Venezuela raises minimum wage 3,000 percent, and lots of workers get fired
Fabiola Zerpa, September 14, 2018, BLOOMBERG


Venezuelan workers who earned a pittance are now earning a slightly larger pittance, thanks to a big increase in the minimum wage. What they may not have are jobs.

Starting this week, 7 million employees are guaranteed 1,800 bolivars a month -- worth about $20 at the black-market rate. President Nicolas Maduro intended the mandate as political boost, but it’s having the opposite effect as companies, already hit by Venezuela’s epic economic contraction, tell workers they can’t afford to keep them.

While there have been many similar moves in the past, never has one been so disruptive, arriving amid hyperinflation, depression and devaluation. Some employers are restructuring costs, rejiggering pay scales and negotiating settlements with workers. Others are simply dismissing people. Much of the action happens secretively as companies try to avoid punishment by the government, which has been jailing those it believes are flouting the rules.

Caracas garage owner Marcos Vizcaino, 56, said the increase was the final blow for the family business of two generations. He said the scarcity of spare parts, a sclerotic tax bureaucracy and hyperinflation had already complicated matters and resulted in less than a customer a day.

“I already told my four employees to go find other jobs,” he said. “I’ve decided to close. There’s no need for me to keep to losing money for a third year in a row.”
No Customers

In two industrial and wholesale districts in Caracas, La Trinidad and Boleita, about half the businesses were closed last week, including several restaurants that depend on local workers. Weekday traffic resembled the leisurely flow of a Sunday.

“I have four salesmen; all have come in this morning,” said Manuel Rosas, 55, who owns a shop that sells spare parts for Chryslers. By 11 a.m., he had sent them all home because they had nothing to do.

The higher minimum wage, which Maduro announced last month, was among several bids to steady the rapidly failing state’s economy and stanch hyperinflation. The socialist autocrat also devalued the currency and lopped five zeroes off denominations of the bolivar bill, which has been rendered almost valueless.

Difficult Meetings

Sine the new minimum wage was announced, business and industry groups in Caracas held a flurry of meetings. Lawyers have been holding advisory sessions with clients, and there have been difficult sit-downs among owners, employees and unions, all players in the nation’s heavily regulated employment economy.

Vizcaíno says he can’t let go of workers easily. If they believe they have been fired wrongly, they can complain to a Labor Ministry court, setting off a lengthy bureaucratic process akin to a trial.

Not far from Vizcaíno’s auto shop, dozens of workers fired after Maduro’s wage announcement gathered at the Labor Ministry’s doorstep. Many arrived as early as 7 a.m. seeking legal guidance on their dismissals but were prevented from entering after appointment times ran out. Many inspectors had been dispatched to see whether pharmacies, shops and factories closed without permission. Workers anxiously posed questions to officials who told them to come again the next day. Disappointed and confused, many left.
Emergency Plan

“In a situation like this, the government should have an emergency plan to advise workers,” said Edwin Lumar, a 29-year-old shopping-mall security guard. His employer fired three out of six workers without providing legal paperwork. “How many times have new wages been put in place with no results to end hyperinflation?"

In fact, since Maduro took office in 2013, he has boosted the minimum wage 24 times. But inflation keeps galloping and businesses keep shutting down. Some 20,000 have closed since 1996, three years before Maduro’s mentor, Hugo Chavez, took power, according to Fedecamaras, the nation’s largest business organization. Only about 3,600 remain open. In June, more than half of companies surveyed reported they worked at less than a quarter of capacity, according to Conindustria, a trade organization.

“Closing is an individual dilemma,” said Rodrigo Agudo, Dairy and Meat Institute director and food industry expert.

Restrictive Controls

Apart from the astronomical rise in wages, companies have limited ability to adapt, thanks to restrictive controls. Food operations are closely monitored as the government provides them imported raw materials. More than 500 supermarkets and stores have been fined and 200 managers and workers detained since Maduro’s announcements, according to Cedice, a private-property watchdog group.

On Sept. 3, the government seized a pharmaceutical company in Maracaibo that planned to shut; it was previously fined for hoarding products. In August, the government seized a Smurfit Kappa plant that made cardboard after it closed several production lines and sent workers on early vacation. Demand had fallen as the food packagers it supplied closed.

