Venezuelan state considers system to limit food purchases

[Bacchus4.0]

Source: AP

CARACAS (Reuters) - A Venezuelan state is testing a system to limit purchases of food and other staples, local media reported on Tuesday, in a move that officials defended as necessary to stop contraband trade but opposition critics slammed as Cuban-style rationing.

The OPEC nation's consumers have for months had to endure long lines or visit several stores to find basic products that run the gamut from toilet paper to butter, driven in part by a lack of hard currency to ensure imports.

The state of Zulia in western Venezuela said it will launch a pilot program next week that uses a digital system to block shoppers from buying the same staple products at different stores on the same day.

"Considering the average size of a family, one person should only buy 20 staple products during the period that we establish, which we think will be one week," Blagdimir Labrador, an official with the Zulia state government, told the newspaper Panorama in an interview published on Tuesday.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-state-considers-system-limit-food-purchases-160925448.html

[onehandle]

1. In Soviet Russia, Food Eats You. nt

[msanthrope]

2. It's called rationing. nt

[RobertEarl]

3. Economic growth has its problems in capitalism

Like in the US when everyone went out and topped off their gas tanks on one day, gas shortages happened. That and the price went way up.

So as more people in Venezuela can afford more goods, the shortages follow. And when hoarders hoard, it makes the shortages more severe. It is capitalism run amok.

Does it bother you Venezuela is having growth problems due to its capitalism?

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. So...Venezuela has shortages because of skyrocketing wealth and demand?

Ever consider changing your screen name to BaghdadBobEarl?

[RobertEarl]

9. It really pisses you off, eh?

Pisses you off so much you have to post bullshit like this "skyrocketing"?

What I posted was simple economics. I guess if you are a hater then simple economics makes one react so wildly?

[Dreamer Tatum]

26. You'll need to prove that Venezuela is "capitalist," and if you do, please explain

how it can be so if the government is controlling prices and rationing?

You can't. It's a remake of the Soviet economic system.

[Common Sense Party]

11. Good thing Chavez canceled that Russian nuke power plant.

Otherwise Lake Maracaibo might be boiling by now.

[Common Sense Party]

6. What day was this that "everyone" in the US "went out and topped off their gas tanks on one day"?

Please provide a link to the news coverage of the gas shortages and price spike that ensued.

Thanks.

[RobertEarl]

12. Every time a hurricane in the gulf of Mexico stirs up

Glad to help you see. Ask any time.

[Common Sense Party]

13. Everyone in the US topped off their tanks?

Quite obviously that is wrong.

[RobertEarl]

15. Well, not everyone.

But everyone who got scared and decided to hoard, because they could.

The price shot up and there were shortages each time the gulf got a hurricane. That is the truth which you must know by now, right?

[Common Sense Party]

19. Mostly due to people freaking out about the refineries shutting down production,

which wouldn't affect gas supplies for quite some time.

Shortages? No. There weren't any major shortages.

And not everyone--as you claimed originally--went out and topped off their tank on the same day. We would remember that, as well as the ensuing shortages, because we would have been in lines of cars wrapping around the block, like in the good ol' OPEC embargo days.

Hurricane Isaac in late August last year. A week before the storm, gas prices were $3.72 nationally. A few days after the storm they were $3.82. That's ten cents. About a 3% increase. A month later, the national average was $3.81.

This is much ado about nothing.

[RobertEarl]

40. Yes. Even the US is subject to capitalist

Your reminder of the OPEC squeeze should make you think.

Even the great US is subject to money grubbers causing shortages.

And they are messing with people in Venezuela now. It's just plain common sense to be able to see the consequences of the capitalist.

[naaman fletcher]

7. Name

ANY other country where growing wealth has caused widespread shortages of basic goods.

Surely, there should be 50-60 examples of this since ww2.

thanks

[Bacchus4.0]

20. when people have alot of money, they buy toilet paper. Everyone knows that n/t

s

[Bacchus4.0]

18. they wouldn't need price controls if more people can afford more goods n/t

s

[Dreamer Tatum]

4. So-venezuela Union

Increasingly, anyone who fanatically supports the administration of that economy is simply not very smart.

[joshcryer]

22. Heh.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. We have rationing coupons here.

They're called dollar bills.

We have health care rationing, too. If you can't afford it, you don't get it.

[joshcryer]

24. If you have a dollar here you should have no problem finding staple goods.

If you have a dollar in Venezuela, it is a daily, regular, mind numbing occurrence.

