Venezuela's Awful Economy Got Even Worse in 2016
Source: Bloomberg
Venezuelans have to navigate a labyrinth of lines to buy staples like sugar or aspirin. Theyve gotten used to finding that the store shelves are empty, a frustration that sometimes boils over into looting. So they dont really need economic data to tell them that 2016 was a terrible year.
Still, when and if the numbers do come in, theyll likely confirm a collapse thats almost unprecedented outside wartime. The government has long since halted regular publication of GDP figures, maintaining radio silence since February. But the International Monetary Funds estimate, of a 10 percent contraction, would make Venezuela the worlds worst economy last year -- and thats toward the optimistic end of the spectrum. Private economists put the drop at as much as 15 percent.
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After the third and harshest year of what now qualifies as a full-blown depression, Venezuela has lost about a fifth of its output. A free-spending government was blindsided by the 2014 collapse in oil prices, which drained the economy of dollars, leaving many staple goods in short supply and pushing inflation to triple digits. As the country's economists try to pin down the numbers, its historians struggle to find parallels for such a slump, at least since the War of Independence two centuries ago.
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-11/goodbye-recession-hello-depression-venezuela-gdp-takes-10-hit
Yet another strike to add to the utterly failed experiment that is Chavismo and the Bolivarian "Revolution".
Archae
(46,343 posts)The "Maduro can do no wrong" fan club is absent.
Yup, blame the US, the CIA, anyone and everyone except the corrupt dictator Maduro and his cronies.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)At least you're there to point and say "I told you so!"
It's not really bad form at all to blame people for blaming people. I get it.
Archae
(46,343 posts)Maduro's own family is siphoning off millions, maybe billions, all to make themselves rich.
Meanwhile, babies are dying in hospitals, even milk is in short supply, and companies outside of Venezuela are pulling out due to authorities grabbing assets.
This is corruption, and it inevitably leads to a far-right strongman like Pinochet.
Jacob Boehme
(789 posts)This could be a preview of our economy during Donald Pee-Body's time in the Oval Office.
cstanleytech
(26,317 posts)the countries economy what sucks is the people funding it will probably not suffer for their actions not to mention alot of good people in thus country will have to suffer because of them.