Banking, commerce, education and construction companies, which often have large and stable payrolls, are expected to be buffeted. Benefits pegged to wages -- which depend on an employee’s tenure -- also will increase, and large firms have collective-bargaining agreements subject to government scrutiny.

“The impact can be devastating; it can consume a whole company’s capital,” said Aurelio Concheso, a labor expert at Fedecamaras.

But all merchants face an existential test. In Barcelona, a city in eastern Venezuela, more than 200 retail stores out of about 950 have closed since last year, said Wael Raal, a shop owner who is also president of the community’s commerce association.

“We are crossing a desert,” he said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/venezuela-raises-minimum-wage-3000-percent-and-lots-of-workers-get-fired/

.

brought to you by Hitlery, Upchuck Shoeinmouth, Feinkenstein and Nanny Pelousy

The only kind of socialism that works is National Socialism and it has to be done by white people. No other race, besides maybe the Japanese can pull off a trully successful society. Even the chinks are basically yellow jews who fuck each other over. 20% of their cooking oil is literally made from sewage.

Dumbest trash on the face of the earth.
Attachments:

It's settled science that all progressive socialists are retards.

You assfucks don’t know the difference between peanut butter and wallpaper paste.

Bottom feeders Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> YouI get assfucks from the BBC every day. Idon’t know the difference between
> peanut butter and wallpaper paste.


FIFY

As usual your blind attachment to your philosophy lets you only see part of the picture. Venezuela's problems are not the result of socialism. They are the result of gross wealth and income inequalities which lead the country to turn to Chavez Socialism.

The Bolivarian Revolution accomplished in the free and open election and repeated re-election of Hugo Chavez was a huge and overdue victory for the people of Venezuela over long-standing brutality and exploitation by the ruling oligarch families. The problem was that Chavez died young and left no one with the talent and vision necessary to replace him.

WOTW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As usual your blind attachment to your philosophy
> lets you only see part of the picture.
> Venezuela's problems are not the result of
> socialism. They are the result of gross wealth
> and income inequalities which lead the country to
> turn to Chavez Socialism.


That's how you libtards keep selling it. Even though that's EXACTLY why they are fucked, just say it's not.

WOTW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As usual your blind attachment to your philosophy
> lets you only see part of the picture.
> Venezuela's problems are not the result of
> socialism. They are not the result of gross wealth
> and income inequalities which lead the country to
> turn to Chavez Socialism is something the democrats want to bring to the US.


FIFY

Actually... Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Bolivarian Revolution accomplished in the free
> and open election and repeated re-election of Hugo
> Chavez was a huge and overdue victory for the
> people of Venezuela over long-standing brutality
> and exploitation by the ruling oligarch families.
> The problem was that Chavez died young and left no
> one with the talent and vision necessary to
> replace him.


^^^^^^^^^

......this is one of the more moronic posts I've ever read on FFXU. It's even more moronic than a Gerry post, and that's pretty moronic.

^^^ These are simple facts of history. That you don’t know any of them signals a problem with you, not with the facts.

^ Mad because one of his shining examples of the wonders of socialism came crashing down as they all do.

^^^ To counteract even such deep stupidity as yours, pick up a history book that deals with Venezuela over the past 50 years.

WOTW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As usual your blind attachment to your philosophy
> lets you only see part of the picture.
> Venezuela's problems are not the result of
> socialism. They are the result of gross wealth
> and income inequalities which lead the country to
> turn to Chavez Socialism.
Attachments:

demssuc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dumbest trash on the face of the earth.


They are two completely different systems. They have just as much in common as Republicans have with national socialists.

Actually... Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ^^^ To counteract even such deep stupidity as
> yours, pick up a history book that deals with
> Venezuela over the past 50 years.


No need when we can witness this incredible success story live.

^^^ ignorant 8th grade asshole.

Actually... Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Bolivarian Revolution accomplished in the free
> and open election and repeated re-election of Hugo
> Chavez was a huge and overdue victory for the people of
> Venezuela over long-standing brutality and exploitation
> by the ruling oligarch families. The problem was that
> Chavez died young and left no one with the talent and
> vision necessary to replace him.

Lighting a candle in the dark. Well done.

WOTW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As usual your blind attachment to your philosophy
> lets you only see part of the picture.
> Venezuela's problems are not the result of
> socialism. They are the result of gross wealth
> and income inequalities which lead the country to
> turn to Chavez Socialism.

