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[–] Tancred 0 points 1 point (+1|-0) ago  (edited ago)

The average Venezuelan shopper spends 35 hours waiting to buy food each month.

The most important paragraphs imo:

The lines are driven by scarcity and poverty, but they also reflect how much people have given up on traditional employment. With the minimum wage at less than $15 a month and inflation running well into triple digits, it barely pays to go to work. It makes more economic sense to fill one's pantry, and then sell or barter anything not vitally needed.

So fields lie fallow while farmers spend their days waiting to buy imported goods. Teachers unapologetically walk out of classrooms to search for food they can eat or resell. Government offices close in the early afternoon because officials need to go shopping, too.

"Most of these people make more money doing this than their other jobs," said David Smilde, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Fields lie fallow while farmers spend their days waiting to buy imported goods.
They have a massive food shortage where people are actually starving, yet somehow it does not pay to produce food.
What is this if not socialist price fixing. Murderous.