This is one prime example where democracy doesn't work.<p>The resource I'm reading is www.caracaschronicles.com. The article I'm specifically referring to is [0].<p>Basically, when oil prices were high, the government would subsidize everything extremely heavily. They would give a lot of cash directly to consumers on a card (in the article).<p>The card was supposedly to buy international goods (trips abroad), but Venezuelans would then go to Colombia where there would be merchants to do all the paperwork and just give them the cash value on the card minus a cut.<p>Of course the government was extremely popular and got elected by landslide victories. Now, once oil prices/the economy tanked, the government did other stuff to try to curry favor with the electorate.<p>They would go into electronic stores and demand immediate 30% price cuts on luxury goods, like flat screen TVs, to basically legally buy votes. Once the in-stock goods sold out, guess what? Nobody wanted to produce or import goods to Venezuela for no profit. So the store shelves stay bare, and they claim an international economic war for the hardships.<p>But it's still technically a democracy until recently, because one person, one vote, and the government gave out massive handouts.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-cucutas-past/" rel="nofollow">https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/03/08/remembrance-cuc...</a>
This has been happening for a long time now, and I'm amazed the people have been willing to tolerate it. From what I can see the Venezuelan government doesn't have North Korea levels of control.