Russ Dallen of Latinvest in Caracas just emailed me an article about the dire situation in Venezuela. The Central Bank is selling the country's gold reserves to meet near term debt payments. Food shortages are widespread.
The low oil prices has brought to a climax a situation that was already spiraling downward.
The article is in Spanish and can be accessed at by clicking on the picture.
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Here is an excerpt, courtesy of Google translate:
Venezuelans are beginning to suffer situations of anguish and despair at the lack of food. Over the weekend, more than 10,000 people closed an important avenue of Caracas to protest food shortages, while scuffles among people queuing have become everyday despite the surveillance of armed officers of the National Guard.
On Monday, a resident of the town known as "The Cambur" Carabobo state, sent the following message to a radio station through social networks: "No food, no nothing. There are children and the elderly. Please help".
But today much of the country's ports are vacant, by the shortage of hard currency, and forecasts for the remainder of the first quarter of the year look very encouraging.
"I think we are between four and six weeks in a really extreme situation," he said from Caracas economist Orlando Ochoa, speaking on current levels and projected shortages worsen in the near future.
Ochoa added that the country needs additional funds to overcome the situation, but above all requires a general reorganization of the economy to correct the major imbalances in the economy accumulated along the Bolivarian Revolution.
And the economic collapse of Venezuela really is not being caused by falling oil prices, he said.
The crisis was caused by a series of measures implemented in the country since 2005, including the loss of independence of the Central Bank and the use of international reserves to finance public spending, the nationalization of the telecommunications, steel, cement industry and food, the financing of public sector deficits with inorganic money, the implementation of exchange controls and the system of price controls, he said.
"Then, in 2013 and 2014, Maduro does not take steps that could have been taken to correct, and problems caused by inaction are now accentuated by the fall in oil prices," noted Ochoa.
"Maduro insists on treating the macroeconomic problem as a problem of Marxist sociology. There is no doubt that political bias, ideological bias, the burden of the legacy of Chavez, it is choking and choking him simultaneously to the country, "he said.
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article56657168.html#storylink=cpy
Venezuelans are beginning to suffer situations of anguish and despair at the lack of food. Over the weekend, more than 10,000 people closed an important avenue of Caracas to protest food shortages, while scuffles among people queuing have become everyday despite the surveillance of armed officers of the National Guard.
On Monday, a resident of the town known as "The Cambur" Carabobo state, sent the following message to a radio station through social networks: "No food, no nothing. There are children and the elderly. Please help".
But today much of the country's ports are vacant, by the shortage of hard currency, and forecasts for the remainder of the first quarter of the year look very encouraging.
"I think we are between four and six weeks in a really extreme situation," he said from Caracas economist Orlando Ochoa, speaking on current levels and projected shortages worsen in the near future.
Ochoa added that the country needs additional funds to overcome the situation, but above all requires a general reorganization of the economy to correct the major imbalances in the economy accumulated along the Bolivarian Revolution.
And the economic collapse of Venezuela really is not being caused by falling oil prices, he said.
The crisis was caused by a series of measures implemented in the country since 2005, including the loss of independence of the Central Bank and the use of international reserves to finance public spending, the nationalization of the telecommunications, steel, cement industry and food, the financing of public sector deficits with inorganic money, the implementation of exchange controls and the system of price controls, he said.
"Then, in 2013 and 2014, Maduro does not take steps that could have been taken to correct, and problems caused by inaction are now accentuated by the fall in oil prices," noted Ochoa.
"Maduro insists on treating the macroeconomic problem as a problem of Marxist sociology. There is no doubt that political bias, ideological bias, the burden of the legacy of Chavez, it is choking and choking him simultaneously to the country, "he said.
http://www.elnuevoherald.com/noticias/mundo/america-latina/venezuela-es/article56657168.html#storylink=cpy
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