Thread: Venezuela – An Economic Catastrophe In Images The Final Stage of a Crack-Up Boom

Do not come here!

Do not dump yourselves on any other country!



GO HOME AND FIGHT!

WE ARE ALL PROTECTING OUR BORDERS!

NO VACANCY!

Socialism makes comeback in U.S. politics | devastating effects to national economy

Chevron to stay in Venezuela as inflation tops 830,000%

Video at the page link

By Brittany De Lea
Published November 09, 2018
Business LeadersFOXBusiness

Venezuela's inflation to hit 1.37M percent in 2018: IMF

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia 0'Grady on the unrest in Venezuela and the election in Brazil.

American energy giant Chevron says it is not considering pulling its operations from Venezuela, despite years of weathering the country’s political and economic problems.
After The Wall Street Journal Opens a New Window. published a report that executives at the second-largest U.S. oil company are mulling whether it is time to exit the poverty-stricken country as its economic crisis deepens, Chevron’s regional executive said during an interview that it is “committed to Venezuela” and plans to be there “for many years to come.”

The company is the last U.S. oil company in the country and has been operating there for nearly 100 years. It is one of the largest foreign investors there.
Earlier this year, Chevron reportedly evacuated executives Opens a New Window. from Venezuela after President Nicolás Maduro’s government arrested two employees. Venezuela has defaulted on more than $6 billion in payments, as reported by the Journal.

The United Nations said on Wednesday that 3 million Opens a New Window. people have left the country throughout recent years as the economic and political conditions have deteriorated. Food shortages, rampant inflation and widespread violence remain serious challenges for residents.

More from FOXBusiness.com...

• Venezuela: Home of the $35,000 fast-food meal? Opens a New Window.

Earlier this week, the opposition-controlled Congress published a report stating that the inflation rate rose more than 833,997 percent over the past year, as reported by Reuters. Month over month, consumer prices rose 148 percent.
The International Monetary Fund cautions inflation could reach 10 million percent next year.
The country’s central bank stopped publishing economic data about three years ago.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/business...hQgfFmu-inyxII

But hey, lets try socialism here. It will work this time, we promise, says Bernie and the other democratic socialists.

Report: 80 Percent of Venezuelans Short of Food

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Roman Camacho/NurPhoto via Getty Images
20 Nov 20182,832

Around 80 percent of Venezuelans are now short of food, according to the new data compiled by NGO Human Rights Watch on Tuesday.

Following a trip to the Venezuelan border with Brazil by a team of health experts from John Hopkins University, researchers found that malnutrition continues to rise aggressively, with 80 percent of households unable to access enough food and rates of malnutrition among five years now over the World Health Organization’s crisis limit. In 2017, the average person lost around 11 kilos (24 pounds). In 2016, that number was 19 pounds; it is expected to have risen in 2018.
Combined with chronic malnutrition, the report also points to the scale of the collapse of the country’s health system, with practically every major health condition ranging from tuberculosis to malaria reaching crisis levels. For example, the number of malaria cases has risen from 36,000 in 2009 to 406,000 in 2017, while 87 percent of HIV patients now do not receive their necessary drugs.

José Miguel Vivanco ✔ @JMVivancoHRW




El sistema de salud en Venezuela ha colapsado. Un equipo de @hrw_espanol y de especialistas en salud de @JohnsHopkinsSPH viajó a las fronteras en Colombia y Brasil para conocer la magnitud de la crisis. Esto es lo que encontramos:

