What a Crisis Looks Like in Venezuela
Today, Sunday, I went out to buy some groceries to eat for lunch. What did I want? Not so much actually, just a pair of things. What surprised me was the price of the cauliflower and it is what this post is all about. In this Post you will understand what a Crisis looks like for the Venezuelan people who try to live a normal life without any luxuries.
This is a “normal” market in Venezuela, actually, it is a community one. What it means is that it is cheaper than in anywhere else. This is what surprised me. As you can see in the pic, this is the section of cauliflower where it says in the paper that the price for one Kg of cauliflower is 1.300.000bsF. Now, you probably don’t understand how much it is and if it is cheap or expensive so now I am going to explain how much it is in dollars and how much is the minimum wave in Venezuela.
Translation: White cauliflower
BsF 1.300.000BsS 1.300 X Kg
BsS is the new monetary conversion the government wants to apply because the inflation makes way too difficult to understand the prices of the things and we would have to grab a bag and fill it with tons of bills to buy one thing. The solution? Remove threes zeros in the whole economy and create news bills for the whole country. This is the second time our currency changes of name and removes three zeros for inflation in ten years. That shows the problem we live.
So, the next step is to know how much it is in dollars, an international reference. The price of one dollar in Venezuela is 2.050.345Bsf. Bellow there is the reference of a very known web that we use to know the price of the dollar in our country.
Venezuela’s News Sunday June 10,
2018 the $ worth is 2.050.345,73 BsF and € worth is
2.411.227,08 BsF.
So If one dollars cost us 2.050.345bsF it means that 1.300.000 is 0.63 dollars. So yes, with just 0.63 cents of a dollar we can buy one Kg of cauliflower. In an international market maybe this could be maybe too cheap, it’s nothing, it’s a bargain. But for us to know if it is too much or too little we must know how much does a Venezuelan earn each month, so we are going to use a very reliable media that posted the news of the new minimum wave since May 1 of 2018.
The minimum wave increased from 392.646 bsF to one million and the bonus of alimentation went from 915.000 bs to 1.555.500 bsF monthly, with state of being In force since April 15, so that the minimum legal wave to the workers of the south american country will be located in 2.555.500bsF.
So, with our change, the minimum wave in Venezuela is 1.24 dollars monthly. Yes, this is what any worker in the country earns monthly to live and do everything. Is it possible? Maybe in the country things are way too cheap. But not. To know that we have to go back to the infamous cauliflower, the reason of this post.
If one Kilogram of cauliflower cost 0.63 cents of a dollar, one person in Venezuela can buy monthly almost two Kg of cauliflower with his minimum wave. Would you image it? That all what you can afford is almost an entire cauliflower? That is the reality of many people in our country.
How can we live? Well, we are surviving. Many people obviously can’t eat every day. Many Children go to sleep hungry and many of them don’t have the resources to go to school and buy a textbook.
This is why many of us, who have found out about this community, work so hard trying to reach to many people and giving them shoes, pencils, notebooks and even food.
Is this ever going to change? We don’t know. Meanwhile, we all appreciate everybody that wants to do something for the people in needs in our country, as you can see, it is a lot to us. Thanks for your attention.
EDIT: Thanks to the steemian @mepatriot for taking his time to read the post and correct me about the article in cuestion. The post is not about cauliflower, the vegetables in the pic were cabbage.
Go here https://steemit.com/@a-a-a to get your post resteemed to over 72,000 followers.
When you show these numbers it really gives the bigger picture of the problem in your country.
I do hope some day soon, a corner is turned and the situation begins to improve.
In the meantime keep up all the good work you are doing there @bigdude.
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Exactly my friend, i wanted to let you all know how it is all about. I don't like to say just "Here things are very expensive" or "things are very bad".
I wanted to let you know how it is in reality, with very practical examples of what we face every day and what we can actually do with we earn each month in a conventional job. This is me in the street taking pics and show you what our reality.
Hope this helps many people to understand a little bit more how the crisis is here.
