
I Lived Like a Baller for a Month in Venezuela on Just £75 (2015) - lookupmobile
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/i-lived-like-a-king-for-a-month-in-venezuela-on-100-euros-876
======
v768
Things have changed a lot since this was written in December. I live in
Caracas, there's massive national food shortages. Now you can't have 3 meals a
day for a month with 100€, and would spend quite some time finding it (on the
black market). Last time I saw sugar, it was around 3€ per kilo.

Edit: If you want a realistic picture of how is life today, read this piece,
written by a foreign journalist that actually lives there (sadly, most things
I see in foreign media is written from outside):
[http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7c0464c1dd404aca99458a8a19930...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7c0464c1dd404aca99458a8a19930bad/life-
line-venezuela-economic-crisis-worsens)

~~~
rafaelm
Yep, I'm living in Barquisimeto and between me and my wife we are making
around $160 per month. We are scraping by.

Plus we've got a 3 month old baby, who luckily is exclusively breastfeeding,
because baby formula is practically non-existent.

We had to pool about $60 to buy a sack of sugar in the black market and divide
it among a bunch of family members.

Things are starting to look a lot more grim as time passes by and you realize
that the government doesn't have the will to fix things and they are not going
to go peacefully either. The outcome here is most likely going to be a violent
one.

~~~
callalex
There's something I'm not understanding here: both you and the GP are
commenting on a food shortage and Sugar is the food that you both mention as
being hard to come by. If there is a food shortage shouldn't sugar be the last
food you would care about obtaining? Or are basic necessities (rice, etc)
readily available and it's only luxuries like sugar that are hard to find?

~~~
rafaelm
All the basics are hard to come by: rice, flour, milk, toiletries,etc. I'm
just commenting about sugar because GP commented on it. I assume because it's
one of the items that has just disapeared lately.

I'm actually not really worried about sugar because I barely consume it. We
bought the sack of sugar because a cousin of mine used to make ends meet with
a small cupcake business she used to make for parties,etc. and now she can't
find flour or sugar.

I wrote a comment about this before: if you have enough money you can go out
and eat lobster and whatever fancy food you want. The things that are almost
impossible to find are basic things most people need to survive like flour,
milk, toiletries, medicine,etc.

------
jacquesm
In the time before the wall fell most communist countries had an 'official'
(ridiculous) and a black market exchange rate much like the one in the
article. You were forced to exchange a certain amount of money for every day
of your stay at the official rate, if you managed to smuggle just a few extra
notes into the country and exchanged those on the black market it would
usually translate into 'more money than you can sensibly spend'.

The reason those black markets are so popular is that people living in a
country like that far prefer to hold on to some hard currency instead of the
local currency which is devaluating so fast that even a few weeks can make a
huge difference. Saving the local currency makes no sense and hence the black
market materializes.

One person I know paid off a mortgage entered into a few years earlier with a
single months pay, rapid inflation creates all kinds of havoc.

------
pipio21
As a Spanish native speaker who knows Venezuela pretty well I find disturbing
to hear you could live well in Venezuela with USD100.

First, unless you are a complete sociopath, just seeing so many people
suffering to just buy food(or medicines) is a traumatic experience.

For a doctor to operate you, you need to bring the medicines first!!

Next, you will risking your life in every corner. In some South American
countries life is worth nothing, but in Venezuela it is another level. If you
are an outsider you have to be very careful. Venezuelan people have gotten
used to it and they know subconsciously what not to do, while a European or
(North)American can make mistakes easily, and they have too much money.

When Venezuelan people find a robber, they will lynch him, police will come so
people do not kill him.

The country is near a civil war. Hugo Chavez created a populist law called
"Referendum revocatorio" that if the Government did something against the
people, the people could remove it from power. The opposition is trying to use
this law, but Maduro opposes it.

Of course the people in power do not want to go out of power by any means,
specially when in Venezuela every good job position is occupied by pro-Chavez
people, they are "more equal than others" and will lose everything if they
pass the law.

Venezuela has a big army, and this army is directly supported by Russia, so
given that Venezuela oil reserves are the biggest in the world(albeit bad
quality) it is very dangerous as lots of other countries could intervene and
create a proxy war.

------
HippoViolation
This article is nearly a year old. The living situation in Venezuela, a year
later, is much more dire now.

------
srgseg
It's staggering how quickly things can change. In 2014, Venezuelans were some
of the happiest people in the world, and according to Pew happier than the
average American [1]

Now it easily tops the Bloomberg misery index for the second year in a row [2]

[1] [http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/10/30/people-in-emerging-
marke...](http://www.pewglobal.org/2014/10/30/people-in-emerging-markets-
catch-up-to-advanced-economies-in-life-satisfaction/satisfaction-08/)

[2] [http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-04/these-
are-...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-04/these-are-the-
world-s-most-miserable-economies)

------
woah
This guy seems like a decent writer. Apparently, if I hired him at US rates,
he would be wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Why isn't there more remote
work going on?

