Venezuela Goes from Bad to Catastrophe [View all]

[Bacchus4.0]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-goes-bad-catastrophe-100952193.html


No more Coca-Cola for Venezuela–there’s not enough sugar. Diet Coke is still around–until the country runs out of aspartame–but the disappearance from store shelves of an icon of globalization is the latest blow for an economy on the edge. In April, the country’s largest private company, Empresas Polar SA, which makes 80% of the beer that Venezuelans consume, closed its doors. The government now rations water, so Venezuelans have begun stealing it from tanker trucks and swimming pools.

Electricity is also in short supply, and President Nicolás Maduro has ordered public offices to conserve energy by remaining open just two days a week. An ongoing drought only makes matters worse. About 65% of the country’s electricity is generated by a single hydroelectric dam that’s now in serious trouble. Blackouts, scheduled and otherwise, have become common.

This isn’t just bad luck. Supermarket shelves are often empty, in part because price controls have discouraged production of staples, and Maduro is threatening to seize closed factories and nationalize them.
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It’s no surprise Venezuelans are angry. There are 17 demonstrations per day across the country on average. That discontent helped an opposition alliance win control of parliament in December for the first time in 17 years. Maduro’s approval rating is at 26%, and 70% of Venezuelans want him removed from office. The opposition needed 200,000 signatures to trigger a recall referendum. It got 1.85 million.