The end game of socialism is being played out in Venezuela. For years, Hugo Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro have been using the income from Venezuela's large oil fields to build a workers paradise - subsidizing everything in order to win the popular vote. Over time, they added more and more to their subsidies because the population, accultured to getting their free shit from the government started demanding more and more of it. The Bolivarian Revolution. Strapped for cash, they started nationalizing large industries - power, telecommunications and oil - and staffing them with political appointees. End result is that they have intermittent power, crappy telephone service and the oil output is unreliable. Their economy is in the tank.
Now, the price of oil has tumbled and their house of cards is falling fast. No savings, no safety net. This is going to suck.
Now this from International Business Times:
Venezuela Hikes Fuel Prices By 6,000%, Devalues Currency To Tackle Economic Crisis
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday announced a staggering 6,000 percent hike in petrol prices and a sharp devaluation of the currency to shore up the oil-rich nation’s battered economy. Venezuela, which gets 95 percent of its export revenue through oil, has been hit hard by the collapse in the price of the commodity, which has fallen to $34 a barrel from $90 a barrel two years ago.
The move would raise the price of premium gasoline to 6 bolivars a liter from 0.1 bolivar a liter, and regular gasoline to 1 bolivar a liter from 0.07 bolivar. Additionally, starting Thursday, the official exchange rate used for food and medicine imports will be weakened to 10 bolivars per dollar from the current 6.3, while a second parallel floating rate will be allowed to operate alongside.
More:
Maduro also said that the revenue generated from the new fuel prices would be used to bolster social programs such as housing, health services and education.
“Faced with a criminal, chaotic inflation induced a long time ago, we must act with the power of the state to control and regulate markets,” Maduro reportedly said.
Emphasis mine - he will never take the blame. This criminal inflation is not the end result of socialism - this was all the fault of those wascally capitalists before Chavez was able to seize power and save the day for the Venezuelan people...
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