Study: Poverty in Venezuela at 73 Percent of Households

[Bacchus4.0]

Study: Poverty in Venezuela at 73 Percent of Households

A study estimates poverty in Venezuela has hit an all-time high of some 73 percent of households.

The report says that's up from about 27 percent in 2013 and 48 percent in 2014.

It was prepared by researchers at three Venezuelan universities on the basis of surveys with 6,000 people in the nation of 30 million.

Poverty rates plummeted during the first years of Venezuela's 16-year-old socialist revolution under the late President Hugo Chavez. But they have risen more recently as the country struggles with raging inflation, a deepening recession and falling prices for oil — Venezuela's main source of foreign income.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/study-poverty-venezuela-73-percent-households-35336111

[COLGATE4]

1. No surprise there. During the first years Chavez used the

oil bonanza ($100 bbl +) to throw money into projects which, although not structurally alleviating poverty did tend to mask it. But now with the incompetence of his unlikely successor plus the plummeting oil market along with the destruction of Venezuela's ability to produce at least some of its foodstuffs, there is no more shoring up the glaring deficiencies in the economy. It is now approaching a death spiral, held only at bay by last minute borrowing and kicking the can down the road.