REALLY, ASSHOLE???

Wednesday, Mar 6, 2013 07:30 AM EST
Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle

The Venezuelan leader was often marginalized as a radical. But his brand of socialism achieved real economic gains

David Sirota, Salon Magazine



Hugo Chavez (Credit: AP/Leslie Mazoch, photo treatment by Salon)

For the last decade in American politics, Hugo Chavez became a potent political weapon – within a few years of his ascent, he was transformed from just a leader of a neighboring nation into a boogeyman synonymous with extremism. Regularly invoked in over-the-top political rhetoric, Chavez’s name became a decontextualized epithet to try to attach to a political opponent so as to make that opponent look like a radical. Because of this, America barely flinched upon hearing the news that the Bush administration tried to orchestrate a coup against the democratically elected Venezuelan leader.

Just to get it out of the way, I’ll state the obvious: with respect to many policies, Chavez was no saint. He, for instance, amassed a troubling record when it came to protecting human rights and basic democratic freedoms (though as Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy notes, “Venezuela is recognized by many scholars to be more democratic than it was in the pre-Chávez era”). His rein also coincided with a boom in violent crime.

That said, these serious problems, while certainly worthy of harsh criticism, were not the primary reason Chavez became the favorite effigy of American politicians and pundits. In an age marked by America’s drone assaults, civil liberties abuses, and war on voting, it is not as if this nation’s political establishment sees an assault on democratic freedoms as deplorable. Likewise, that same political establishment is more than friendly with leaders of countries like Mexico and Colombia – countries which are also periodically hotbeds of violent crime.

No, Chavez became the bugaboo of American politics because his full-throated advocacy of socialism and redistributionism at once represented a fundamental critique of neoliberal economics, and also delivered some indisputably positive results. Indeed, as shown by some of the most significant indicators, Chavez racked up an economic record that a legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving.

For instance, according to data compiled by the UK Guardian, Chavez’s first decade in office saw Venezuelan GDP more than double and both infant mortality and unemployment almost halved. Then there is a remarkable graph from the World Bank that shows that under Chavez’s brand of socialism, poverty in Venezuela plummeted (the Guardian reports that its “extreme poverty” rate fell from 23.4 percent in 1999 to 8.5 percent just a decade later). In all, that left the country with the third lowest poverty rate in Latin America. Additionally, as Weisbrot points out, “college enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.”

When a country goes socialist and it craters, it is laughed off as a harmless and forgettable cautionary tale about the perils of command economics. When, by contrast, a country goes socialist and its economy does what Venezuela’s did, it is not perceived to be a laughing matter – and it is not so easy to write off or to ignore. It suddenly looks like a threat to the corporate capitalism, especially when said country has valuable oil resources that global powerhouses like the United States rely on.

For a flamboyant ideologue like Chavez, that meant him being seen by the transnational elite as much more than an insignificant rogue leader of a relatively small country. He came to be seen as a serious threat to the global system of corporate capitalism.

That, of course, is considered a high crime by the American political illuminati – a high crime prompting a special punishment.

As evidenced by the treatment of everyone from Martin Luther King to Michael Moore to Oliver Stone to anyone else who dares question neoliberalism and economic imperialism, that punishment is all about marginalization – the kind that avoids engaging on substance for fear of allowing the notion of socialism to even enter the conversation in the first place. Instead, the non-conformist is attacked and discredited with vapid invective and caricature, becoming a cartoon villain whose ideas, performance and record are ignored before they can be considered on the merits. He becomes, in other words, the Hugo Chavez we so often saw in American political ads.

Stating this, mind you, is not to claim that Venezuela’s economy under Chavez was perfect. As The Week correctly put it, while “Chavez’s policies of redistribution and nationalization of oil assets endeared him to Venezuela’s working class” and produced many laudable results, the country’s “oil-centric economy has taken away resources from other areas that are badly in need of development.”

However, it is to argue that at a moment when America faces a pivotal debate about taxation and the size of government in specific and free market fundamentalism in general, Chavez’s passing should prompt as much reflection on the individual iconoclast as on the overarching economic ideas he came to embody.

To start, that means asking important questions.

