Venezuela - Impressions from a poor rich country

I recently met a german speaking Steemian who lives and works in the country since 1997 as a small entrepreneur. Unlike people here on Steemit, he has to fear actual censorship and real bad consequences, if the venezuelan authorities find out about what he does, not just some whale downvotes.

That`s why I am correcting and translating what he sends me and he gets all the SBD the post produce and puts them to work in Venezuela. Here is the german version of this text.

After 17 years of planned economy, the socialists finally managed to reduce the currency to toilet paper. That`s not because the people have too much of it, but rather that the paper is turning out to be more valuable than the numbers printed on it.

Welcome to Venezuela

After years and years of Petrodollars filling the pockets of the socialist elite instead of being spent on infrastructure etc., the whole country lies in shambles. 

The economies' decay accelerates inflation and crime at a frigthening rate. Prices are rising faster than income and robbery and theft are more and more common. In Caracas, the capital of murder, on average every 28 minutes a person gets killed.

The government debt burden is crushing and the lack of foreign reserves results in growing food scarcity. State sponsored alimentation programs are being cut down due to the lack of funds and the population is starving. 

Waiting in line for food is an everyday routine by now and the population is too weakened to revolt.

The 100 Bolivar note is the largest denomination available, and that corresponds to roughly 10 Cent USD.

The government is so broke, they do not even have the foreign reserves to pay for the printing of new money abroad.

These circumstances bring hopelessness and despair over the country. Everything is paralized. But the government still marches down its socialist path and does not want to change. Instead, as usual they blame everything on the USA and bad bad capitalism. 

Hospitals are in a medieval state and have a hard time keeping basic operations running, because of constant power failures and lack of medicine. Every day, hundreds of people day, especially new born babies. 

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves and has proven once again, that Socialism even manages to run out of sand in the desert. Good night.

I live and work in Venezuela since 1997 and I never thought such a dramatic decay was even possible.

PS by @fabio:

Steemit shines some ray of hope on Venezuela already

https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@betamusic/a-hand-for-the-pets-most-vulnerable-this-is-my-introduceyourself