Just note that if they'd been selling their oil for dollars, they wouldn't be suffering such a shortage of hard currency (such as it is).

Sender 47, I studied the Japanese economy in grad school as well. Fascinating. Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?

I'm convinced that most of the "crises" around the world are made-up, easily solved problems that are being used by cronies to fleece the public out of their money, just as the cabal refused to save the MN farmers, because they "needed" to rule an entire country.

NO BEER, NO PEACE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVjCa...
It is all over once they are scraping the bottom of the beer barrel... :)
Seriously there are going to be problems when the liquor runs out. How do you keep the masses placated when the bread and circuses end? Some people get nasty when they are forced to go dry. I'm sure this is not the only shortage but this will be particularly difficult for some to swallow... er um... excuse me. :)

Yes, many of them depended of money being sent by their parents. Since the beginning of the year the gov has not being approving the allowed stipends to be sent through legal ways ('at 12,3 VEF per USD) The third legal market at almost 200 per USD is also a lie, Therefore they have to go to the black market that is getting near the 700 mark.

Yes, studying under a scholarship (there was no other way for me to study abroad)

Always had interest for the Japanese culture, in fact national culture and management styles is my actual research here. Also I like the investigation of one of my current professors here.

Yes I plan to go back, Venezuela is not gonna be fixed by magic/ And of course we cannot let the history repeat itself, although it has a terrible tendency to do so,

I understand completely. I have taught dozens of students from Venezuela at my university that may not be able to finish because of the hyperinflation and because of Maduro's decrees.

Sender, why Japan? Are you studying there? Ro you have plans to go home?

At the moment I'm in japan, so I'm no longer a direct witness... Just have my family, friends and non gov controlled media, to know. Except the hiperinflation, wich makes any money I "send" (sell it to someone at black market rate) a small fortuna for my family. Just 1 USD is more than 3 days worth wage at black market rate

Good to hear from you again, sender47.

Yeap, although I think it will be the last thing to go scarce... Without being despectful... a lot of people use rheir money to get drunk from friday afternoon, till... Monday? Most of them do not care about the situation, they live day by day, work for food and alcohol... The food is scarce... So the only thing maintaining them zombie is alcohol.

My kind of location management! 😉

I agree. Simon Black commented a day or so ago about Vietnam now gaining. It is a vacation destination for many (my French relatives have been there a couple of times) and they are becoming the new "China" to manufacture things that are now too expensive to make in China.

58,000 US killed, 100s of thousands permanently physically and mentally injured, and for what? Ron Paul's new book call this one pretty well.

But how many people will solve that problem by getting high?

Why not? I think my bartender understands life's problems better than any Reverend.

Most poor-country debts to US banks date from the cold war, when the government pressured the banks into lending in order to persuade those countries not to join the Communist bloc. In return the banks were given accounting rules that pretended those loans were rock-solid assets (allowing the banks to create more money and lend it here).

I don't think that was a good idea even in the short term. Take Viet Nam. It was a nasty dictatorship when we got there (before the coup of 1964), enough so that Communist rule may even have been better for those people. Meanwhile, it would not have hurt us, because there's no way the Soviets or Chinese would have made a profit running a poor country like Viet Nam. They'd just gain a bunch of uneducated people to feed and to try to put to work.

I think the same holds true for Venezuela and Bolivia. Those people are in sad shape, and even if we somehow conquered those countries they'd still be poor and living under dictators they hate. So why not let our enemies fill that role?

During the 70's I lived in a dry county for 7 years.
It was surrounded by four wet counties plus another dry one.
I recall a convenience food store with at least beer located just across the county line in three different directions that required drives of 20-to-30 minutes.
I worked for a newspaper in a town pretty much centered in that blasted county.
Those businesses thrived, by the way. Location--location!

Huge mistake by the socialist Venezuelan government. Even the old Soviet Union wouldn't let the vodka supply go dry.

You know, Dino Dude...
I occasionally get into conversations with people from "dry" counties who will tell me that instead of bars on every corner, they have churches.
I tell them that the lay-of-the-land in Wisconsin is: Bar, Church, Bar, Church, BAR, BAR, Church...
AND after church we head to the BAR!

Up here in polka country we now have new lyrics to an old song:
"In Venezuela there is no BEER! That's why we drink it HERE! "

Venezuela seems like the plot of a story by Franz Kafka. The conditions there are worse than most horror stories.

Alabama Southern Baptists who rule dry counties would love this story.

Exactly correct. Note the "bailouts" are by other governments using taxpayer money, best know as the "People's Mortgage Company" in Atlas Shrugged. No private lender would have given them (Greece, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, etc) credit in the first place.

Thank god, a crisis worthy of concern, at last! Where do we send a six pack?