By Al Baker - Posted at Forget None of His Benefits:
Woe to those who enact evil statutes, and to those who constantly record unjust decisions, so as to deprive the needy of justice, and rob the poor of My people of their rights, so that widows may be their spoil, and that they may plunder the orphans, Isaiah 10:1,2.I remember very well being in Caracas, Venezuela in 1990 with my friend Cecilio Lahara and two other brothers from Latin America. The country was peaceful and prosperous. Their economy, which was the third richest in the Western Hemisphere, had minimal unemployment and a steady growth of their GNP. Whenever I am in another country I always try to gauge the local economy by how much people must pay to borrow money and buy gasoline. I converted from liters to gallons and from Bolivars “VES” (the Venezuelan currency) to U.S. dollars “USD” and found the people were paying about $.30 per gallon, if I remember correctly. I jokingly said that all the huge gas guzzling U.S. cars were in Caracas. However, by 2016 the economy was in serious trouble and in an effort to slow down inflation which by then was 500%, the government increased the interest rate to 50%. Obviously very few businesses can grow or people buy houses at those rates. In 1997 Venezuela was the world’s second largest purchaser of Ford F-150 trucks. In 1992 the exchange rate of Bolivars to U.S. dollars was 0.0684 per U.S. dollar. Today the rate is 0.00328624. In other words, their currency is basically worthless. Today matters are worse than ever. An item which cost 100 VES in 1980 now costs 42,193.221 VES.
What happened? In 1998 Hugo Chavez, a Marxist, was elected President of Venezuela and promised the people better days. He would redistribute wealth from the oil refineries and give it to the poor and needy. He would bring income equality. Of course, this never happened...