Venezuela is out of money, food, water, medicine and everything else. But the failing socialist state is still chock full of socialist gimmicks.
Like raising the minimum wage. Again.
Venezuela, a failing socialist state, has gifted its people with the sixth minimum wage hike in one year. The 150% increase last week won’t help too much because inflation is up to 1.7 million percent.
Minimum wage hikes don’t help when your currency isn’t worth the cost of the paper it’s printed on. That’s literally true in Venezuela, which has tried switching to an even more worthless cryptocurrency.
Forget the #Fightfor15, in Venezuela it’s a fight to afford basic food supplies or even a cup of coffee. The cost of a cup of coffee rose 285614% in a year and doubled in seven days. Under the new currency, you can grab a cup of the good stuff for 400 bolivars. Too bad that the minimum wage is 4,800 bolivars and 90% of the population is impoverished. It isn’t looking to buy a cup of coffee, but is starving because it can’t actually buy food. Alternatives have included eating zoo animals, pets and wild donkeys.
I guess this would be the seventh minimum wage hike.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has announced a 300 percent increase to the nation’s minimum monthly salary — to the equivalent of a few dollars per month.
The minimum wage was raised from 4,500 to 18,000 Bolivares, equivalent to just $6 in the parallel (unofficial) market, El Pais reported Tuesday. Economist believe that with ongoing hyperinflation, it will lose its value within days. The amount would only be enough to buy about three pounds of chicken, the newspaper noted.
But Venezeula’s socialist regime claims inflation is a capitalist conspiracy. And it has statistics.
In a speech before the National Assembly Monday, Maduro said Venezuela’s extreme poverty rate fell from 4.4 to 4.3 percent in 2018. In contrast, a poll by three universities showed the nation’s extreme poverty increased by 61 percent the year before.
When millions of people have fled your country, it’s probably because things are getting worse. Not better.
In his four-hour speech, Maduro ordered 23 state-owned companies — including Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA — to sell 15 percent of its production in the so-called “Petro,” a complex cryptocurrency that’s backed by natural resources like oil and gold. It was created in 2017, but it isn’t recognized anywhere outside Venezuela.
Finally a way for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to finance her Green New Deal.
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