The price of what had been the cheapest gas on Earth was supposed to increase recently. A long-overdue measure that Maduro assures will improve the economy, but will only deepen the fierce control the State has over the average Venezuelan life.
After a month of Maduro’s new economic measures, what’s life like on the formerly crowded streets of Caracas? Lots of closed shops, and not a lot of hope.
Maracaibo now looks like a city devastated by war. But that’s not what happened. It’s what chavismo has done to the second most important city in Venezuela: crime, chaos, collapse of public services, hunger, poverty and desperation.
A group of Venezuelan citizens, including several former government officials, have been charged of laundering two billion dollars from PDVSA contracts in Andorra.
Out of dollars, the government tries to entice Venezuelans to bring their own.
Farmers mining bitcoin, pranes using digital traces to kidnap people, hackers in shantytowns at the service of the secret police, chieftains paying for bots, biopolitical control and a presidential assassination attempt using drones. My country is a bad sci-fi movie.
Long lines are back. They never left entirely, but they did become a rare sight. After Maduro’s paquetazo, panicked citizens are buying everything they can. Food, medicine, gas and cash are scarce, but fear and anguish are not.
There’s a reason why the ILO established in its 26th Convention that governments must consult with the private sector before proposing an increase in the minimum wage.
The economic measures recently imposed by Maduro caused uncertainty and fear among shop owners in Barquisimeto. They have no capacity to pay the new minimum wage and unemployment and shutdowns might become the new normal.
This school year, 15% of schools may shut down: between 400 and 500 preschools, elementary schools and high schools won’t be able to open in September. The new economic measures put a noose around the neck of parents and representatives, teachers and students alike.
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