Under Venezuela's five year old exchange control regime there is a Commission for the Administration of Foreign Currency, (known as CADIVI for its Spanish acronym), whose bureaucrats decide who can and who can't buy foreign currency at the official exchange rate.

CADIVI yesterday announced it has temporarily suspended almost 48 thousand people from its electronic system, which means this people can no longer buy foreign currencies at the official exchange rates and will be forced to go to the parallel exchange market.

What crime did these 48,000 people committed?

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When wealth producers have to ask permission from and wait for parasites in order to produce, it is to be expected that little wealth will be produced.

Venezuelan builders have to wait for up to one year for building permit from the environment minister, according to a report by daily Últimas Noticias.

Consider the following: the home builder already has the capital available, it has the land where the building will take place, it has the workers to do the job and it has the raw materials (although according to the same report, building materials are becoming more difficult to find and secure, due to widespread price controls), but it cannot start building because it has to satisfy the whims of numerous parasites in the environment minister.

A system like this, which cripples production and is prone to be exploited by corrupt officials has to be abolished as soon as possible. Yes, abolished, neither reformed, nor substituted, but completely and forever abolished from the face of the Earth. Or at least from Venezuela.

 Venezuela, Economics

Meat went on holidays is the headline of the latest story from daily Últimas Noticias about the cronic meat shortages Venezuelans have to endure these days.

According to Últimas Noticias, what you can find in supermarkets is non-regulated meat, which is more expensive.

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Chavecista ideologues and pseudo-intellectuals are experts in staging epic battles against straw men, ideological ghosts and souls which exist only in the writer's prolific imagination. The goal is, as always, to deceive the gullible readers.

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