Cash strapped Venezuela wants to pay for hospital supplies with gems and rare metals

[GatoGordo]

Cash-Strapped Venezuela Offers to Pay for Medicines With Diamonds
Pharma executives express doubt over proposal in face of government’s past failure to pay bills; barter spreads among populace for lack of currency
By Kejal Vyas
Jan. 4, 2018 5:30 a.m. ET

CARACAS, Venezuela—With hospital shelves bare and the government stumped on how to settle $5 billion in arrears to pharmaceutical companies, cash-strapped Venezuela recently offered some foreign suppliers alternative compensation: diamonds, gold and coltan, the rare metal used to make cellphones and Playstations.

-snip-

https://www.wsj.com/articles/cash-strapped-venezuela-offers-to-pay-for-medicines-with-diamonds-1515061800

[procon]

1. If these rich natural resources are available why isn't the govt mining

them and selling them on the open market for big money instead of losing a fortune trying to barter? Wouldn't that give their economy a little boost, maybe prime the pump to get ancillary business going?

[GatoGordo]

2. Maduro and the Chavistas aren't your ordinary government leadership

Chavismo has single-handedly ruined one of the most resource rich nations on the planet and turned it into less than a third world country.

Ordinarily, a nation would simply extract the commodity (oil, natural gas, coal, diamonds, gold, etc) from the ground and sell them at the market rate. This concept eludes Chavismo. Instead of reinvesting the rewards of being such a beautiful and resource blessed country, they decided to embrace wholesale cronyism and corruption. In their greed and lust for power, they nationalized any and all profitable enterprises and ruined the economy. They promised the population Sweden style socialism and delivered Cuban/Stalinist authoritarianism.

The currency is worthless. Inflation last year was over 2000%. Their MONTHLY minimum wage was just increased 40%, and is now worth just over a dollar. PER MONTH. They have defaulted on their debt. They are selling off assets left and right. They cannot even pay the fake Cuban doctors that they paid for with oil to the Castro brothers.

There is no gasoline in their oil rich country, because they cannot refine their own oil. They can't extract the oil, because they fired all the professional oil employees, and replaced them with Chavistas. They can't replace worn out oil and refinery parts, because they cannot buy them with their worthless currency. They people who CAN help them haven't been paid in years and have abandoned ship. Capacity is at 20% and plummeting. There are fires at the refineries weekly. The electrical grid fails daily and is a shambles. They have ZERO land line phone service.

No food because they cannot buy seed or fertilizer... they nationalized the farm sector and promptly became an importer instead of an exporter of food. They have no medicine (aspirin, insulin, antibiotics, birth control), as nothing is manufactured in Venezuela any longer. They have no doctors and nurses because they are all leaving. Women give birth on filthy hospital floors if not in the back of donkey carts.

No students in public school or college, because there are no teachers to teach them. Parents spend all day waiting in line to buy bread and rice. The average Venezuelan has lost 20lbs last year. Children starve, and die of easily treated disease (diphtheria is worse than ever). They have the highest violent crime rate in the western hemisphere, and the most murders per capita in the world.

20 years ago, Venezuela was the Pearl of the Caribbean and the envy of South America. It is now a cesspool.