For example, the United States has adamantly rejected the concept of nationalization and instead pursued a bailout/subsidy strategy when it comes to rapacious banks and oil companies – and those firms have often gone on to wreak economic havoc. Are there any lessons to be learned from Venezuela’s decision to avoid that subsidization route and instead pursue full-on nationalization?

Likewise, in a United States whose poverty rate is skyrocketing, are there any lessons to be learned from Venezuela’s policies that so rapidly reduced poverty?

And in a United States that has become more unequal than many Latin American nations, are there any constructive lessons to be learned from Chavez’s grand experiment with more aggressive redistribution?

No doubt, there are few absolutely clear answers to those uncomfortable questions, if those questions are assessed honestly. Most likely, in fact, the answers are murky. But such questions need to be asked. The problem is that even gently raising them typically gets one tarred and feathered as a communist and then inevitably called a Hugo Chavez pal (even if Chavez’s overall record is also being criticized!). At the moment Chavez’s name is invoked, the conversation is inevitably terminated, ending any possibility of discourse.

That is by design – it is what the longtime caricaturing and marginalizing of Chavez was always supposed to do. But maybe now that the iconoclast is dead, the cartoon will end. Maybe now Chavez’s easily ridiculed bombast can no longer be used to distract from Venezuela’s record – and, thus, a more constructive, honest and critical economic conversation can finally begin.

David Sirota is a senior writer for the International Business Times and the best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and "Back to Our Future." E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.

http://www.salon.com/2013/03/06/hugo_chavezs_economic_miracle/


.

Progressive Punisher Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Wednesday, Mar 6, 2013 07:30 AM EST
> Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle
>

2018

Hugo Chavez died in March 2013. No doubt your brain was already long dead by then.

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hugo Chavez died in March 2013. No doubt your
> brain was already long dead by then.

The "Actually.." moron never had a brain. He's pure vegetable.

,
Attachments:

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hugo Chavez died in March 2013. No doubt your
> brain was already long dead by then.


Uh, which matters how? Venezuela didn't fail because he died. Venezuela died because his policies failed. Mostly because it was unsustainable after oil prices fell and there was no other private business or investment in the country other than the same government which relied virtually entirely on it.

But, yeah, let's forget that and how he "democratically" dissolved the congress, rewrote the constitution, and took over the courts to make himself a dictator (weird how that always seems to happen in these "democratic" socialist countries huh?). And that Maduro was his own hand-picked successor. And then there were those typical kidnappings and murders and military and police who served as government enforcement squads against any opposition. And how operations and production by the oil industry faltered after he confiscated and nationalized it. And how nobody else was stupid enough to invest there after he did so outside investment in the country dried up completely. And how there was no currency with any external value to buy necessary things like imported food. And that there were virtually no other jobs other than working for the government which had no revenue to pay them and otherwise support this wonderful fantasy land system. But sure other than that it worked great. lol

klw9l Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Uh, which matters how?

Chavez was the force behind the revolution. It was he who personified the ideals and he who forged them into reality.

> Venezuela didn't fail because he died. Venezuela died because his
> policies failed.

His policies not only worked but drew massive popular support over the fifteen years of Bolivarian power as the lot of the Venezuelan people was improved dramatically. This of course pissed off international corporatists (whose reactionary slop you are regurgitating) to no end. Unfortunately, there was no one left after Chavez who could wear that mantle once the cancer claimed him, but you and those like you are equally hiatory's losers here.

The two types of people that there are in the world are the smart ones and the dumb ones. You know who you are. Even through your out-of-control fears and emotions, you know what it is that makes you inferior.

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> klw9l Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Uh, which matters how?
>
> Chavez was the force behind the revolution. It
> was he who personified the ideals and he who
> forged them into reality.
>
> > Venezuela didn't fail because he died.
> Venezuela died because his
> > policies failed.
>
> His policies not only worked but drew massive
> popular support over the fifteen years of
> Bolivarian power as the lot of the Venezuelan
> people was improved dramatically. This of course
> pissed off international corporatists (whose
> reactionary slop you are regurgitating) to no end.
> Unfortunately, there was no one left after
> Chavez who could wear that mantle once the cancer
> claimed him, but you and those like you are
> equally hiatory's losers here.


