Venezuelans are storming supermarkets and attacking trucks as food supplies dwindle

[Bacchus4.0]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/venezuelans-are-storming-supermarkets-and-attacking-trucks-as-food-supplies-dwindle/2016/06/28/70020a14-37c8-11e6-af02-1df55f0c77ff_story.html

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The fight for food has begun in Venezuela. On any day, in cities across this increasingly desperate nation, crowds form to sack supermarkets. Protesters take to the streets to decry the skyrocketing prices and dwindling supplies of basic goods. The wealthy improvise, some shopping online for food that arrives from Miami. Middle-class families make do with less: coffee without milk, sardines instead of beef, two daily meals instead of three. The poor are stripping mangoes off the trees and struggling to survive.

“This is savagery,” said Pedro Zaraza, a car oil salesman, who watched a mob mass on Friday outside a supermarket, where it was eventually dispersed by the army. “The authorities are losing their grip.”

[Venezuela declares a 2-day workweek because of energy shortages]

What has been a slow-motion crisis in Venezuela seems to be careening into a new, more dangerous phase. The long economic decline of the country with the world’s largest oil reserves now shows signs of morphing into a humanitarian emergency, with government mismanagement and low petroleum prices leading to widespread shortages and inflation that could surpass 700 percent this year.

The political stakes are mounting. Exhausted by government-imposed power blackouts, spiraling crime, endless food lines, shortages of medicine and waves of looting and protest, citizens are mobilizing against their leaders. In recent days, Venezuelans lined up to add their names to a recall petition that aims to bring down the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and put an end to the socialist-inspired “revolution” ignited 17 years ago by Hugo Chavez.

[MADem]

1. I am astounded this did not happen sooner.

The people of VZ have had to endure years of senseless deprivation due to government mismanagement and utter stupidity. Instead of diversifying in a sustainable way, they used their oil money to enrich the Boligarchs and engaged in a system of graft, corruption and cronyism. When the bottom fell out of the oil market, they and their stinky, heavy, sticky and hard-to-refine product had no options.

These are not stupid people--they are intelligent and creative. They deserve better in life.