
Venezuela Is Falling Apart. Scenes from daily life in the failing state - teslacar
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/05/venezuela-is-falling-apart/481755/?src=longreads&amp;single_page=true
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jimmywanger
This is one prime example where democracy doesn't work.

The resource I'm reading is www.caracaschronicles.com. The article I'm
specifically referring to is [0].

Basically, when oil prices were high, the government would subsidize
everything extremely heavily. They would give a lot of cash directly to
consumers on a card (in the article).

The card was supposedly to buy international goods (trips abroad), but
Venezuelans would then go to Colombia where there would be merchants to do all
the paperwork and just give them the cash value on the card minus a cut.

Of course the government was extremely popular and got elected by landslide
victories. Now, once oil prices/the economy tanked, the government did other
stuff to try to curry favor with the electorate.

They would go into electronic stores and demand immediate 30% price cuts on
luxury goods, like flat screen TVs, to basically legally buy votes. Once the
in-stock goods sold out, guess what? Nobody wanted to produce or import goods
to Venezuela for no profit. So the store shelves stay bare, and they claim an
international economic war for the hardships.

But it's still technically a democracy until recently, because one person, one
vote, and the government gave out massive handouts.

[0] [https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-
cuc...](https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-cucutas-
past/)

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gozur88
This has been happening for a long time now, and I'm amazed the people have
been willing to tolerate it. From what I can see the Venezuelan government
doesn't have North Korea levels of control.

~~~
coldtea
> _From what I can see the Venezuelan government doesn 't have North Korea
> levels of control._

They also have large popular support. And the troubles are not exactly their
fault, at least not in the way the foreign sources picture it.

And when one reads stories like the one below (with which the article starts),
it's almost always BS naive propaganda and there's a far more coherent reason
behind the whole story:

"Toilet-paper theft may sound like a farce, but it’s a serious matter for the
entrepreneur: Failing to stock the restrooms puts him in violation of his
agreement with the union, and that puts his factory at risk of a prolonged
strike, which in turn could lead to its being seized by the socialist
government under the increasingly unpopular President Nicolas Maduro."

~~~
viraptor
Ok, you called out the article on bullshit. So what's your take? Are you
claiming the story didn't happen? Can you provide more plausible content?

I'm keen to believe this, since it's close to past real events I know of from
eastern Europe. Shortage of basic goods, massive queues for toilet paper,
barter and stealing small things from public/work places, "I know a guy"
access to important resources, gov enforcing only the selected rules
convenient at the time.

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kahrkunne
But it's OK because real(tm) socialism has never been tried

And the cycle continues...

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jimmywanger
Note that the article is almost a year old.

Apparently things are even worse now.

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randomchar
Not only is the article a year old but its also was posted before

