VenEconomy: Chávez, You Did It! From the Editors of VenEconomy At the beginning of his rule, late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez said loud and clear that his model of country to follow was Cuba, Fidel’s Cuba, his “sea of happiness.” After 14 years of a communist advance led by Chávez, and now by his “heir” Nicolás Maduro, the goal to emulate Cuba is being reached to the very detail. As announced by leftist Zulia Governor Francisco Arias Cárdenas, from July 10 it will be implemented in that state a new automated system of food rationing that will prevent consumers from exceeding their “quotas” on a same product bought in various stores during the same day – and the same week. By this we mean Zulia state will become a pioneer with the use of a new rationing digital card, whose first phase is to cover around 65 supermarkets and grocery stores located in the Maracaibo and San Francisco municipalities. The excuse for its implementation is “to guarantee food security in Venezuela and stop smuggling activities.” The truth is that this “chip,” which adds to the “chip” for the control of gasoline sales in border states, is the finest example of failure from a “Made in Cuba” economic model that used to delight “Supreme Commander” Chávez and that now Maduro is replicating. It’s unbelievable that Venezuela has got to this extreme situation where the destruction of the productive apparatus, a sharp disinvestment and a hypercontrolled economy has made the most demand for products and services has to be met with imports. It’s also unconceivable that in Venezuela, price control policies and the rationing of dollars to manufacturers that are barely surviving have led to a generalized and persistent shortage of staple goods. Or that distortions and the corruption introduced by wrong-headed economic policies from this communist regime make Venezuela a country prone to smuggling activities, because informal traders beyond our borders are making big profits out of the sale of our products. Unfortunately, as accustomed, in order to put a lid on scarcity and stop the smuggling of goods, the Government attacks the symptoms and not the illness per se, which makes it just another distorted economy due to the lack of legal certainty, a failed attempt to set aside the market forces and the discouragement of investments. Now with this digital rationing card, we are taking a “modern” step forward to bring Venezuela closer to the so-called “sea of happiness” that Chávez was trying to emulate. VenEconomy has been a leading provider of consultancy on financial, political and economic data in Venezuela since 1982.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 22:31:43 +0000
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