I always find it hilarious when the cheerleaders of
the revolution who live abroad question the veracity of shortages of
food in Venezuela, after all they claim, how can there be shortages
when oil prices are at all time highs and the country is in the middle
of the biggest windfall in its history? As if we could invent such a silly concept!
The explanation is easy,
it is called populism, economic populism. Price controls, Government in
charge of imports and distribution and the absurd fixed exchange rate
have led to shortages of the most basic foodstuffs, while you can buy
caviar and foie gras at stores because they are not part of the
Government’s control.
But those of us who live
here, see the shortages daily. For some items like corn oil, sugar and
milk, the shortages never ease. For others, like black beans, meat and
eggs, it varies. The latest victim is bread, as the shortage I wheat
flour (all imported) have created a new form of rationing at bakeries,
where you can buy up to Bs. 2,000 of bread after you stand in a brief
line for ten minutes.
Today, I actually did not
have lunch, because we had a case of good news, bad news. The
supermarket in the building where I work, had powdered milk for the
first time in about ten or twelve days. Thus, when I attempted to go
buy my usual lunch there, lines stretched out for about three hundred
meters and actually went to the sidewalk. Just imagine, people making a
half hour line so that they could get in the end two kilos maximum per
person of awful powdered milk. Such is the state of things in the
robolution in Venezuela these days, despite oil hitting $90 a barrel
this week.
In fact, things are so ridiculous,
that I decided to try out what happened if I put the word milk into
mercadolibre’s website and low and behold, you can buy powdered milk
(leche) in Venezuela’s equivalent of eBay.
Check it out!
Just in case the skeptics visit, here is the screen shot of one of the results:
