Politics

Venezuela State Close To Total Collapse, Merchants Demanding Payments

Published

9 years ago

December 27, 2017

Populist Wire Editorial Board

(Via Reuters)

By Eyanir Chinea and Maria Ramirez

CARACAS/CIUDAD GUAYANA, Venezuela (Reuters) – There was no way Jose Ramon Garcia, a food transporter in Venezuela, could afford new tires for his van at $350 each.

Whether he opted to pay in U.S. currency or in the devalued local bolivar currency at the equivalent black market price, Garcia would have had to save up for years.

Though used to expensive repairs, this one was too much and put him out of business. “Repairs cost an arm and a leg in Venezuela,” said the now-unemployed 42-year-old Garcia, who has a wife and two children to support in the southern city of Guayana.

“There’s no point keeping bolivars.”

For a decade and a half, strict exchange controls have severely limited access to dollars. A black market in hard currency has spread in response, and as once-sky-high oil revenue runs dry, Venezuela’s economy is in free-fall.

The practice adopted by gourmet and design stores in Caracas over the last couple of years to charge in dollars to a select group of expatriates or Venezuelans with access to greenbacks is fast spreading.

Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black market equivalent – putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a large number of Venezuelans.

According to the opposition-led National Assembly, November’s rise in prices topped academics’ traditional benchmark for hyperinflation of more than 50 percent a month – and could end the year at 2,000 percent. The government has not published inflation data for more than a year.

“I can’t think in bolivars anymore, because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewelry in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarize.”

The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year.

Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government.

TRIM THE TREE WITH BOLIVARS

President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor’s policies on capital controls. Yet, the spread between the strongest official rate, of some 10 bolivars per dollar, and the black market rate, of around 110,000 per dollar, is now huge.

While sellers see a shift to hard currency as necessary, buyers sometimes blame them for speculating.

Rafael Vetencourt, 55, a steel worker in Ciudad Guayana, needed a prostate operation priced at $250.

“We don’t earn in dollars. It’s abusive to charge in dollars!” said Vetencourt, who had to decimate his savings to pay for the surgery.

In just one year, Venezuela’s currency has weakened 97.5 per cent against the greenback, meaning $1,000 of local currency purchased then would be worth just $25 now.

Maduro blames black market rate-publishing websites such as DolarToday for inflating the numbers, part of an “economic war” he says is designed by the opposition and Washington to topple him.

On Venezuela’s borders with Brazil and Colombia, the prices of imported oil, eggs and wheat flour vary daily in line with the black market price for bolivars.

In an upscale Caracas market, cheese-filled arepas, the traditional breakfast made with corn flour, increased 65 percent in price in just two weeks, according to tracking by Reuters reporters. In the same period, a kilogram of ham jumped a whopping 171 percent.

The runaway prices have dampened Christmas celebrations, which this season were characterized by shortages of pine trees and toys, as well as meat, chicken and cornmeal for the preparation of typical dishes.

In one grim festive joke, a Christmas tree in Maracaibo, the country’s oil capital and second city, was decorated with virtually worthless low-denomination bolivar bills.

Most Venezuelans, earning just $5 a month at the black market rate, are nowhere near being able to save hard currency.

“How do I do it? I earn in bolivars and have no way to buy foreign currency,” said Cristina Centeno, a 31-year-old teacher who, like many, was seeking remote work online before Christmas in order to bring in some hard currency.

(Additional reporting by Andreina Aponte and Leon Wietfeld in Caracas, Mircely Guanipa in Maracay, Anggy Polanco in San Cristobal, Lenin Danieri in Maracaibo; Writing by Girish Gupta; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Politics

Rob Sand Must Be Audited Along with LGI

Published

6 days ago

November 4, 2026

Populist Wire Editorial Board

Rob Sand won the Iowa governor’s race as the state’s auditor. That dual role demands immediate scrutiny of his own office and of LGI, the family business run by his wife, Christine Lauridsen Sand. Taxpayers have a right to know whether any public contracts, grants, or favorable treatment flowed between the auditor’s office and the company while he held statewide power. Iowa does not get a free pass on conflicts simply because the winner is a Democrat.

America First means accountability for officials who oversee public money. Sand built his career on auditing others. The same standard now applies to him and to LGI. Any overlap in finances, vendor relationships, or use of state resources must be examined by independent review before he takes the governor’s office. Working families in Iowa already face water-quality issues, budget pressures, and education concerns. They should not also wonder whether family business interests influenced decisions made in the auditor’s office.

An audit of Sand’s tenure and of LGI is the minimum required for confidence in the transition. If irregularities appear, they must be referred for further investigation. Sovereignty and basic fairness require that the next governor faces the same transparency he once claimed to enforce. Iowa voters deserve nothing less before he is sworn in.

Politics

2028: America First Dark Horse Must Rise

Published

6 days ago

November 4, 2026

Populist Wire Editorial Board

The 2026 midterms cleared the field. Democrats took Congress after voters punished high gas prices and the Iran war. Establishment heirs now carry that baggage. JD Vance’s odds slipped overnight. Marco Rubio remains tied to the same foreign-policy circle that produced the conflict. Neither can lead a clean America First recovery. The candidate must be anyone but Vance or Rubio.

That dark horse must run on sealed borders, an end to forever wars, energy independence, and trade that puts American workers first. Traditional values and biological reality in policy cannot be treated as optional. The midterms showed the cost of foreign entanglements and elite priorities. Working families want their government focused on home, not distant conflicts or cultural experiments. Only a figure free of prior establishment ties—and free of Vance or Rubio—can make that case without apology.

The next two years will decide whether the movement stays pure or dilutes into another round of managed decline. A dark horse who rejects globalist deals, defends sovereignty, and speaks plainly to the base can consolidate the realignment before 2028. The country does not need another caretaker from the current circle. It needs someone new who will finish what America First started.

Politics

Democrats Gave Ground on Their Wackiest Issues to “Win”

Published

6 days ago

November 4, 2026

Populist Wire Editorial Board

The midterm results show Democrats winning by dialing back the cultural extremes that defined their last several cycles. In Texas, James Talarico walked back earlier progressive positions on transgender issues to make himself viable in a state that rejected those policies for decades. Elsewhere, candidates who once embraced open borders, defund-the-police rhetoric, and identity-first messaging softened or ignored those planks and focused on costs, the Iran war, and gasoline prices. The public had already rejected the full agenda; the party simply stopped advertising the parts voters hated most.

America First voters never accepted boys in girls’ sports, men in women’s shelters, or sanctuary policies that prioritize non-citizens over citizens. Polling and prior elections already showed those positions as losers outside the coastal core. By muting them in red and purple districts while hammering inflation and foreign wars, Democrats could appeal to working-class Hispanics, independents, and some traditional Democrats who had shifted right. The strategy worked for one night because the economic pain was acute and the alternative was a party tied to high gas prices. It does not mean the underlying cultural preferences of the country changed.

Once in power, the same figures and progressive caucuses will push the old agenda again—Medicare for All, ending enforcement, and cultural mandates. The temporary ground they gave was tactical, not principled. Working Americans still want secure borders, biological reality in policy, and government that puts citizens first. The midterms proved the left cannot win by leading with its most extreme ideas. They also proved those ideas remain the party’s destination once the ballots are counted.