Hilo

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9:29 AM - Nov 19, 2018
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Most of these conditions are going untreated, mainly due to a lack of necessary medical resources and trained specialists. Experts managed to collect such data by working with local authorities at the Venezuelan’s border with Brazil, where thousands of people are fleeing the country every day, many of whom are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. Around 2.3 million Venezuelans have left the country have left the country since 2015, mostly to neighboring Colombia and Brazil and other Latin American countries.
As well as the humanitarian disaster, the country is also seeing a complete collapse of most of its institutions, infrastructure, and public services. Nowadays, essential products and resources including water, electricity, transportation, gasoline, and toiletries are all in scarce supply, with regular blackouts across major towns and cities.
Such dire statistics add weight to the growing international concern at Venezuela’s economic and humanitarian crisis, caused in large part by the failed socialist revolution enacted under its late dictator Hugo Chávez and continued today under Nicolás Maduro. Many leading figures are calling for a humanitarian or military-based intervention to end the crisis, although all relevant powers have so far pulled back the idea.
The regime continues to deny the existence of a crisis. Maduro recently declared at the United Nations General Assembly that his country is “stronger than ever” and blamed any visible difficulties on the supposed “economic war” led by the United States.

Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com.



https://www.breitbart.com/latin-amer...-Rb5P3mERUdJxU

No US taxpayer money, no aid and no oatmeal.

They have land, they have resources, they have oil, they have a whole ocean full of fish to eat.

DO NOT LET THEM COME HERE...GIVE THEM NOTHING!

WE ARE NOT THE ATM MACHINE OR DUMPING GROUND FOR THE WORLDS PROBLEMS!

Giving Thanks - A Collapse Update From Venezuela: Corruption, Hunger, & Crime

Thu, 11/22/2018 - 22:00
46 SHARES

Authored by JG Martinez D via Daisy Luther's Organic Prepper blog,

In this update, Jose talks about the worsening corruption, hunger, and crime in Venezuela. It’s hard to imagine, but things are still getting worse there. As we get together to feast with our families this week, please remember the people of Venezuela, where 80% of the population does not have enough food. ~ Daisy



I have been trying to solve a couple of issues this past week, mainly related to my parents’ health. Dad just had an event with his equilibrium (he is almost 80 so it is perfectly understandable), and he hardly could come back home in his old car. Amazingly, he did not crash or got injured in the way back. In the pictures, I have seen he is alarmingly thinner. I will send him some nutritional additions as soon as I can. I have been going through some personal and familial issues that demanded lots of attention and care and had to leave the city for some days up to work a few days in a place without any kind of coverage, not even landline, in the middle of nowhere. I survived though.
Let’s begin.
Why the collapse is still going on.

Well, it is a known fact that a slow, painful collapse is definitely the worst possible scenario. Its effects are long term, the suffering it inflicts has effects on too many people, and last too much time. It affects other countries’ economies and societies, on time.
In our example, this is exactly what is happening. I read the report of a Venezuelan journalist, much smarter than me, where he explains the exact reason with very clever words, of why the mafia is still in power. His analysis is that the regime is not a vertical structure. Otherwise, it would have been much easier to overcome with conventional methodologies. The reason is that the structure is not like, for example, the Iraq government where Saddam controlled everything.
In Venezuela, the power is exerted by small, powerful because they are armed and have support from traitors as internal sources) gangs that are scattered all over the country. These can be with or without uniforms. It is very likely there are foreigners with them too, not openly but in the torture/imprisonment facilities. This kind of division offers new perspectives to know where exactly the combat should start. I would dare to say that, once we understood how they operate, it should be much easier to remove them.
Local warlords should have local interests…and local thugs to “attend” such interests, too. With some basic surveillance and taking care of the local snitches, enough information could be collected for some groups to start cooking something decent.
Yes, I am a libertarian. This kind of love for freedom is beyond nationality. That is why the communist world fears it that much and wants to eliminate it so badly.
But I would not like to analyze too much the political aspects this time. It is effectively covered, at least in its main aspects, in other articles.
An update from my wife’s family

I hadn’t written some other articles because I was waiting for my wife’s family to arrive, so I could include personal information they collected from their conversations with other travelers.
They made the trip, and the information is outstanding. They confirmed the 18 dead by freezing story in the mountains of Colombia. Being a large family with small children, they received assistance in some of the parts of the trip, even being hosted without charge in a hotel room.
To summarize, this is the general situation: people have to get into a large truck (regular buses are out of the game, there are no tires or spare parts) just to buy some basic staples, at incredible prices that increase every single day. The power grid is working just 4/5 hours a day in most of the country. Sending money is now increasingly difficult. The price of food is such that, even in a foreign currency like dollars, the numbers just don´t match: a dozen eggs is 9$, and one kilo of meat about 13$ depending on the area. Corn flour for our arepas is just found by the 12 kilos package. Rice and pasta, the same. If someone can live with those prices…
Law “enforcement” is completely corrupt.

