CSI Venezuela

[Sheilbh]

Probably Cuba then. Less crime than Venezuela, still higher GDP per capita than the other three. Rum and cigars. More beaches, less mountains. Also less freedom than the other four.

Cuba has a higher GDP per capita than Ecuador, Bolivia, or Nicaraga? 

I find that hard to believe.

Bolivia's the poorest country in South America and Nicaragua in Central America. The only country poorer in the region than them is Haiti. I think Ecuador's third poorest in South America (after Guyana and Paraguay).

Cuba's reckoned to be lower-midtable of Caribbean countries but way above the other three.

[Admiral Yi]

Cuba's reckoned to be lower-midtable of Caribbean countries but way above the other three.

That's a fuck load of remittances then, given the official wage is 20 bucks a month.

[CountDeMoney]

Cuba's also managed to refine the barter economy to a science after many decades of practice amid a US embargo and the dissolution of its Soviet sugar daddy.

[katmai]

I'd live under Katmai, but my ceiling would collapse from the strain.

[Sheilbh]

Cuba's reckoned to be lower-midtable of Caribbean countries but way above the other three.

That's a fuck load of remittances then, given the official wage is 20 bucks a month.

They got rid of the official wage several years ago, though I think that's still roughly the rate of the average wage. But to that you need to add the state rations - like food etc. - as you say remittances, proceeds from the black and grey market and tips from a pretty large tourist industry.

[Admiral Yi]

IIRC, the official ration consists of 1 chicken, 6 eggs, and some bread each month. 

[CountDeMoney]

IIRC, the official ration consists of 1 chicken, 6 eggs, and some bread each month.

In other words, roughly what the GOP's idea of what a food assistance program should look like.

[Sheilbh]

That's either very out of date or Raul's reform of rationing's moved a lot quicker than I knew.

Apparently official rations are currently 7 lbs of rice, half a bottle of cooking oil, a slice of bread a day, a lot of beans and then far fewer things like sugar, eggs and meat and milk (unless you've a child). It's being cut down by Raul.

In addition to that however there's subsidised canteens that most workers can easily afford and there's school lunches for kids.

Research in 2000 suggested that rationing covered around 60% of the daily calories, two thirds of vegetable protein, one third of animal protein and about 40% of fat. But it varies from region to region - so it's higher in Havana than other regions. In general  I think estimates are that on average, taking into account regional differences and shortages it covers around 35-50% of the daily calorie intake.

[DGuller]

IIRC, the official ration consists of 1 chicken, 6 eggs, and some bread each month.

That would last CC through the middle of his first breakfast of the month.

[derspiess]

Don't forget the free rice cookers they all got a few years back.  That was epic.

[Grey Fox]

IIRC, the official ration consists of 1 chicken, 6 eggs, and some bread each month.

Cuban life gets much easier if you have a) Relative sending you foreign currency so you can buy CUC pesos. b) Work in the tourist industry. Tourists tip with CUC Pesos.

[Savonarola]

Why have social happiness when you can have SUPREME social happiness?

Venezuela government creates happiness agency


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - At first, many Venezuelans thought it was a joke: President Nicolas Maduro is creating a Deputy Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness.

The president says that the pediatrician in charge of the agency will coordinate all anti-poverty missions created by the late President Hugo Chavez.

Wags had a field day Friday, waxing sarcastic on Twitter about how happy they felt a day after the announcement.

Oil-rich Venezuela is chronically short of basic goods and medical supplies. Annual inflation is running officially at near 50 percent and the U.S. dollar now fetches more than seven times the official rate on the black market.

WAR IS PEACE
OIL IS LOVE
TOILET PAPER SHORTAGES ARE SUPREME SOCIAL HAPPINESS

[Sheilbh]

This is a trend at the minute. Cameron's got the Office of National Statistics measuring our happiness and well-being which can then lead to policies. I think a few other Euro-countries have tried the same

Of course the Euro theory is basically once you've got security and a functioning economy what are effective, efficient ways of making people's lives better. Venezuela may be getting ahead of herself.

[Maximus]

Why have social happiness when you can have SUPREME social happiness?

Venezuela government creates happiness agency


CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - At first, many Venezuelans thought it was a joke: President Nicolas Maduro is creating a Deputy Ministry of Supreme Social Happiness.

The president says that the pediatrician in charge of the agency will coordinate all anti-poverty missions created by the late President Hugo Chavez.

Wags had a field day Friday, waxing sarcastic on Twitter about how happy they felt a day after the announcement.

Oil-rich Venezuela is chronically short of basic goods and medical supplies. Annual inflation is running officially at near 50 percent and the U.S. dollar now fetches more than seven times the official rate on the black market.

WAR IS PEACE
OIL IS LOVE
TOILET PAPER SHORTAGES ARE SUPREME SOCIAL HAPPINESS

Are they going to have a happiness organ?

[Savonarola]

All your Circuit Cities are belonging to us:

Venezuelan government sends TROOPS into electronics chain to force them to sell goods at a "fair price"

The Venezuelan government sent armed troops into an electronics chain to force the company to start selling products at cheaper prices.

The bizarre tactic was employed by President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government to send a message to combat inflated prices which are hobbling the country's economy.

Authorities arrested various managers of the five-store, 500-employee Daka chain, and sent soldiers into the shops instead.

That brought crowds of bargain-hunters to Daka outlets and sparked looting at one store in the central city of Valencia.

"Inflation's killing us. I'm not sure if this was the right way, but something had to be done," said Carlos Rangel, 37, among about 500 people queuing outside a Daka store in Caracas.

"I think it's right to make people sell things at fair prices." Maduro, who accuses rich businessmen and right-wing political foes backed by Washington of waging an economic "war" against him, said the occupation of Daka was simply the "tip of the iceberg" in a nationwide drive against speculators.

In a speech to the nation on Saturday evening, he condemned the looting reported in Valencia but said it was an isolated incident and the real criminals were unscrupulous businessmen exploiting Venezuelans with unjustified price hikes.

"The ones who have looted Venezuela are you, bourgeois parasites," Maduro said, accusing Daka of raising some prices of products beyond 1,000 percent of cost.

He showed particular astonishment at a washing-machine on sale for 54,000 bolivars ($8,571 at the official exchange rate of 6.3 to the dollar).

"We're going to comb the whole nation in the next few days. This robbery of the people has to stop," Maduro said.

"You've not seen anything."

Illustrating that point, Maduro said government communications experts were blocking a clutch of websites that publish the illegal black-market price of the dollar.

"They're going off the air!" he exclaimed, to applause from supporters.

Minutes after his announcement, however, some of the sites could still be seen by a Reuters reporter in Venezuela.

Maduro's move against Daka, after weeks of warnings of a pre-Christmas push against private businesses to keep prices down, recalled the sweeping and often theatrical takeovers during the 14-year government of his predecessor, Hugo Chavez.

The late president frequently took the nation by surprise announcing expropriations on live TV. He used soldiers to secure oil fields, power stations, supermarkets and other targets while nationalizing large swathes of Venezuela's economy.

But Maduro, who took over in April after Chavez's death from cancer, has stopped short of any more of the outright nationalizations that characterised his mentor's rule.

It's high time we all acknowledged that the greatest criminals in our society are department managers of electronics stores.