Venezuela’s socialist government has arrested more than 100 “bourgeois” businesspeople in a crackdown on alleged price-gouging at hundreds of shops and companies since the weekend, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.
“They are barbaric, these capitalist parasites!” Maduro thundered in the latest of his lengthy daily speeches. “We have more than 100 of the bourgeoisie behind bars at the moment.”
The successor to former president Hugo Chavez also said his government was preparing a law to limit Venezuelan businesses’ profits to between 15 and 30 percent.
Officials say unscrupulous companies have been hiking prices of electronics and other goods more than 1,000 percent. Critics say failed socialist economic policies and restricted access to foreign currency are behind Venezuela’s runaway inflation.
“Goodyear has to lower its prices even more, 15 percent is not enough, the inspectors have to go there straightaway,” Maduro said in his evening address, sending officials to check local operations of the US-based tire manufacturer.
Since last weekend, soldiers and inspectors have gone into 1,400 shops, taken over operations at an electronics firm and a battery-making company, and rounded up a handful of looters.
The move — Maduro’s boldest since taking office in April — is reminiscent of the dramatic style of Chavez, who nationalized swaths of the OPEC member’s economy during his 14-year socialist rule.
Like Chavez, Maduro says he is defending the poor.
The inspections have shaken Venezuela three weeks before local elections on Dec. 8 that his opponents are casting as a referendum on the 50-year-old former bus driver. Maduro has made preserving Chavez’s legacy the mainstay of his government, matching his former mentor’s anti-capitalist rhetoric.
“It’s time to deepen the offensive, go to the bone in this economic war,” he said.
“We’ve reduced everything by 10 to 15 percent, but it’s not fair. I can’t make a profit now,” said the owner of one small electronics store, who asked not to be identified. “I agree they should go for the big fish, the real speculators, but they risk hurting us all.”
Venezuela’s official inflation, 54 percent annually, is the highest in the Americas.
Maduro said the forced price discounts should lead to negative inflation of 15 percent this month and 50 percent next month — forecasts that brought immediate mockery from critics on Twitter.
Around Caracas and other major cities, shoppers are flooding electronics, clothing and other outlets where price cuts are anticipated. There has been some violence.
The Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflicts reported 39 incidents of looting or attempted looting since yesterday.
The campaign to reduce prices and blame entrepreneurs may play well with Maduro’s power base among the poor and could help unite factions within the United Socialist Party of Venezuela.
Plenty of Venezuelans have applauded his measures, saying price hikes were out of control, while others have expressed fears that Maduro could be uncorking dangerous forces.
Critics say the moves do not tackle the roots of Venezuela’s economic malaise, like an overvalued bolivar that forces many importers to buy black-market dollars and then pass those costs on to consumers.
Opposition party Justice First accused the state of hypocrisy, saying its stores were also hiking prices unjustifiably.
An imported sandwich toaster that costs US$34.99 in the US was selling at a fivefold markup of 1,100 bolivars (US$175 at the official exchange rate) in state supermarket chain Bicentenario, it said.
“The government created this monster and now tries to pretend it will control it, but Venezuelans cannot be deceived by this electoral show,” Justice First said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number