It is quite interesting to hear what they have to say about the role of the law “enforcement” corps. They kidnapped people, asking for ransoms in foreign currency. The situation in the imprisonment facilities was…apocalyptical. Once they have collected enough money from the ransoms and what not, almost the technical stuff LEOs all of that city flee the country for good, and they are now in some place in Latin America (Colombia, perhaps?)…or even planning how to sneak up to the USA.

Go figure.
One of the most interesting investigators of this kind of stuff I have read these last few days analyzed very thoroughly about how the atomization and redistribution of power schemes are what has allowed the mafia to be in relative control so much time. With many small bands of thugs operating at the same time all over the country, and the LEO corps obeying just their own rules (presidential convoy was stopped recently by an armed group of intelligence corps, with the consequent aggressive attitude of the bodyguards, and this impasse conducted to the removal of their director, Gustavo Gonzalez L. from the chair. (You can google it). There is a lot of stuff happening under the sheets.
It is quite likely that we will see lots of nasty things in the near future, as the power structures diminishes and more and more members are “purged”. Losing control for this structure means that the ruling party in the rest of the country will be those with the uniform, the badge, and the gun or the AK. And without a legal system working, that is bad. VERY bad. As it can be supposed, this will not be a happy ending for those involved. They know that the entire world is against them. They are considered (as it should be) delinquents for good people all over the world. They have stolen our gold and destroyed our capacity to generate wealth via oil production.
Stealth mode is essential to survive in Venezuela right now.

This said, I have suggested to my fellows to activate their stealth mode. Old clothing and shoes, avoid too clean cars, use the vehicles as little as possible…Jeez, even using dark bags in case they found some food is wise. There are plenty of stories about thugs grabbing grocery bags, sometimes even stabbing the holder, if some resistance was found. Parking the car ready to leave the place is a need. A lot of assaults are carried on when people are getting into the vehicle. In my case, with my SUV busted, I had a backpack and perhaps my wife or one of the kids with another smaller backpack, and we got to the bike quickly. (How I miss my old motorbike!).
I have a lot of stuff that I was going to move from our house to my parent´s place, mainly equipment like electrical tools and similar productive, useful devices that a prepper usually has in place. But nowadays, roads are so lonely and LEOs are so…predaceous, that it is not a good idea any longer. A truck loaded with stuff will be a gold mine for those thugs. That is, provided that the gangs roaming in the desert interstate roads can be avoided, which is highly unlikely.
Rules have changed, and the very weak empire of law that once existed (the middle 70s to 90s?) is no longer present. It is not a countrywide situation, though. But now the Southern states, Amazonas and Apure are the kingdoms of the Colombian guerrilla. Thanks, Uncle Hugo!. You f—ed us well.
There have been reports on the roads to the East of the country (Cumana city for example) where 20 or 25 people gangs stop the cars and take whatever they want. LEOs will take whatever food you happen to carry, without bothering in giving you something else than a warning that you are lucky to not be going to jail. This is something to be expected in such a situation, and it can´t be more dangerous. However, it will not develop itself from one day to another; once things start to get bad and dope starts to be scarce…the hunger will make the beast leave out. The predators will go after the easier preys first. Or whatever they believe these preys are.
It is a hard compromise, but you can´t look helpless and unable to defend. There are a lot of psychos here that will shoot innocent people in the head just because they can, and they know that no one is going to come after them. If you could see some of the videos that have been uploaded about what the gangs are able to do…you would understand why I am so freaked out. Hands chopped. Picks used to drill someone´s head while a woman laughs as she is recording the footage. Jeez.
If you carry, and the situation goes the wrong direction, people under such a dangerous situation, should not draw without being ready to use their piece. Once someone knows you are armed, you will become a target: a good piece is a survival tool for the thugs, a very coveted element, and finally, a prestige symbol.
And that is the update.

