Venezuela Bans Lines in Front of Bakeries

[presence]

Venezuela's Latest Response to Food Shortages: Ban Lines Outside Bakeries

Maduro's government claims the lines are a calculated political attempt to stir up "anxiety."

Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 22, 2016 2:45 pm
Gmeviphoto/Dreamstime.comThe tragedy of Venezuela continues unabated, but that doesn't mean the government of President Nicolás Maduro has stopped trying to fix problems like the devastating scarcity of food which has led to malnutrition, riots, food truck hijackings, vigilante lynchings of petty thieves, and the starvation of zoo animals.
No, Maduro hasn't admitted the failure of Chavismo — the brand of Bolivarian socialism imposed on the oil-rich country by his late predecessor Hugo Chavez — instead, Venezuela's embattled leader has launched a war on "anxiety."
The National Superintendency of Fair Prices has reportedly instituted a policy of fining bakeries that allow lines to stretch out their front doors, according to PanAmPost. The head of this particular bureaucracy, William Contreras, claims the lines aren't a true indicator of a severe shortage of bread, but rather, a political "strategy of generating anxiety."

Contreras claims there is no shortage of raw materials to make bread, but seems to not understand that bakeries just bake bread, they don't process the different kinds of wheat used to make the flour that's then used to make bread. But this is indicative of the magical thinking of Venezuela's socialist government: the breakdown of the economy couldn't possibly because of failed economic policy, and scarcity must be the result of a greater conspiracy.
Contreras was also quoted by El Tiempo as saying the long lines represented "fairly clear political intentions and purposes" such as "destabilizing the economy and break[ing] the morale of the people." This is in keeping with Maduro's deflection of the blame he deserves for destroying Venezuela's economy, which he puts at the feet of U.S.-backed agitators engaging in "economic war" by keeping things like toilet paper off supermarket shelves.
Even in a time of crisis when infants are dying in electricity-deprived hospitals, Maduro insisted on putting on a brave face and keeping with his government's practice of lavishly asinine spending by dropping over $400,000 on a week of celebrating the 90th birthday of the president of another impoverished Latin socialist nation — Fidel Castro.
This whole battle over both the cause and greater meaning of long lines at bakeries must come as a shock to former presidential candidate and noted democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, who once argued that bread lines in socialist or communist countries were a "good thing" because they proved that everyone is suffering equally.
Meanwhile, a major rally by the Venezuelan opposition which is calling for Maduro's recall is scheduled in Caracas for September 1. 80 percent of the Venezuelan people reportedly want Maduro to be removed from office.

[Madison320]

What's taking so long for Maduro to get replaced?

[Zippyjuan]

State is one of the few large employers left. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...-signed-recall

Venezuela Confirms Plan to Purge State Workers Who Signed Recall


Venezuela will remove state employees appointed to their positions by the government who signed a petition to recall President Nicolas Maduro as the opposition seeks to remove him amid an economic crisis.

In the first confirmation by a cabinet member, Information Minister Luis Jose Marcano said the government is free to name as well as remove high-level bureaucrats it has appointed.

“Whoever has a position that is freely appointed and removable, those referred to yesterday by the PSUV on President Maduro’s instructions, evidently cannot be allowed to attack the Bolivarian revolution,” Marcano said in an interview on the Globovision network, referring to the ruling party. “A lot of these people end up sabotaging the revolution.”

Jorge Rodriguez, a national leader of the ruling PSUV and mayor of Caracas’s Libertador municipality, on Monday warned that high-ranking appointees in five ministries had 48 hours before being re-assigned to a new position after lawmaker Diosdado Cabello first made the threat earlier this month.

The case brings back memories of the so-called Tascon List, which was used by the government under then President Hugo Chavez to fire state workers and bar others from everything from jobs to loans for having signed a petition for a recall referendum in 2004 that Chavez eventually survived.

Public employees not appointed to their positions will be ratified and are not subject to this policy, Marcano said.

Maduro has not commented publicly on the matter. The opposition demanded the Public Prosecutor and Human Rights Ombudsman investigate “these violations to the labor law,” opposition leader Jesus “Chuo” Torrealba said on the opposition coalition’s Twitter account.

[Zippyjuan]

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/07/15/venez...ain-power.html

Venezuela's Maduro turns to military in struggle to retain power

As his country's economy implodes around him, Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro has resorted to what may be a last-ditch effort to stay in power.

On Tuesday, the autocratic president appointed Defense Minister Padrino Lopez to a newly created role that could best be described as co-president. In making the move, Maduro also increased the power and autonomy of the military over civilians. Maduro has claimed that the political maneuver strengthens Venezuela in the midst of a U.S.-backed "economic war" being waged against the country; however, analysts told CNBC that Maduro is shoring up armed support as the forces arrayed against him gain power.

"I think this is a sign that Maduro recognizes his weakness, but is also a sign that he wants to demonstrate that he will go to all lengths to survive," said Matthew Taylor, a senior fellow for Latin America Studies for the Council on Foreign Relations.

Michael Shifter, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, shared similar sentiments: "Maduro needed to do this because there were too many fronts that were unstable. ... It's an arrangement he needed to bolster the government."

Venezuela's oil-dependent economy capsized with the fall in crude prices, leaving whole swathes of the country's 31 million people without enough food or other necessities. Inflation is expected to hit almost 720 percent this year, and gross domestic product is seen falling by 8 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Maduro's predecessor, Hugo Chavez, left the nation in a vulnerable economic position by nationalizing energy assets while oil prices were high and spending proceeds on widespread social programs. Oil's global drop in 2014 left the government far short of its revenue needs and with only an anemic private sector to generate taxes or jobs.

To combat the instability resulting from severe food and medicine shortages, Maduro ordered five of the nation's largest ports to be regulated by the military. The approach is unlikely to address Venezuela's underlying problems, experts told CNBC.

"This is not a problem that has a military solution," suggested Ricardo Hausmann, director of Harvard's Center for International Development.

Giving extra power to the military is "the opposite of what is needed," said Hausmann, who added that Venezuela's government needs to abandon the "totalitarianism approach to the economy."

That seems unlikely for now. Maduro blames external forces for the crisis, characterizing the exodus of American companies like Kimberly-Clark and Citibank as economic attacks coming as the result of constraints implemented by his regime and Chavez.

"Foreign businesses are finding it near impossible to conduct business in Venezuela. The banking system already has to contend with rapid inflation, liquidity shortages and binding capital controls; add to that mix an increasingly unstable political backdrop, and it makes it very difficult to see any real advantages to pursuing new business opportunities in the country," said Michael Henderson, lead economist for Verisk Maplecroft.