Food seizures begin: Venezuela farmers ordered to turn over their food to the government…(Coming To AmeriKa!?)
by: Daniel Barker
NaturalNews.com
Friday, August 07, 2015
As Venezuela’s economy continues to worsen — its currency having entered “free fall mode,” according to the Financial Times — the desperate Maduro government has taken the extreme measure of nationalizing the nation’s food industry.
Venezuelan farmers and food producers are now required to sell anywhere from 30 percent to 100 percent of their products to state-owned stores. The order covers staple foods such as rice, milk, oil, sugar and flour.
Shortages and long lines in stores have become common since Venezuela’s economy began sliding into inflation — a situation that placed them at the top of the list in the world for inflation in 2014. The official inflation rate was 65 percent last year, and in the last month the currency has lost another 43 percent of its value. Oil prices once again have dropped, causing further strain on Venezuela’s struggling economy.
The recent free fall of the country’s currency — the bolivar — is evidence, according to FT.com, of “the growing inability of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s president, to stabilise the country’s fast deteriorating economy.”
Maduro’s Leftist government has attempted to cover its debts by printing money, a move which has pushed the country towards a state of hyperinflation, according to leading economists. Venezuela’s money supply has increased 85 percent in the last year, while the currency continues to devalue. The black market value of the bolivar has nearly reached the 700 to one dollar mark — a figure roughly one-hundredth of the official government rate of 6.3 bolivars to the dollar.
Many observers believe that the move to nationalize the food supply will only worsen the situation, especially for Venezuela’s lower income citizens.
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