This is the updating, people. I will write some more articles, as I can interview and gather everything that my family that just arrived a couple of weeks ago is able to transmit everything while it is fresh in their memories.
Thanks for your much-needed assistance, and your moral support! I won’t disappear again.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...n-hunger-crime

Socialism is causing Venezuela – with the world’s largest oil reserves -- to run out of gasoline

Media favorite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who speaks Spanish, has never, so far as I can discover, commented on the ongoing tragedy socialism is foisting on Venezuelans.

November 24, 2018
By Thomas Lifson

The popularity of socialism on America’s campuses and among a substantial fraction of Democrats defies the evidence of a natural experiment taking place in Venezuela, just across the Gulf of Mexico from America. Venezuelans already are starving due to socialism’s perversion of incentives. Food producers can’t make money under the price controls, expropriations and regulation of the socialists of Chavez and his successor Maduro, so they don’t produce food, and people must flee by the millions in order to stay alive.

Venezuelan refugees in Colombia (photo credit: Daniel Cima)

Now, the same process of perverse incentives is shutting down the very resource that made Venezuela the richest country in Latin American before socialism ruined it. Fabiola Zerpa of Bloomberg reports:

Venezuela’s fuel shortages are worsening as mass resignations at the state oil company’s tanker fleet have delayed gasoline shipments.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s refineries are running at less than a quarter of their capacity, forcing the country to rely on imported gasoline.

Of course, foreign currency is in very short supply in Venezuela precisely because its oil production and refining output are collapsing, as incompetent political appointees screw up, and have no incentive to perform well. Because gasoline is regarded as so essential, Venezuela controls its price, further reducing incentive to produce:

Gas prices are still the among the cheapest in the world, with the black market rate earlier this month less than one cent per gallon. Maduro has yet to increase prices after vowing to do so at the end of September.

Price controls always produce shortages, as rent control regulations (also beloved by American socialists) demonstrate. Price may be affordable, but there are no goods available.
Now, not just oil production and refining, but also transportation is collapsing under cronyism and perverse incentives:

Resignations and requests for leave by personnel at PDV Marina, the oil company’s shipping affiliate, are reducing the tankers’ crews to a minimum, according to a document seen by Bloomberg. At least 11 tankers are affected, and minimal staffing is hindering PDVSA’s ability to deliver on time, the document shows. Venezuela’s Oil Ministry and PDVSA officials declined to comment.
“Tankers are now delayed all the time,” PDVSA union leader Gregorio Rodriguez said from Puerto La Cruz.“The situation is worse in cities far from distribution centers, where the truck fleet service is also shaky, as is eastern Venezuela.”

God forbid, a tanker disaster is possible with minimal crewing and inexperience.
Adam Smith wrote, “There’s a lot of ruin in a nation.” Venezuela is demonstrating the process by which the ruin of a nation unfolds, as vital systems gradually shut down, poisoned by socialism.
Media favorite Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who speaks Spanish, has never, so far as I can discover, commented on the ongoing tragedy socialism is foisting on Venezuelans. The Babylon Bee has satirized her silence, but our media progressives are not going to press her on the issue.
It’s time for the American left to explain why the tragedy of Venezuela will not happen here if their policies are enacted.

Follow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog..._gasoline.html

Socialism always ends in destruction

Monday, December 03, 2018 by: News Editors
Tags: big government, Collapse, current events, deception, economy, finance, government, Liberty, lies, Maduro, politics, propaganda, socialism, society, Tyranny, Venezuela

930 Views

(Natural News) Every attempt at socialism has failed miserably. Venezuela is only the latest country that has tried to implement a socialist paradise, only to inevitably crumble and crash before our eyes. Socialism, and its natural progression, communism, has caused the deaths of 100 million people since its inception 100 years ago.

