Venezuela jacks up minimum wage for third time this year

[Eugene]

Source: CNNMoney

Venezuela jacks up minimum wage for third time this year

by Patrick Gillespie @CNNMoney
July 2, 2017: 9:48 PM ET

Venezuela's president, Nicolas Maduro, told a packed auditorium on Sunday what sounded like good news: The minimum wage is going up 50%.

But that won't help ordinary Venezuelans. Inflation there could skyrocket 720% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund. As inflation goes up, the country's currency buys less and less.

The wage hike actually epitomizes Venezuela's spiral into chaos of all kinds.

It's the third time this year Maduro's government has hiked the country's minimum wage to combat extremely high inflation and an increasingly worthless currency. Prices for food, medicine and other essentials rise weekly if not daily.

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Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/02/news/economy/venezuela-minimum-wage-hike/index.html

[juxtaposed]

1. Right wing fascists are still trying to destroy venezuela,right here and abroad.

[Judi Lynn]

2. They keep trying to steal governments, and the life's blood of workers & they still will lose.

Trying to make a killing by refusing to pay workers what they righteously earn through their labor, their life's energy's investment in their work, trying to steal from the public by demanding far more profit for their products made by exploited workers will never win the hearts and minds of the human race.

They have always been the total enemies of the human race, and everyone knows it.

Thank you, so much, juxtaposed. Sure glad you are a person who is awakened.

[GatoGordo]

4. You type this crap from the comfy confines of your safe domicile...

...while in Venezuela, real, ORDINARY people are dying of starvation because of Chavismo/Maduro's bizarre economic policies.

Do you actually believe the stuff you type?

Party purity over reality, Judi Lynn? Marxism must be defended, even if millions starve, are tortured or murdered outright by SEBIN, the GNB or colectivos? When is the last time you visited Venezuela, Judi Lynn? Have you EVER been there?

People used to be able to pay for their monthly food basket. Now, the poorest of the poor dig through garbage, and silently "support" Chavismo... because if they don't, their monthly CLAP bag doesn't get delivered by PSUV party activists who control food distribution.

Ain't democracy great, Judi Lynn?

[Marksman_91]

8. Understand that hardcore leftist UI's are completely ignorant of economics, Gato

No use trying to talk sense into them. They won't even admit to th fact that they support authoritarian regimes that violate human rights simply because said regimes are supposedly leftist.

[stevenleser]

7. If inflation is going up by 720% and workers only get a 50% raise, it's the Venzuelan govt that is

stealing the life blood of workers.

Your defense reminds me of Archie Bunker's elation at his pay raise when his raise was actually considerably less than inflation, meaning he actually got a pay cut.

[DetlefK]

3. Oh, please. Keep your conspiracy-theories where the sun don't shine and stick to verifiable facts.

Fact: Venezuela has little tax-income and large expenses from social programs.

Fact: Venezuela is a country that exports oil and imports everything else with oil-money.

Fact: Saudi-Arabia is over-producing oil to kill the US fracking-industry. That is driving the price of oil down.

Fact: With the price of oil down, Venezuela no longer has enough money to keep spending as it was used to.

Fact: Venezuela is printing more and more money to pay for its expenses, thus creating inflation and making the venezuelan Bolivar more and more worthless.

Fact: Because the venezuelan Bolivar is worthless, foreign companies refuse to sell to Venezuela and that's where the shortages come from.

Fact: The opposition-parties have won the venezuelan parliament.

Fact: There is a strong call for fresh elections to give Venezuela a new government, but Maduro has sabotaged the effort with procedural tricks.

Fact: The venezuelan Supreme Court tried to launch a coup by declaring the parliament illegitimate and declaring themselves the new parliament. They backed down a few days later after public outcry.

Fact: In mere coincidence, protesters in Venezuela are in increasing numbers tried in military-tribunals instead of regular courts ever since the Attorney-General lambasted the venezuelan police and military for being too brutal on protesters.

Fact: Maduro has said that he will violently resist any election that would put him out of power.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/110856116

[GatoGordo]

6. Maduro is doing what fascists haven't been able to do.

Chavismo is an abject failure. Fascists (where they exist) need to do nothing while Chavismo collapses under its own weight.

And this 2002 coup. You do know it was preceded by a coup attempt in 1992, lead by none other than Chavez? The same Chavez who was pardoned and freed, then allowed to run for office by the "right wing fascists" you so despise?

Socialism works. It is working in Bolivia, and all over the world. But Uncle Sam has picked Venezuela to make an example of? Do you believe your own nonsense?

[GatoGordo]

5. More Worthless Money

For Monday, July 3, 2017. Translated by Javier Liendo.

By Naky Soto - July 3, 2017

"Nicolás announced the third minimum wage hike of 2017 as an accomplishment. Starting on July 1st, the wage went from Bs. 65,021.04 to Bs. 97,531. The base figures for cestatickets, which don’t generate benefit liabilities but are now paid in cash, increased for the fifth time from 15 to 17 tax units, leaving minimum integral wage at Bs. 250,531, some $32 at black market rate or $94 at the most recent DICOM rate.

The hike applies to all levels of public sector employees and includes a special 30% bonus for pensioners. Nicolás knows it, each hike causes unemployment, destroying people’s purchasing power even more, boosting inflation and increasing the black market dollar that he promised to eradicate. He had the nerve to talk about a law against speculation to regularize prices, out of “respect for the quality of life of Venezuelans” that he’s assaulted from all possible flanks, and he said happily: “Give me the Constituyente and I’ll give you victory over prices!”

-snip-

Read more here: https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/07/03/more-worthless-money/