Hugo Chavez's Brilliant Plan To Combat Beef Shortages

[benji]

http://www.cnbc.com/id/37023580

It's getting harder to put meat on the table in Venezuela and the government of President Hugo Chavez is blaming the butchers.

At least 40 butchers were detained last week on charges of speculation for allegedly driving up their prices. Some say they were held at a military base and were later strip searched when turned over to police.

Cold cases are empty—or display only chicken—at many of Caracas' butcher shops. Chain supermarkets and crowded municipal markets often offer cuts, but only in small quantities.
...
At least 32 other butchers were also charged last week. If convicted, they could face two to six years in prison.

The government says butchers can charge 17 bolivars—about $4—for a kilogram of beef. Butchers say they have to pay 14 bolivars—about $3 —for the meat leaving them no margin to cover the other costs of their business.

Some had been charging 24 to 40 bolivars a kilo, depending on the cut, until last week's raids stopped them from selling any beef at all.

This is just brilliant. First you set a price control below the cost of business creating a shortage of beef and an underground market. And then instead of raising the price control slightly (remember, it's a fascist state so you can't do the sane thing and eliminate them) to allow for the shortage to abate you instead arrest the butchers. With the logical conclusion following that with less butchers there will be EVEN less beef available.

Soon the people of Venezuela will be able to join their fellow New Soviet Men of North Korea in having no signs of obesity! Truly a great success that will go down in the annals of history!

[shadowgrin]

"Where's the beef?"

[Andrew]

remember, it's a fascist state

Perhaps it's a glib take, but isn't that the basic explanation/bottom line when it comes to issues like this?

[benji]

Brilliant plan continues in the world's greatest democracy:

Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.

Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.

"The battle for food is a matter of national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

It is also the latest issue to divide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wide swathe of the economy, he says to reverse years of exploitation of the poor.

Chavez supporters are grateful for a network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slow massive inflation.

Critics accuse him of steering the country toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the private sector.

They point to 80,000 tons of rotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence the state is a poor and corrupt administrator.
...
Fighting back, Chavez says he is in an economic war against the "parasitic bourgeoisie" that tries to convince Venezuelans that socialism does not work by twisting facts and taking advantage of honest mistakes.

"They know where we are headed, we are going to take from the Venezuela bourgeoisie the hegemony of dominance in this country," Chavez, who calls himself a Marxist, said to applause from supporters on his TV show on Sunday.

[Andrew]

"In theory, communism works. In theory."

[benji]

The good ideas continue!

Presented by President Hugo Chávez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the ``Good Life Card'' is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba.

The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups.

``We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba,'' Roberto León Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. ``It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases.''

Chávez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies.
...
Former director of Venezuela's Central Bank, Domingo Maza Zavala, said this could become a rationing card that would limit your purchases in light of the country's recurring problems with supplies.

``If the intention is to beat inflation, they should find a good source of supply for the entire market and not only for centers that are part of social chains,'' he said. ``To do that, you need to encourage local production with the help of the private sector, since they cannot do it by themselves. The government cannot become the ultimate food distributor.'
...
Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that Venezuela's current problems of scarce supplies are very similar to those Cuba faced when Fidel Castro introduced the rationing card.

``The card emerged when goods began to become scarce,'' Suchlicki said. ``The government had seized many companies that did not work because the government managed them poorly. Then they decided to distribute groceries through those cards.''

And although the cards were introduced as a mechanism to deal with scarcities, Suchlicki said, they later became an instrument of control.

``People depended on the government to eat, and nothing gives you more power than having people depend on you to get their food quota,'' he said.

I hope Domingo Maza Zavala is shortly sharing a cell with the rest of those parasitic bourgeoisie trying to increase the food supply!

And Jaime Suchlicki should join him lest we let those evil ideas pollute America.

[Andrew]

Kind of puts my disappointment in Australian politicians in perspective.

[shadowgrin]

Good Life Card

Sounds like something you draw from Monopoly's Community Chest.

[benji]

World's Greatest Democracy Grants Hugo Chavez Absolute Power:

Venezuela's parliament gave President Hugo Chavez decree powers for 18 months on Friday

...

Chavez had asked for the fast-track powers for one year, saying he needed them to deal with a national emergency caused by floods that drove nearly 140,000 people from their homes.

But the Assembly, which is dominated by loyalists from his Socialist Party, decided to extend them for a year and a half.

That means the president can rule by decree until mid-2012, and can keep opposition parties out of the legislative process until his re-election campaign is well under way for Venezuela's next presidential vote in December of that year.

...

The vote was part of a legislative onslaught to push through bills before a new [less Chavez friendly] National Assembly is seated on Jan. 5. Earlier on Friday, parliament passed a law making it easier for the government to nationalize banks and trim their profits.

The people have spoken! VIva La Revolution!

[JaoSming]

Revolution La Viva!!!


ill have to get in contact with our old exchange student again to see if people are rioting and getting shot in the streets still.

[benji]

I certainly hope so, in The World's Greatest Democracy, people shouldn't be allowed to riot without being shot in the streets for going against The Will of the People.