Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): President Hugo Chávez raised the government-set official price of rice for both producers and consumers, tacitly admitting that things couldn't go as they had and recognizing his government needed the private sector.
Speaking on his regular Sunday broadcast, Aló Presidente, Chávez said producer prices were going up by 44 percent. "We announce the increase of the producer price to Bs.720 (BFs0.70) a kilo, plus the subsidy," he said. "That's justice for you the producers."
Consumer prices for rice were going up from Bs.1,670 (BFs.1.67) per kilo to Bs.2,180 (BFs.2.18) – an increase of around 30 percent.
Chávez was speaking from an agroindustry complex in his home state, Barinas, and he said he wanted to give an incentive to national producers. "Bolivarian Socialism needs private producers, this productive private property that benefits society," he declared.
The day before, he signed an agreement with the Bolivarian Ranchers' Federation – which is sympathetic to the government – to set up a special fund for milk production. The more conservative ranchers federation, Fedegana, has been in the forefront of efforts to press the government to ease or end price controls.
The government authorized an increase in prices for fresh and powdered milk on January 21, but both remain in short supply. Spokesmen for the government and the dairy industry alike promised that snags in the supply chain would be resolved within 15 days, but apparently problems persist.
One of the factors at play is that Venezuela imports an estimated 60 percent of its food needs, including large quantities of cheese and other dairy products, not least powdered milk, much of which comes from Colombia. While the government has relaxed some price controls, it resolutely refuses to do the same with currency controls.
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The government only "needs the private sector" because the "private sector" destroyed what was healthy about the venezuelan economy thru economic mismanagement over the past decades -- and now are pretty much the only infrastructure left around. And so that's why Hugo Chávez feels compelled to more or less bribe the "private sector" at present: there's simply not enough socialist infrastructure available yet to fill the production gap. Yet.
ReplyDeleteDon't these people ever stop lying and misleading? (and was that a rhetorical question?)
In no way must the bolivarian socialist government end these price controls -- especially as regards food basics -- and most certainly not under pressure from the old exploiting class. That way lies defeat of the Revolution. Prices only have to basically make some sane sense, within the bounds of a socialist development plan. That's it. That's all that needs to be considered right now.
So simply expropriate the hoarders and saboteurs, starting with the big ones. They'll get the point soon enough.