There's so much I could say I don't even know where to begin.
Basically, the economy is completely messed up. There's hyperinflation and on the way to become Zimbabwe 2.0. Our coin is worthless, our biggest currency (100Bs) is worth 0.10 cents at the moment.
Lemme use a simple example. The minimum wage over here is about 15000Bs. A PS4 can go up to 500000Bs. You can already see the massive problem here.
There's a economical black market. The official rate of the $ varies but considering but because of basic supply and demand the real price is much higher. I think the official rate now is 10Bs for things like medicines and food, 400Bs for everything else.
The real price? It's currently at 1090Bs. The monthly minimum wage here is less than $15. Something an American can do in less than 2 hours.
There's no water. It comes and goes every few days.
There's no electricity. I have the luck of living in the capital where there are no cuts but everywhere else there's programmed 4 hours per day cuts, sometimes even bigger.
There's no food. The supermarkets are empty. If you wanna go buy food you usually have to make massive lines that can take up to 6 hours, sometimes you have to even start making the line the day previous to the one you are gonna buy, when a certain food product arrives so you can have a chance to buy it, and of course, how much you can buy is limited to usually 2 or 3. Oh, and let's not forget how you can only buy on certain days, usually depending on the last number my ID days. For example, I can only go and buy during the Wednesdays because that's the day the people whose ID ends in 4 can buy.
People have made this a business. People who pretty much make their living going from line to line 24/7 to buy whatever they want and then resell at 3 or 4 times the price. They are called "Bachaqueros" after a certain very voracious bug over here. So on top of there's scarcity of basic food products you have these people making everything worse for everyone else. It's practically an organized mafia.
There's no security. You can go out, get mugged and get shot for practically nothing. On the trains, on the subways, on the streets. You are unsafe anywhere you are. Pulling your phone out in the street? Unthinkable. You are marking yourself for a robbing.
Buying things from Internet? That's impossible now unless you have your own source of $. Until last year people were given a yearly amount of $300, per year, for them to make purchases online. Now they don't give even that.
Maduro is nowhere near a dictator, he simply inherited a corrupt regime where everyone on the government does nothing but fill in his pockets. If this were a dictatorial regime at least there would be "security" as long as you were a good boy and didn't spoke out against the government but not even that.
How does a country with one of the biggest oil reserves in the world ends up like this when it lived through the middle of the oil boom of the 2000? Corruption and socialism are one hell of a drug. Couple that with zero money being poured into the country and voila.
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Here's a few articles I like to link to people when they ask me about how things are here, they probably do a much better job to explain things than I do.
please use archive.is/read/i-lived-like-a-king-for-a-month-in-venezuela-on-100-euros-876
economist.com/news/americas/21695934-venezuela-today-looks-zimbabwe-15-years-ago-spot-difference
businessinsider.com/venezuela-economic-food-crisis-meals-2016-4
nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/reporters-notebook/moving-to-venezuela/all?module=ConversationPieces®ion=Body&action=click&pgtype=article
latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-venezuela-shopping-20150401-story.html
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And now you see why my current dream is to leave this hellhole of a place. I'm doing everything within my power to do something but as you can imagine it is hard and a nearly impossible endeavor.
I have Internet, I have a roof, I have food and even that just barely nowadays. I "have" all my basic needs fulfilled, but I'd like to be able to do more, I'd like to be actually be able to live, not just survive.