Venezuelans find themselves in search of milk and other basic necessities at the grocery store. The country has been moving from a free market to a socialist economy since Hugo Chavez was voted into power, and now, despite the massive oil revenues the country has been receiving, people can’t find what they need in the stores:
“It takes a miracle to find milk,” said Arteaga, who spent two hours in line outside a store in the poor Caracas neighborhood of Eucaliptus. “Don’t you see I’m here slaving away to see if I can get even one or two of those (containers)?”
Venezuelan consumers are increasingly facing periodic shortages of basic food products as the economy shows signs of overheating amid record revenues from an oil boom.
The shortages have increased skepticism of Chavez’s economic policies and provided a political backdrop to campaigning this month for a referendum on a new constitution that he says is needed to make Venezuela a socialist state.
Businesses say price controls on staple foods are so low they discourage investment and force stores to sell at a loss.
The government says the problem is caused by growing demand by poor citizens who benefit from social programs, exaggerated media hype and food hoarding by unscrupulous businesses.
Got that? It isn’t that the government programs are causing it, it’s that there are so many poor people buying stuff, that they can’t keep it on the shelves. Right.
I’m sure that was the same problem in Soviet Russia, and probably the same problem that Zimbabwe is facing now. Just too many people wanting to live. Now let me ask you this: have you ever gone to the store and found them completely out of milk, only to find the same situation at every store you went to? Me neither. And we have pointed out here before that the American poor are so much better off than the poor of most other countries. So why have we not faced the same issues before?
Free market economics v. socialism. It’s that simple. Socialism always fails. It always has, it always will. There is only one thing that socialism has always worked to create, besides oppression:
A black market has sprung up where informal vendors illegally peddle bags of sugar, beans and precious powdered milk — for as much as double the regulated price.
The state’s consumer protection agency, backed by military reserves, often shutters supermarkets for selling above the fixed price, but vendors offer their goods from makeshift stands in downtown Caracas in plain view of authorities.
“This is an insult, but I can’t find it anywhere,” said Jose Ferrer, paying nearly $12 for a can of powdered milk regulated at $6. “I have to buy it for my kids, there is no other way.”
Chavez will ruin that country before long. And somehow, the world will blame us.
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