Ok, the story is a little long.
The tense situation that the country is experiencing today is a consequence of the errors of Chavismo.
Everything began since Hugo Chávez came to power (February 2, 1999).
His government has been characterized by improvisation and by not being up to the demands of citizens. With an additional problem: no electoral power. And it is at this point that the current crisis is born.
The roots of today's economic problems can be found in Chávez's efforts as early as 2001, to radically reorganize Venezuela's economy and politics. At the end of 2001 the agrarian reform and the reform legislation of the oil industry that touched the two most important sources of economic power of the elite were introduced. In reaction to this movement, the opposition launched the coup attempt of April 2002 and the closure of the oil industry in December of the same year. These efforts of political and economic destabilization led to a massive flight of capital in early 2003. Initially, the government tried to counteract capital flight by intervening in the foreign exchange market, using its dollars to buy the bolivar, with the order to keep it stable. However, this caused the Government to lower the foreign exchange reserves in dollars precipitously and thus abruptly changed gears and introduced a fixed exchange rate in March 2003.
Since then, the currency has been corrected and adjusted very rarely. Only those who meet government conditions to buy dollars with bolivars are allowed to do so.
A logical consequence of all this is that more and more goods began to be scarce at controlled prices and a massive inflation for unregulated goods. Already in the second term of Chávez in power, in 2006, the Government had begun to introduce price controls of the most essential goods, in order to counteract the tendency of retailers to put a price on things based on the exchange rate. of the black market instead of the official rate.
All these tendencies were accentuated when President Chávez died of cancer on March 5, 2013 and the new elections were held a little later, in April, which resulted in the election of Nicolás Maduro by a margin of victory of 1 , 5 percent (with electoral fraud). The wave of violence after the elections ended in the death of more than 1000 people, and this only made the perception of political and economic instability worse.
In other words, the current situation in Venezuela is the result, first of all, of the control of the exchange rate that was destined to defend the currency against the attempts of destabilization in 2002, which were the result of the attack of the Chávez government. the interests of the capitalist class. Secondly, a control of the already fragile exchange rate worsened as a result of the decrease in the price of oil in 2008 and again in 2014, which made it increasingly difficult for the Government to satisfy the demand for dollars without becoming more indebted. Third, the new destabilization efforts of the opposition against the Maduro Government, the day after the election of Maduro in April 2013 and again in early 2014, converted the existing economic volatility into a vicious circle of inflation, shortage, devaluation of the black market, and renewed inflation.
The situation is, therefore, very difficult for the Government and very frustrating for the population.
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Do yourself a favor and read this book at some point, it predicted what would happen in Venezuela and many other places and will help to understand the situation better.