[Comrade Grumpy]

28. And if you don't have a dollar...

[Bacchus4.0]

29. food stamps? Maybe they should consider something like that for the poor

instead of creating the conditions for shortages by stifling production, importation, and overall availability of the products. They could lift the price controls but maintain the subsidy just for the people that need it that way.

[joshcryer]

32. Let's not kid ourselves. The controls were put in place to profit the boligarchs.

Being that their competitors would have to take a loss on staple goods and still have to pay the import fees. It's a win win when you own the import industry. If those controls didn't exist or if the regulations were more lax (not deregulated, but relaxed), then the mom and pops would be able to find other competitors to get their goods. Instead the boligarchs control it all.

And of course, the boligarchs blame the private sector for it, even though the mom and pops are the ones hit hardest. (The big corporations can handle the price controls relatively well.)

[joshcryer]

31. In neither place will you get those staples.

The missiones are hit by the shortages just as well as the regular stores, comrade.

[clarice]

10. Socialism at it's finest. nt

[Pterodactyl]

34. Well said.

[bitchkitty]

35. Oh, for fuck's sake. n/t

[clarice]

39. What does that mean? nt

[dipsydoodle]

14. Contributory facts as to why its being CONSIDERED here :

Venezuela's price control system leaves the cost of basic products such as rice and flour considerably below their market value, creating a temptation for consumers to buy them in large quantities and resell them during shortages.

The business is even more lucrative in border states such as Zulia, which neighbours Colombia, because shoppers can buy goods and resell them across the frontier where they trade for several times the subsidized Venezuelan price.

Products to be covered by the system include rice, milk, toothpaste and diapers. The pilot program is to be carried out in 65 supermarkets in Zulia's capital Maracaibo and the neighbouring municipality of San Francisco.

Supporters of the system credit the late leader Hugo Chavez for creating welfare programs that keep groceries cheap for the poor as part of his self-styled socialist revolution that his protégé and designated successor Nicolas Maduro has vowed to continue.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2013/6/5/worldupdates/venezuelan-state-considers-system-to-limit-food-purchases&sec=Worldupdates

[Bacchus4.0]

27. what's interesting is they probably import much of that from Colombia in the first place

then turn around and resell it back in Colombia. Nonetheless, Ven isn't producing nearly enough domestically and they can't put price controls on imports so the government is eating the cost.

The article also says that they are limiting purchases of staples to once a week which is incredible.

[sabbat hunter]

38. what this doesn't tell you

is that those price controls also keep the price below the cost of what it takes to get it to the consumer. So either retailers have to sell it at a loss, or they have to get subsidies from the government. Retailers are not going to stock an item if they have to sell it for a loss. Even in the US when you have 'loss leaders' supermarkets depend on that consumers will buy other items that will make up for the loss on that one item. But if they are all loss leader items, you won't find them available.

[msongs]

16. hugh chavez rules from the grave lol nt

[Deuce]

17. Meanwhile...

"According to "Dying for Coverage," the latest report by Families USA, 72 Americans die each day, 500 Americans die every week and approximately Americans 2,175 die each month, due to lack of health insurance."

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/20/families-usa-says-26000-die-prematurely-without-health-insurance/

[brooklynite]

36. And yet, the poor aren't packing their bags to move to Venezuela

...nor is the Venezuelan Govt inviting them

[Monk06]

21. To all Chavista bashers this is the result of the ongoing right wing destablization program

that continued after the last attempted coup.

Here are the two culprits behind it.

http://colombiareports.com/venezuela-opposition-leader-sued-in-colombia/

[Bacchus4.0]

23. nope, its the result of chavista price controls, insufficient domestic production, currency controls

The price controls are the result of 30% inflation. They import 70% of their products. all brought to you by Hugo Chavez.

[Dreamer Tatum]

25. Nope, it's another in a series of self-inflicted wounds. nt

[Judi Lynn]

33. What a shock thinking our corporate "news" media won't be covering this.

It really fits the patterns we've seen before, unfortunately, but the truth doesn't have any POWER behind it. It's only the truth, after all, and that gets no respect at all unless somehow it promotes the interests of the oligarchs.

This is a miserable crime, with no one powerful enough to prevent it.

[Archae]

30. Maduro and the Chavez cronies are the best example of the Peter Principle...

Ever since George Bush left the White House in 2009.

Peter Principle - People rise to their level of abject incompetence.

[Nye Bevan]

37. It's the fault of the United States. First they kill Chavez with cancer,

then they manipulate the Venezuelan toilet paper market, and now this. Pure evil.

[geek tragedy]

41. How would they track cash transactions--does everyone have a state ID

with biometric data?

[geek tragedy]

42. .