Venezuela's Inflation Rate Is 200% and Credit Card Companies Are Cashing In

[DetlefK]

2. article on the reasons about Venezuela's collapse

in german
http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/venezuela-nie-zuvor-eine-krise-dieser-dimension.1184.de.html?dram:article_id=309298

* four different exchange-rates Bolivar-Dollar (extra-cheap for importers, but a lot of abuse with corporations that exist on paper only)
* state-mandated low prices for products to ensure consumption, but so low that actually producing them becomes unpractical for corporations. -> International corporations are leaving Venezuela and chronic shortages of all kinds of products.
* massive corruption, increasing influence of military, unaccountable paramilitaries ("collectivos&quot taking over policing
* simply not enough school-buildings due to insufficient funding in the last decade -> fresh recruits for the gangs
* by far most crimes go unpunished because of corruption
* forced collectivization of haciendas destroyed local food-production, but Chavez was able to balance that with food-imports with oil-money. Now the oil-money is gone and Venezuela starves.
* Chavez wanted a fully state-controlled economy, but that model was proven to fail in the former soviet states. Maduro could have undone that, but he can't admit that Chavez was wrong because he needs Chavez to legitimize his own rule.