To say that the country is an economic basket case is a gross understatement. Inflation can only be described as runaway; the country’s currency isn’t even worth the paper it is printed on; few can afford even basic foodstuffs and supplies and the government is broke. Store shelves are empty; there is fighting in the streets; the murder rate is soaring, and the army has to guard shipments of goods.
As reported by Zero Hedge, the anger has gotten so bad over conditions in what used to be South America’s economic behemoth, demonstrators are resorting to throwing “bombs” full of feces at government forces, as the currency (the bolivar) collapses again by 99.5 percent -- 5,100 bolivars to every $1.
The monetary depreciation and inflation are so extreme that most peoples’ savings have been obliterated. It’s all but impossible to buy imported goods -- and domestic production of goods has also fallen dramatically.
Like all good socialists, Maduro -- who is essentially a dictator -- has arbitrarily raised the minimum wage something like 20 times during his tenure (much like Democrats in the U.S. want to do and have done). But because artificially raising wages without taking into consideration whether businesses can even afford to pay them is a recipe for fiscal disaster, they have done no good and still only amount to about $40 a month. In fact, raising the wages by dictate rather than allowing the free market to determine wages has only made things worse.
Hence the feces bombs, which, as El Pais reports, some have dubbed “Puputov cocktails” on social media. Fast becoming the ‘weapon’ of choice to hurl at government forces, demonstrators launch them with giant slingshots called a “crapapult.”
You can't make this stuff up.
And yet, they are part of the political reality in Venezuela today: Socialism taken to the extreme is directly responsible for the destruction of this once proud, once prosperous country.
“These kids live in a dictatorship, they have no other option but to protest however they see fit,” Maria Montilla, 49, staged behind the lines of a group of protestors, told El Pais.
“There’s nothing explosive here. It’s out way of saying, ‘Get lost Maduro, you’re useless!'” one protestor, who requested anonymity, added.
Miguel Torres, the one-time spy chief for Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, has broken with the current government. He sees major trouble ahead -- even civil war -- if nothing changes and the already massive protests spread even further to the poorer, generally pro-Chavez countryside.
“What is happening may be the starting point for a huge armed confrontation between Venezuelans,” he told Reuters. “Nobody wants that.”
Unfortunately, far too many Americans living in deep blue states and who were enamored with the presidential candidacy of socialist U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., would favor exactly the kind of government that is destroying Venezuela and has left other countries like Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and others in desperate poverty.
If that form of government ever takes hold, it would not only be an economic disaster for the world, since the U.S. dollar is the globe’s reserve currency, it would doom generations of Americans to the same hopelessness and endless cycles of poverty and desperation being seen now in Venezuela and other socialist governments.
Anyone who seriously believes that America’s currency would not undergo a catastrophic, deadly collapse under socialist government is no serious student of history. The evidence proving otherwise abounds.
Stay informed at Collapse.news and Rioting.news.
J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.
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