(Article by Virginia Fidler republished from GoldTelegraph.com)
Just a few decades ago, Venezuela had massive oil reserves and an abundance of other resources. It enjoyed wealth and an excellent standard of living. Today, Venezuelans have no food, no medicine, and the country is driven by corruption and fear. While a starving population is in despair, many are desperately trying to flee paradise. The army, supported by President Madero, is in the street, ready to brutalize any dissenters. Madero and the military are not starving.
Socialism can only survive through corruption and intimidation. It’s a system tailor-made for corruption. And corruption may be Venezuela’s largest industry.
Despite that fact that every socialist paradise on earth has turned into hell, many American politicians, and their supporters are calling for socialism for America. Senators Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris are self-declared proud socialist, loudly singing its praises. Younger newcomers such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Andrew Gillum are joining the chorus.
With all the evidence to the contrary, why are so many Americans supporting the socialism their grandparents valiant fought against?
The very theory of socialism being a classless society is a sham. By necessity, socialism puts enormous despotic powers in the hands of only a few select people. It is clear why some politicians yearn to be among the chosen. However, it fails to explain why they are receiving a tremendous amount of support.
The U.S. Constitution is an irksome impediment to these politicians, with its checks and balances and annoying right to freedom. With freedom comes responsibility, and this is where socialist wannabes push the hardest. They, the politicians, will handle the responsibilities of daily life. They will feed you, clothed you, take care of your health, and help you think. Nothing is needed from you but absolute compliance. It’s all free, and to some, the promise can hold a great deal of appeal. By the time the promises remain unrealized, it’s too late. Power has been firmly grasped by the select few, and people’s lives are absolutely tied to the powers that be. It’s slavery by any other word. It was something the signers of the Constitution understood all too well.
Socialism rules every facet of a citizen’s life – as does slavery. It’s a relationship based on dependence and lies. Instead of equality, socialism shifts the wealth to a few loyal adherents at the top, while the masses at the bottom are left with increasingly less. It’s always been a house of cards, ready to tumble. Venezuela is simply the latest crash.
American schools are preparing the young for socialism. Political correctness reigns in classrooms, while free speech is gradually eroding. Millennials, wearing designer jeans, happily use their expensive, capitalist iPads to squash opposing opinions. All levels of American education have been deprived of any understanding of the Constitution and freedom. Students are encouraged not to think but to follow prevalent opinion. Unless real lessons return to the classroom, free speech will only be a memory. The designers of the Constitution knew that this document is the only thing standing between freedom and slavery. Get rid of the Constitution, and you eliminate the former with ease.
It is American parents that have delivered their children to this type of education. These parents, who should have known better but failed to speak out, opened the door to institutionalized group thinking. When parents fail to protect their young, the all-powerful state happily takes on the burden. Among today’s millennials, denouncing capitalism has become as chic as wearing flowers in their hair was to their parents. Schools are no longer teaching them about the 100 million who died under socialism.
The starving masses in Venezuela understand. Their prosperous oil industry is in ruins. Inflation is set to hit 1 million percent. President Maduro’s attempt at looping off zeros from the bolivar is considered a joke, except that no one is amused. Steve Hanke of the Cato Institute calls it “cosmetic surgery.” Maduro has implemented a new currency, the “petro,” which is linked to the country’s oil industry. The only problem is, Venezuela’s once-successful oil industry is rapidly failing. It has taken Maduro a mere five years to destroy Venezuela’s once-prosperous society.
Without a change in policy, Maduro’s efforts have been a band-aid on cancer. In Venezuela, life has been a matter of daily survival; starvation has become the norm. The government keeps printing worthless currency, but no one can afford to buy anything. Shops are closing every day. With their expensive iPhones in hand, this is what American millennials see a dream paradise. No one is asking what will happen once his or her dream turns into a nightmare.
Read more at: GoldTelegraph.com

https://www.naturalnews.com/2018-12-...struction.html

Gaunt, Filthy Kids Roam Streets of Caracas in Packs

Patricia Laya

December 10 2018, 6:00 AM December 10 2018, 10:11 AM

(Bloomberg) -- Editors Note: There are few places as chaotic or dangerous as Venezuela. “Life in Caracas” is a series of short stories that seeks to capture the surreal quality of living in a land in total disarray.
Most weekend mornings, you can find Andrea and her cousins juggling on a street corner. She’ll be throwing limes up in the air and catching them just in time to dash over to idling cars before the light turns green.
Early on this Saturday, only a handful of motorists rolled down their windows. Most shook their heads, mouthing, “No tengo, mi amor”—I can’t spare anything, honey. She kept her collections in a pink-plastic purse: 24 bolivars, less than a penny, and a packet of strawberry-flavored wafers. By 11 a.m., that was all she’d had to eat.


Andrea is 9. Her father is dead. Her mother is pregnant, jobless and many miles away in a small town south of Caracas called Yare. Andrea and her cousins—Disbeth, 12, Jocelyn, 11, and Andres and Jose, both 8—come in by bus and subway on Fridays, sleeping for two or three nights on the streets of one of the world’s most treacherous cities. Their weekend jobs are to beg for food for themselves, abating the hunger that dogs them during the week, and for money to bring back to their struggling families. Sometimes Andrea manages to collect as much as 50 bolivars.
Street children have long been a cause for concern in Venezuela. Their numbers have ebbed and flowed with the economy, but it has never before been like this—never before with so many young kids, on their own, all over the city.
They are seemingly everywhere, weighing vegetables at market stands, carrying crates of sodas into diners, cleaning parked cars, begging outside grocery stores, waved away from bars and restaurants where security guards don’t want them bothering the clientele. Many toil as “cloreros,” hawking diluted bleach, or cloro, poured into water jugs.



Sometimes barefoot, often emaciated, many roam in groups for protection, inviting sideways glances and purse clutching. Mostly, though, they’re treated with compassion, as nearly all Caraquenos can see themselves reflected in their misery.
That Saturday, their stomachs growling, the band from Yare cut the line outside a Catholic church serving a special holiday lunch to the needy. They each got a toy, Andrea carefully placing a doll in a checkered dress on her lap. Afterward they bathed at a square near a shopping mall, scooping up dirty water from a pool and pouring it over their heads, giggling as they chased each other around in their underwear.
While their clothes dried, they spent time underneath a bridge covered in graffiti, playing with knick-knacks they’d found: an old keyboard and a bag of tennis-shoe laces. They ignored the trash and feces. At one point, they fought over a plastic bag of the food they’d accumulated: a container of chocolate icing from a bakery and a couple of slices of stale bread. They dipped their hands into the icing and licked their fingers.



Later on, they’ll walk to a residential neighborhood to find a quiet place to sleep. If she gets cold, she hugs herself “like this,” Andrea said as she demonstrated, crossing her arms over her bony shoulders. She favored her right wrist, which she injured a few months ago.
Unlike some of her cousins, Andrea goes to school when she’s home during the week. Her favorite class is Spanish, her least favorite is math. She has her future planned.
“I want to be a lawyer,” she said. “That way I can help my cousins when they’re taken to prison.”

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Bloomberg

https://www.bloombergquint.com/polit...racas-in-packs

Her mother is pregnant. No money to feed themselves but, hey, let's romp in the dirt and make more mouths to feed. How disgusting.

They have a whole ocean full of fish.

They have land, they have oil.

No US taxpayer money, no aid, no oatmeal.

Do not bring them here.

These countries need to be on birth control.

"I want to be a lawyer to help my cousins when they are taken to prison"...LOL...do not go to prison in the first place.