Thanks @pennsif with your help we have reached out to many of our people.
I find this sort of factual information very useful to get a real understanding of the situation.
Thank you.
Those are some crazy numbers. I didn't think I could do much with my minnow upvote. But at the current prices it is almost 2 weeks worth minimum wage. Great things are possible if you can manage to get some whales to notice. Wish you the very best of luck my friend!
Yes @vimukthi, those are crazy numbers right there! Incredible to think that some people can actually live like that and that just a simple "click" like yours is two weeks of salary in another part of the world.
Actually, you are right. And we all have to remember that "a Great Power comes with a Great Responsability".
We all should take responsability and do what we can do to help others.
Thanks for your wishes man!
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Communism is such a scourge of the people. It is sometimes a valiant effort to overcome the colonialism of foreign powers like the Rockefeller oil monopolists, but it often ends worse than the evils of the foreign power's rapacious ways.
That is not cauliflower in the photos, by the way, but cabbage, which makes your article even more powerful, because cabbage is a much cheaper vegetable for most people in the world, and to say you can afford one cabbage per month is far, far, worse, even, than conditions in France prior to the French Revolution.
May God be with the people of Venezuela. I certainly hope the Church is stepping in to help in important ways, because Steemit can not bridge the gap alone, as I am sure you know.
The worst thing is the corruption that invades our country. Venezuela is one of the most richest countries in the whole world but its people live very bad. Incredible but true. For this country to begin fixing the economy first we have to get rid of every politian. Meanwhile in some countries there are rumors of some corrupts in the government here is a fact. This people don't care if we know that.
Yes, we some years ago never imagined that things would go so bad for us... With this page was that i could afford me and buy one pair of shoes. I had four years without buying a pair of shoes! This is the reality of many of us.
Very interesting facts you told us. We have to remember our past to know how good or bad we are. If we don't compare to ourselve we cannot know if we are improving. Maybe if we had known that we were not in this situation.
Every organism tries to do what it can as we do. We try to help as many as possible, we with the help of steemit and many Churches send people and resources to help us and we appretiate that.
Thanks again @mepatriot, really appretiate talking with you and put a note in the post of your correction.
Yes...get rid of all the politicians and start over from scratch, with HAND COUNTED ELECTIONS...no electronic voting machines.
God bless and good luck!
That is one thing people need to understand, the price of an item, verses how much they earn a month. Prices may seem cheap to us, but still it needs to be measured against how much an average person earns.
Yes @bashadow, it is not about how much it is worth in an international market, is about how much a person can buy with his minimun wave.
With your comment i see the post shows numbers that people can compare.
Thanks man!
I couldn't imagine functioning in an economy like that. Are people willing to trade goods for goods? How about things like small silver coins? @ironshield
Trading is not so common right now but there are people who does that and even more in dollars. People are selling their houses and cars in dollars because they want to go abroad.
Now, silver is not worthy, but gold, that is very expensive and lucrative. There is a raising of many shops where you can sell your gold and receive money. It is because many people who are outside the country send the money to buy us the little gold we could have for a bargain and then sell it abroad in an international price.
Of course, the gram of gold is worth 50.000.000 BsF is a lot of money and now is even dangerous to go to the shops because they tell to some thief who were the people who went to the shop and steal them.
So @ironshield, as you can see, there's a lot that is going on here.
Thank you for answering my question. I hope things improve over there. @ironshield
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wow bigdude, this is exactly the example to show people what is going on by you guys. A monthly salary will buy you 2 cabbages...CRA-ZY.
Im resteeming it man, this needs as much attention as possible
hello girl, unfortunately is our sad reality and every day things here in Venezuela get worse. @karinxxl
Unbelievable and terrible to know how many people are hungry :( you have a good heart to help the people in need ♡
It is sad, but Venezuela is going through an economic crisis that has attacked the poorest and has no help from the government.
I'm just the messenger, this is possible thanks to all of you. @anouk.nox