Hordes of desperate shoppers emptied supermarkets and bodegas in January 2019 after President Nicolas Maduro ordered hundreds of grocery stores slash their prices in the latest attempt to put a lid on hyperinflation. The nearly empty shelves are a stark contrast to a Shop-Rite supermarket in Pennsylvania, with fully stocked shelves, below. Venezuelan supermarket photograph by Carlos Becerra/Bloomberg via Getty Images. Shop-Rite photograph courtesy of Pocono Record.
By Yeni Hernandez Flores
There is a crisis going on in Venezuela right now. It is not a natural disaster like a hurricane or a tornado, a fire or a flood. This crisis is a human created and the people there are really suffering.
The people need food, medicine and all other necessities. When they cannot get the things they need to survive, they are forced to try to get it by any means necessary. Already, one of the most violent places on Earth, someone is murdered every 21 minutes. There were roughly 24,700 violent deaths last year. Clearly, Venezuela is having serious troubles.
For the past few months, Leopold López has led an opposition movement against President Nicolas Maduro’s government, which has been running the country into the ground. Since taking over for the deceased Hugo Chávez in April 2013, Maduro has led Venezuela to 56 percent inflation rate and a 50 percent increase in the budget deficit.
The government is just printing money to pay government debts and the money is therefore not worth anything. People cannot afford to buy the basic necessities of life. China cut back on its $20 billion loan, and Moody’s, Standard & Poor to downgraded Venezuelan bonds to “junk” status. No one wants to invest in Venezuela.
Venezuela’s dollar has traditionally been consistently strong because it was linked to their oil exports and the price of oil kept their dollar strong. To give you an idea of just how far their dollar has deflated, it has dropped from an 8 to 1 exchange rate relative to the U.S. dollar at Chávez’s death, to 87 to 1. That means that it takes 87 of their dollars to equal an American dollar.
The cost of common necessities becomes prohibitively expensive when money becomes valueless. Chart by statista.com
In response, Maduro has stated that the U.S.-backed “fascists” and the “parasitic bourgeoisie” are responsible for the trouble in his country. By blaming the U.S. he has also called for more state intervention. He wants to have more direct control over the country, which means that his people will have even less freedom. This has only made things harder for the private sector, which has since made it nearly impossible for Venezuelans to get food and other basic material necessities.
Due to its massive oil wealth, Venezuela used to be Latin America’s richest country per capita. Under Chávez’s “vision for the nation,” as a more socialist country, industries were nationalized, and government handouts increased. This plan was supposed to make the people richer and therefore happier, but after Chávez’s death and a global collapse of oil prices, that vision no longer worked. Cash dried up, and the corruption-ravaged oil industry produced less and less. The government that took control over the oil industry to make it less corrupt than the private sector, produced less and less every year, and accidents from poor maintenance, also increased. Then, runaway inflation set in.
People like López have been leading dissatisfied Venezuelans in protest. But it wasn’t until Venezuela’s Youth Day that things really took a bad turn. Swarms of young people mostly aged 18 to 25 took to the streets to peacefully protest Maduro’s poor governance, but state police quickly tried to corral them. At least three protesters were shot dead and many more were injured. Maduro has since charged López with terrorism and murder for inciting the riots where Maduro’s government killed people.
Maduro is just the latest in a line of poor leaders, Venezuelans need help, and the world will help. However, the government there just needs to allow it.
