Venezuela is a cautionary tale for those willing to listen. Sadly, like the Venezuelan people, too often we will think it doesn't apply to us, or it can't happen "here." This adds truth to the saying "those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Venezuela only a few short years ago was a cash flush beautiful country. A democracy. Goods and services brimming, stores and merchants overflowing with success. The Venezuelan people had not a care in the world.
Enter the socialist 'president' Hugo Chavez. Using his 'executive order' powers he instilled policies which had a bad effect (the lukewarm water) on the economy: social programs which required massive funding (taxes) by the private sector, a currency control board which limited the amount of foreign (translation: US) dollars a person could legally have in their possession, dictating to farmers what they could and couldn't plant, buy or sell which increased dependency on imports (vs buying 'local.') However, the economic world still turns on US dollars, and since Chavez refused to pay in US dollars, importers who were willing to accept Venezuelan currency dropped dramatically.
By the end of Chavez' reign, shortages for basic necessities stood officially at 28%. It was much higher, but the government refused to officially report shortages by 2014. (Keep moving people, nothing to see here.)
So by 2014, at least 1/4 of the time you go to the stores, any store, you will not be able to buy regulated (just like here) products such as: milk, meat, chicken, rice, coffee, oil (cooking), precooked flour (think tortillas), butter, toilet paper (!), personal hygiene products, and medicine.
Enter President Maduro in 2012. A little bit of relief for the Venezuelan people as it was an election year (sound similar?) The government bought in bulk in US dollars and as a result, you were only out of food and supplies 16.3% of the time (officially.)
By 2015, the truth was this:
and this is after hard-core rationing has been put in place. Shortages for all products stands at 80%. Shortage is a misleading term. You can't short a null (a zero) situation. Even if "there's room for 10" products, if there are only 2 products on the shelf, that's not being "short" product: that's there's ONLY TWO to be had.
Grocery lines look like this:
often fueled by nothing other than rumour that a store has product.
By February 2016, with a food famine looming, Maduro was asked "what about the Venezuelan people?' His response echoed Marie Antoinette's famous line (lais les mangent du gateau: let them eat cake): "they should grow a garden." When it was pointed out city dwellers could not do that, he shrugged.
I truly hope that Venezuelan members of the LDS Church followed a prophet's counsel and laid up food and supplies for a year, or followed a prophet's counsel to grow a garden, even a small one. Or a prophet's counsel to get out of debt and lay up a small reserve of cash. Sadly, I think they are just like us: blinded by our sloth and greed ($500 for an iPad, no money for food storage), buying in to Satan's lie that "it can't happen here" versus God's truth that it will.
Time has run out on the preparedness clock for the Venezuelan people. Fortunately for others like us, it has not. We still have time to start learning how to garden (yes, even here in Texas in crappy soil or renters in California or apartments. Search YouTube for kiddie pool gardens.) We still have time to buy and store long term staples and grains like rice and pasta (use dry heat processing a la Cheryl Driggs http://simplyprepared.com/dry_heat_processing_print.htm which requires no special equipment other than normal canning jars and lids.)
We still have time to learn how to can, or to buy freeze dried or dehydrated foods, or simply "buy 10" when the grocery store is having a sale. I know it is "too much" trouble for you to simply do it. Will you feel the same way when your children are hungry? You can't even stand the whining when you're running late to/from an activity and the kids didn't get to eat before they left. Or on Fast Sunday. How are you going to manage when they don't get to eat for days? It's a major problem when your girls don't have the right sanitary products once a month. $40 buys you a year's supply of WalMart brand pads. $40. Go do it today and stick them under your teenage daughter's bed. Or spend $20 and get a 6 months' supply. Even if they're not "her kind." They'll be more her kind than you cutting up your towels.
You still have time to run to the Asian stores or Sams/Costco and buy 50# of rice for $36. We are major rice eaters, and our family of five uses a pound of rice (that's 3 uncooked cups) per dinner meal. That's 365 pounds of rice for a year's supply if we are eating once a day. That's a skosh over 7 bags for a year's supply. Times $36 = $252. For a year's supply. Sure, it sounds like a lot all at once. So the next time you're shopping at Sam's, Costco or the Asian store (crying for lack of them here in Texas), just ADD A BAG to your cart. You might feel it when you load it into the car, but I promise you won't feel it in your wallet.
Fortunately for us, the conundrum is not do we have the time, or is the product available. It is simply, and possibly tragically: do we have the will?
