A Ticking Economic Bomb Waits For Whoever Wins Next Sunday In Venezuela -- Merco Press
Whoever wins next Sunday’s presidential election in Venezuela faces an economic time bomb with food shortages, insufficient US dollars to pay for imports and honour the country’s debt, a devastated economy full of inefficient nationalized companies and non productive farms plus mounting promises of further handouts from the government and inflation.
“In a way, Chávez left at the zenith of his success” says Orlando Ochoa, an economist at the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas. “And his legacy for his successor is an economic bomb”.
In an effort to stem the problems the government created a new foreign-exchange agency that auctions dollars to help imports and reduce shortages of basic goods. The black market dollar currently is traded at four times the official exchange value.
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My Comment: I have seen this scenario played out many times before .... economic conditions deteriorate while the government proclaims that everything is getting better. In Venezuela .... their oil wealth will postpone the inevitable collapse .... but it will come one day.