disaster, Maduro's got your back! Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 04:22 on Feb 13, 2016 |
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Feb 13, 2016 04:15
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Maduro's big plan to increase production and recover the economy: shut down malls for most of the day he should give workers 3 days off too and reduce working hours to 6, that'll help our economy...
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Feb 13, 2016 04:26
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El Hefe posted:he should give workers 3 days off too and reduce working hours to 6, that'll help our economy... Didn't they reduce working hours a few years back, already?
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Feb 13, 2016 14:42
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Didn't they reduce working hours a few years back, already? Yeah and he gave two days off too, none of which help our poo poo situation.
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Feb 13, 2016 17:41
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The organization that represents the country's shopping malls and the government reached an agreement today over the electricity matter. Monday through Friday, malls that do not have electrical generators will open 12:00-7:00 PM. This is approximately 50% of the malls in Venezuela. The other half will be allowed to operate during their regular hours so long as they generate electricity between 1:00-3:00 and 8:00-10:00 PM. El Nuevo Herald published an article today in which it claims that Maduro asked China for a 2-year extension on a $50 billion dollar debt it has to start paying back soon, citing "sources close to the negotiations". The source said: quote:The [Venezuelan] government had asked for a two year grace period. We don't know exactly what the government of the [Chinese] government was, but we believe they said "no". China is also hurting economically and I'd be really surprised if they decided to allow these payments to be pushed back. On another topic, I was speaking with a student activist who was very involved in the 2014 protests, and he was telling me that the reason the protests started then was that people were fed up with all of the insecurity, inflation and scarcity. When I asked him if he thought there would be another outbreak of unrest given the fact that the situation today is worse than two years ago, he said that he thought the chances were high that there would, but hoped that there wouldn't. His reason: "barring Chavez coming back from the dead", the PSUV is about to die. Allowing Maduro to finish killing it would put an end to this chapter of Venezuelan history, and only then could it move forward.
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Feb 13, 2016 21:15
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If there is no electricity to run shops, no capital to import goods, and people have to queue for hours for food, then starting to close down shops and give people more time off and more holidays is a frank admission that the situation is horrible. Even in North Korea you are expected to go to your job and clock in and out at the appropriate time, even if 90% of the day is spent standing around because you lack whatever it is to do your job. I assume that in many cases you have vast underemployment by now in Venezuela, and this is only going to get worse. Obviously you cannot run an economy by having half of the workforce standing in line for eggs 6 hours a day, and nothing breeds discontent like a bunch of pissed off people being forced to congregate for hours on a daily basis in order not to starve to death.
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Feb 13, 2016 21:48
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the mall thing looks especially dangerous, for the simple reason of forcing a lot of disgruntled people out of buildings and onto streets for hours at a time
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Feb 14, 2016 07:24
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Luis "inflation doesn't exist" Salas has been fired, a month after he's been appointed, supposedly for "family reasons".
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Feb 16, 2016 08:16
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Salas has been replaced with Miguel Perez Abad, who is coming over from the Ministry of Industry. The infighting at the PSUV must be intense. I read an op-ed piece in El Nacional over the weekend, and the author talked about Maduro seems to have made a huge mistake by appointing Aristobulo Isturiz, who has decades of political experience, as vice-president. The previous vice-president, Jorge Arreaza, was essentially a piece of furniture. The gist of the article was that the fact Isturiz is VP must be making it incredibly tempting for the party to consider getting Maduro out before he destroys chavismo for good. The head of the MUD, Jesus Torrealba, echoed this line of thought yesterday when he said that the PSUV knows that chavismo isn't "terminal", Maduro is. If there's anyone in the PSUV who wants to save chavismo, they know Maduro's got to go. In any case, if the PSUV doesn't make a move, the MUD will. Henry Ramos Allup said yesterday that the MUD was going to make a decision on how to do it "very soon, in the next few days", but that a constitutional amendment was looking more and more like the way to go. The amendment would see the presidential term limit down from six years to four, which would mean an election for president this December. Allup also said that in the same amendment he'd like to see term limits lowered for National Assembly deputies and Supreme Court magistrates as well, and that he thinks removing the possibility for re-election for presidents is a good idea. If the MUD does decide to go with the constitutional amendment, a referendum vote would take place and a simple majority would decide the winning side.
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Feb 16, 2016 16:05
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