Can Venezuela improve its economy, and restore the dreams of the Bolivarian Revolution?v [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Venezuela at an Impasse

Can Venezuela improve its economy, and restore the dreams of the Bolivarian Revolution?

Z.C. Dutka
12/03/2015

This piece was originally printed by The Indypendent.

It used to be that the reporting of prominent U.S. newspapers about Venezuela’s socialist revolution were about as useful as a solitary photo negative; reduced to light and dark, good and evil, the colors would appear reversed, and the chronology of struggle quietly absent.

But while the undertones of doom have been present for over a decade, this year’s 159 percent inflation rate, according to the International Monetary Fund, and a 10 percent decline in the nation’s gross domestic product have raised serious questions about the impact of the economic crisis on ordinary Venezuelans and in turn on the government’s ability to maintain popular support.

It’s true; the economy is shot. In the past year, oil prices tumbled from $105 per barrel to under $50, cutting the country’s foreign earnings by half. A battered exchange system and booming illegal market has seen the Venezuelan bolívar devalued to the point that the monthly minimum wage was on par with a 36-pack of diapers or a few kilos of dried beans, until President Nicolás Maduro doubled it on October 15.

Car parts are hard to find and vehicles languish in backyards, and between patchy imports and the widespread hoarding and reselling of food by vendors called bachaqueros — a reference to leafcutter ants — scarcity has made grocery lists a fool’s errand.

Despite the best efforts of the state media apparatus — which is in full campaign mode for the December 6 congressional elections — to ignore these realities, it’s impossible not to witness them on the ground. Across the country, the streets buzz with numbers as friends and strangers compete with stories of outrageous prices: “1,800 bolívars for a kilo of lentils!” “I paid 600 bolos for the taxi home!” The official exchange rate for the bolívar has remained at 6.3 to one U.S. dollar since February 2013, but its black market value has tumbled from 110 to the dollar in October 2014 to the current rate of 820.

More:
https://nacla.org/news/2015/12/03/venezuela-impasse