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  • Meat, Sugar Scarce in Venezuela Stores

    Meat, Sugar Scarce in Venezuela Stores

    By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON
    The Associated Press
    Thursday, February 8, 2007; 4:13 PM



    CARACAS, Venezuela -- Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.

    President Hugo Chavez's administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible. Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.

    Major private supermarkets suspended sales of beef earlier this week after one chain was shut down for 48 hours for pricing meat above government-set levels, but an agreement reached with the government on Wednesday night promises to return meat to empty refrigerator shelves.

    Shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.

    Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.

    "Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls," Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told the Venezuelan broadcaster Union Radio on Thursday. "The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high."

    Most items can still be found, but only by paying a hefty markup at grocery stores or on the black market. A glance at prices in several Caracas supermarkets this week showed milk, ground coffee, cheese and beans selling between 30 percent to 60 percent above regulated prices.

    The state runs a nationwide network of subsidized food stores, but in recent months some items have become increasingly hard to find.

    At a giant outdoor market held last weekend by the government to address the problems, a street vendor crushed raw sugar cane to sell juice to weary shoppers waiting in line to buy sugar.

    "They say there are no shortages, but I'm not finding anything in the stores," grumbled Ana Diaz, a 70-year-old housewife who after eight hours, had managed to fill a bag with chicken, milk, vegetable oil and sugar bought at official prices. "There's a problem somewhere, and it needs to be fixed."

    Gonzalo Asuaje, president of the meat processors association Afrigo, said that costs and demand have surged but in four years the government has barely raised the price of beef, which now stands at $1.82 per pound. Simply getting beef to retailers now costs $2.41 per pound without including any markup, he said.

    "They want to sell it at the same price the cattle breeder gets for his cow," he said. "It's impossible."

    After a meeting with government officials Wednesday, supermarkets association head Luis Rodriguez told the TV channel Globovision that beef and chicken will be available at regulated prices within two to three days. He did not say whether the government would be subsidizing sales or if negotiations on price controls would continue.

    The government has urged Venezuelans to refrain from panic buying and is looking to imports to help.

    Jorge Alvarado, trade secretary at the Bolivian Embassy in Caracas, told the state news agency that Venezuela's government plans to import 330 tons of Bolivian beef next week, eventually bringing that to 11,000 tons a year. It also plans to import 8,250 tons of beans, chicken, soybeans and cooking oil, Alvarado said.

    Government officials dismiss any problems with price controls, while state TV has begun running tickers urging the public to "denounce the hoarders and speculators" through a toll-free phone number.

    "The weight of the law will be felt, and we demand punishment," Information Minister Willian Lara said Wednesday.

    washingtonpost.com
    A grain of wheat eclipsed the sun of Adam !!

  • #2
    Whoah whoah whoah. You mean to tell me that fixing prices destroys markets and causes shortages?

    Next thing some yahoo's gonna come along and tell me that Communism stacks bodies like cord wood.

    -dale

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    • #3
      Originally posted by dalem View Post
      Whoah whoah whoah. You mean to tell me that fixing prices destroys markets and causes shortages?

      Next thing some yahoo's gonna come along and tell me that Communism stacks bodies like cord wood.

      -dale
      Now, now, Dale, we all know that was never true communism.

      You'd think the dumbsmacks would learn after a century's-worth of failure. What was Einstein's definition for insanity, again?
      The black flag is raised: Ban them all... Let the Admin sort them out.

      I know I'm going to have the last word... I have powers of deletion and lock.

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      • #4
        Wonder why his pal Castro doesn't send over some sugar. Oh well, fortunately for Chavez, the solution is a simple one.

        Silence the media.
        "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

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        • #5
          I was just about to post that. When Fidel is your best friend and you can't keep sugar on the shelves...you're about the worst manager a country can dam' well have.

          Comment


          • #6
            Wait a minute. I thought MR. Chavez was the messiah of Venezuela! All that money from the inflated oil prices, where's all the money going?? Surely his hacienda in Cuba didn't cost THAT much?

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            • #7
              ^^^ Chavez cares only for the people, man. It's not about money!

              Chicken Feet and Nutri-Sweet for everybody!
              "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

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              • #8
                Originally posted by highsea View Post
                ^^^ Chavez cares only for the people, man. It's not about money!

                Chicken Feet and Nutri-Sweet for everybody!

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Bluesman View Post
                  I was just about to post that. When Fidel is your best friend and you can't keep sugar on the shelves...
                  Well, one thing you can say about that supermarket, it's clean!

                  I suppose it helps when it's not all cluttered up by food....

                  The first thing I thought when I saw the picture was how much it reminded me of Cuban stores. Not the tourist ones, but the ones Cubans are allowed to shop in. Empty shelves...
                  "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Awwww, the meat was probably laced with poison anyways. Another plot by the United States to undermine Chavez, you see. :)
                    "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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                    • #11
                      There's a pool between me and a few of my classmates to see how long is it before Venezuela starts importing petroleum.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Ah well, Venezeuala will export more heating oil on a subsidised basis anyway.
                        Before I forget : Down with Recolonisation and Imperialism.

                        Damn Commies. What is it that makes them the first enemy of the very people they claim to be represent/fight for!!!

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Samudra View Post
                          Ah well, Venezeuala will export more heating oil on a subsidised basis anyway.
                          Before I forget : Down with Recolonisation and Imperialism.

                          Damn Commies. What is it that makes them the first enemy of the very people they claim to be represent/fight for!!!
                          It's all a big scam. 'The People's This' and the 'Democratic Socialist That' is a bunch of crap. One of the best summations of socialism I've ever heard was in that VERY forgettable biography of John Reed's life, 'Reds'. Delivered in the best cynical sneer Jack Nicholson is capable of, his portrayal of Eugene O'Neill has him saying exactly that: 'Communism is a scam that tries to convince the Working Man he won't have to work anymore.'

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by highsea View Post
                            The first thing I thought when I saw the picture was how much it reminded me of Cuban stores. Not the tourist ones, but the ones Cubans are allowed to shop in. Empty shelves...
                            Ah yes, the telltale stench of Communism: Empty shelves.

                            Haven't we seen this before somewhere?

                            Hmmm....I hope that Venezuela's stocks of toilet paper and blue jeans are being monitored.

                            Oh yeah, and didn't Chavez just got some kind of unlimited powers or some such? Hey! There's that other recognizable stench of Communism: Dictatorship!

                            Well, I guess it really worked with Cuba. Why not turn yet another Latin American country into a poverty-stricken sinkhole? Better yet, North Korea would be a good model to emulate, right?
                            “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

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                            • #15
                              I'd say something snide, but this speaks for itself.
                              I enjoy being wrong too much to change my mind.

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