~~~
brianbreslin
I have a few friends who hired programmers remotely, they had to fly down with
cash to pay them, no other way to get them money. Eventually the situation got
too dangerous despite the incredible wage arbitrage they were getting by
paying in US dollars. (too dangerous for the employees who were getting robbed
frequently, and the bosses to carry the cash down there)

~~~
modeless
Did they look into Bitcoin? It seems tailor made for this situation. Immune to
hyperinflation, difficult for offline criminals to steal, and difficult for
the government to block. There is a Venezuelan Bitcoin exchange SurBitcoin and
also LocalBitcoins.com, though I don't know the feasibility of using either
right now. But at least the initial payment would be no problem.

~~~
derekdahmer
Depends on the BTC / VEF exchange rate inside the country.

$100 -> .17BTC -> 102 VEF -> $10.25. So you'd lose 90% of the dollar value
even at the generous official VEF/USD exchange rate.

[https://surbitcoin.com/#market](https://surbitcoin.com/#market)

~~~
rafaelm
I've never really looked in to BTC because here you can sell dollars much
easier. Although I can see that as a good way to receive dollars for those
that do not have any other way.

Right now, $1 = $1004 VEF I see that 1 BTC = $583.79

From localbitcoin.com I see people selling in Venezuela at around 628000.00
VEF / BTC. So the price is the same.

I think what's going on, is they are calculating the price of the dollar at
one of the govt rates of 645 VEF per dollar.

That's not realistic. Anyone with dollars in Venezuela is going to sell them
at the black market rate of VEF 1000 per dollar.

Of course, the black market rate is illegal here and the government even went
so far as blocking the black market rate information websites here. That's
their idea of economic policy.

EDIT: Just realized, surbitcoin rate is around BsF 600k per Bitcoin. We use
the dot (.) as the thousands separator.

~~~
LyndsySimon
If anyone is interested in trying to convert BTC to VEF, I'll be happy to send
them enough to make it worthwhile.

ETA: rafaelm, I'll send you $50 worth of bitcoin if you'll post an address :)

------
rwallace
That was last year when the crisis could still be attributed to incompetence,
mismanagement. The situation has changed considerably since then.

I'm going to call it now: the Venezuela crisis is not incompetence after all.
It's the first steps of a highly competent plan to do what several other
communist governments did last century: bring about the death of a large
percentage of the country's population.

I don't lightly advocate military intervention. I think it's almost always the
wrong thing to do. But I'm advocating it now. The communist government of
Venezuela needs to be taken down hard and fast, before this turns into full-
blown genocide.

~~~
astronautjones
They don't have a communist government.

~~~
tim333
Although they are probably heading that way if Maduro can get away with it. I
still think the food shortages are incompetence rather than design though.

------
moo
[http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Rich-Eating-Well-in-
Ve...](http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Rich-Eating-Well-in-Venezuela-
Basque-Executive-Shows-20160530-0001.html)

Rich are blocking food to the poor in attempt to scare them from supporting
the Bolivarian Revolution. Youtube videos also show Venezuelan stores hiding
food to cause shortage.

~~~
rafaelm
Yes that's the story as told by the government and the state funded media like
Telesur, your source.

They wouldn't say anything about how the food imports are controlled by the
military and the government and how they've stolen more than $50 billion, as
admitted by Chavez's former economic minister.

~~~
moo
A lot more sources than Telesur but you have to look beyond Western news
media. I hope the Venezuelan military does take control away from the US
backed gusanos who are withholding food from the poor in an economic war to
sabotage the Bolivarian Revolution. US orchestrated attacks can also be seen
with the USAID fake 'Twitter' in Cuba to destabilize the government. ABC News
even reported Peace Corps volunteers and a Fulbright scholar were asked by a
U.S. Embassy official in Bolivia "to basically spy" on Cubans and Venezuelans
in the country, according to the Peace Corps personnel and the Fulbright
scholar involved. US interests can be seen with Brazilian vassel elites tied
to US, orchestrating the impeachment of Brazil's Dilma Rousseff after NSA
spied on Rousseff and discounting the 54 million-plus Brazilians who reelected
her. You can see how the West respects Latin America with how Bolivia's Evo
Morales had his government plane force landed and he was detained in Vienna.
You can also look at how Venezuela's President Chavez, Honduras' President
Zelaya, or Haiti's President Aristide were all kidnapped with Washington's
blessings. Former covert agent John Stockwell says U.S. has killed 6 million
in covert operations in the Third World. All this information does not come
out of Telesur, and if you were half honest you would see a pattern here.

~~~
rafaelm
Why doesn't telesur say anything about the massive corruption of the
government officials that have dilapidated more than $50billion dollars as
admitted by chavista ex-ministers? Or the fact that most of the former
productive lands and industries that were confiscated by Chavez are now broke
and don't produce anything?

Look for the cases of Agroisleña, Fama de América, Sidor,the sugar factories
all in govt hands, the formerly productive lands in Sur del Lago and a looong
line of etceteras. Formerly productive industries that Chavez confiscated, put
under supervision of corrupt military command that now don't produce anything.

Look for all the corruption in CADIVI, the agency in charge of the currency
exchange that gave out billions of dollars to the military and their buddies
The thousands of tons of food imported by the government for PDVAL left to rot
in the ports of the country because once the food was bought and imported it
didn't matter if it actually got to the stores.

Seriously, it gets tiring when someone that does not have the tiniest idea of
what is actually going on in the country brings out the tired old argument
that everything is the USA's fault.

~~~
moo
You want the return of Venezuela to its former status as oil colony and wholly
owned subsidiary of the United States. Tired argument? The 4 million dead in
Middle East is the fault of the US and the Western allies. One need only look
at the conspicuous reappearance of goods in the immediate aftermath of the
right wing Unity Roundtable (MUD) victory in the December 2015 elections to
see how connected the food supply problems are with political agendas. The oil
collapse is an orchestrated assault on oil-producing nations targeted by the
US.

~~~
rafaelm
See, this is where it's evident that you have no clue what you are talking
about. There was no reappearance of goods after the MUD won! The government
has actually been making fun of this because some of the MUD candidates said
they would help the goods reappear once elected.

The shortage situation has been constant and getting worse since last year. I
actually live here! I'm not reading about this from some government funded
propaganda machine from the comfort of my fully stocked home.

You clearly have no more arguments beyond they tired old "everything us the US
fault". I already gave you several examples of the government corruption that
led us to this situation and you STILL come back and tell me about the middle
east, oil colonies, how it's all a plot by the US, etc?

I should go to the food lines tomorrow and try to explain that to people. I
bet it would go down really well with everyone there!

~~~
moo
Quit your crocodile tears, gusano!

~~~
rafaelm
Haha your superior argumentative powers sure got me there!

Please, next time try to be better informed before making a fool of yourself.

I understand that the US has a shitty foreign policy, but that doesn't make
every "antiimperialist" government the good guys. The world is not black and
white.

------
slv77
Curious how people who have family members in Venezula are remitting funds to
them? Do they have exchange funds at the official rate or is there ways to
send Dollars directly.

This has to be a pretty common occurance.

------
meira
Which country is in a worse situation? Venezuela or Ukraine? It's funny how we
see only one been bashed by western media.

------
sevenless
I think getting murdered would be more of a concern than the low cost of
living.

------
gk1
If you want to experience living "like a baller" for a low amount of money
(for the US), there are many great places to go that are much safer than
Venezuela.

~~~
passivepinetree
Do you have any suggestions? I'm living in the US in an expensive city and
it'd be cool to take a vacation somewhere much cheaper.

~~~
kofejnik
come visit Ukraine - Kiev, Lviv, Odessa

~~~
gk1
I was going to suggest Ukraine. Odessa is a lovely and very affordable city to
visit.

------
trevyn
(2015)

