Venezuela looters target chicken, flour amid worsening shortages

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-looting-idUSKCN0Y427V


Mobs in Venezuela have stolen flour, chicken and even underwear this week as looting increases across the crisis-hit OPEC nation where many basic products have run short.

Many people now get up in the dead of night to spend hours in long lines in front of supermarkets. But as more end up empty-handed and black market prices soar, plundering is rising in Venezuela, already one of the world's most violent countries.
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Videos of crowds breaking into shops, swarming onto trucks or fighting over products frequently make the rounds on social media, though footage is often hard to confirm.

In one of the latest incidents, several hundred people looted a truck carrying kitchen rolls, salt and shampoo after it crashed and some of its load tumbled out in volatile Tachira state on Thursday, according to a local official and witnesses.

[braddy]

1. Another of the countless reminders to people to have some degree of preparedness, no matter where

they live, or the laws against it.

I bet a lot of Venezuelans are wishing they had a few old 50 pound bags of rice and beans hidden away.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. The Venezuela gov, and the chavistas here, would consider that illegal hoarding nt

[braddy]

3. I know, and hoarding laws is a tough one, but personally I would break that law to some degree

depending on the penalties, if execution was the penalty then that would of course reduce the risks you would take pushing against the law.

Even in a country like that though, I would like some buried food, or whatever fit my situation and physical location, what I think of as Leningrad food.

"Pet owners swapped cats in order to avoid eating their own. There wasn’t a dog to be seen. Only the zoo preserved its star attractions, like ‘Beauty’ the hippopotamus, with special rations of hay.
People searched desperately for substitute food. Cottonseed cake (usually burned in ships’ boilers), ‘macaroni’ made from flax seed for cattle, ‘meat jelly’ produced from boiling bones and calf skins, ‘yeast soup’ from fermented sawdust, joiners’ glue boiled and jellified, toothpaste, cough mixture and cold cream - anything that contained calories. They even licked the dried paste off the wallpaper."

[Bacchus4.0]

6. Me too. People do what they need to survive. nt

[braddy]

7. Do you keep food stored now?

[Bacchus4.0]

8. I do use a whole sale store occassionally so some items I have plenty of like toilet paper

I guess this makes me a criminal in Venezuela.

[braddy]

9. Buying in bulk (and on sale) and rotating food saves a lot of money

and gives a fundamental prepper base to get through a short rough period.

[Bacchus4.0]

10. It does, but you run the risk of jail time, in Venezuela that is. Glad i'm not there nt

[scscholar]

4. Like in Florida

Too many people hoard things like plywood and food so the rest of the people aren't allowed those things.

[braddy]

5. Was that a joke, or are you being serious?

[EX500rider]

11. I've never seen a store out of food in Fla, no matter how big a storm was coming.

Plywood can get scarce if you wait till the last second to buy it, but they restock it fairly soon.