Reply #190: Here is another view of the food shortages in Venezuela:

[ronnie624]

VHeadline commentarist Oscar Heck writes: Just so people know what is really going on in Venezuela when it comes to scarcity of basic food products on market shelves. I am familiar with how this works because I started a small grocery store in Venezuela, one which still operates and one in which I am still involved when problems or difficulties occur. I set up its operations, its profit margins and the purchasing structure as well.

Typically, in Venezuela, and this dates from years before Chavez came into power, hoarding of basic foodstuff is a tactic used by the food mafias and monopolies to dramatically increase profits, especially in the weeks prior to Christmas.

This also applies to some non-food items, such as hardware. What typically happens is that food starts to become of short supply at the consumer end ... things begin to slowly trickle off the shelves until there is "no more" (which is usually not true). The effect is that people begin to be forced into paying much higher prices for the items (usually items of basic necessity such as chicken, meat, baby formula, flour, milk and sugar) on the "black market."

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With little doubt, there is also another reason why these crooks hoard basic foodstuff.... like they did in 2002 and 2003 and as they are perhaps doing now. They do it in order to cause problems so that the Chavez government can then be blamed. Almost all major producers, distributors and bigger retailers of basic foodstuff are vilely anti-Chavez ... and highly corrupt, as is intimated by the practice of hoarding.

Although it is "normal" for hoarding of food to start happening near the end of October and beginning of November ... and sometimes into late January ... it appears that the issue of the proposed Constitutional Reform, which almost all anti-Chavez people are "on principle" against, is having a strong influence on the hoarding of basic foodstuff this year ... making it perhaps worse than in other years (excluding perhaps December 2002-February 2003).

But wait ... why would these crooks be upset with Chavez, trying to cause him problems? Maybe it is because they don't want the proposed changes to Article 113 to become law? Article 113 will make monopolies illegal, thus making hoarding more difficult.
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