Like all socialism it only 'worked' for a short time until they ran out of other people's money to support the fantasy land 'miracle.' In this case outside oil revenues. Which were only there to begin with because of 'international corporatists.' Further accelerated by nationalization of the industry which resulted in poor operations, greatly lower production, and completely killed any other outside investment in the country at the same time. Along with fantasy attempts to artificially create currency value based on internal needs vs reality which meant the bolivar was worth diddly outside of Venezuela to buy needed imports of food, medicine, equipment, etc. Maduro was hand-picked by him and left to carry on this amazing legacy. Unfortunately, reality finally caught up with him as it always does.

Maduro was not Chavez. If he had been, or if Chavez had lived, the world would have been s better place for Venezuelans. I don’t think there is any help for you though. Often, google can be your friend, but not so far in this case.

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Maduro was not Chavez. If he had been, or if
> Chavez had lived, the world would have been s
> better place for Venezuelans. I don’t think
> there is any help for you though. Often, google
> can be your friend, but not so far in this case.


Nope. Your shining example of socialism was already on the way down long before his death. Maduro just happened to be the lucky guy in the seat at the time that it finally crashed.

.

Take it back another thirty years and face the fact that Bush’s Great Recession was bad news for everyone. Chavez was meanwhile good news for Venezuela. Long overdue good news. But you as a useless ideologue would not know that. So go try to Google something else you think might help to ease your pain.

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> klw9l Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Uh, which matters how?
>
> Chavez was the force behind the revolution. It
> was he who personified the ideals and he who
> forged them into reality.
>
> > Venezuela didn't fail because he died.
> Venezuela died because his
> > policies failed.
>
> His policies not only worked but drew massive
> popular support over the fifteen years of
> Bolivarian power as the lot of the Venezuelan
> people was improved dramatically. This of course
> pissed off international corporatists (whose
> reactionary slop you are regurgitating) to no end.
> Unfortunately, there was no one left after
> Chavez who could wear that mantle once the cancer
> claimed him, but you and those like you are
> equally hiatory's losers here.

Oh yes, his policies worked alright...

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Take it back another thirty years and face the
> fact that Bush’s Great Recession was bad news
> for everyone. Chavez was meanwhile good news for
> Venezuela. Long overdue good news. But you as a
> useless ideologue would not know that. So go try
> to Google something else you think might help to
> ease your pain.


Says the useless ideologue trying to avoid facts. LOL!





2008 was a relative blip for Venezuela. The later crash in oil prices in 2014 was not and production had been falling significantly prior to which just made that even worse.

He have been "good news" for a short time relative to the short time prior to. But that short time was just that and never lasts. As history has repeatedly shown.

Dumbfucks are dumbfucks. And bad data are bad data. The welfare of the Venezuelan people was never enhanced by the chronic exploitation of the oligarch families who for decades ruthlessly drained the country’s wealth into their own pockets in order to maintain their lavish lifestyles.

This is all stuff that you should have known if you wanted to post here. But you don’t because you don’t actually know jackshit about the place or its history.

Venezuela's oil exports PER CAPITA declined by over $2,000 since 2012, with roughly 3/4ths of that decline due too lower prices for oil. That is a huge hit for an economy heavily dependent on oil revenues to absorb.

my my, it never stops. white people are just responsible for everything that is wrong in the world. It is the whites cracker's fault - everything.

who here agrees? Bearcat? Moreno?

if it were not for the white man there would be NO cities, running water, jet engines, cars, trains, science, computers, satellites, and everything else that we use and depend on everyday.

All of you should be thanking the cracker for your sorry ass live's

Dumb is dumb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dumbfucks are dumbfucks. And bad data are bad
> data. The welfare of the Venezuelan people was
> never enhanced by the chronic exploitation of the
> oligarch families who for decades ruthlessly
> drained the country’s wealth into their own
> pockets in order to maintain their lavish
> lifestyles.
>
> This is all stuff that you should have known if
> you wanted to post here. But you don’t because
> you don’t actually know jackshit about the place
> or its history.


You mean like other oligarchs did during his rule and have continued after? As, yet again, always seems to happen in these socialist wonderlands.

Which still doesn't affect that his policies and system failed catastrophically when the source of easy outside money dried up and, in fact, contributed greatly to the decline before. Then made recovery virtually impossible. Lots of other smaller oil producing countries survived the fall in prices without collapsing and without such "miracle" results for their people.