Venezuela runs out of toilet paper. ‘excessive demand’ ?

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venezuela runs out of toilet paperFirst milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities – toilet paper.

Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the government says it will import 50m rolls to boost supplies.

That was little comfort to consumers struggling to find toilet paper on Wednesday.

“This is the last straw,” said Manuel Fagundes, a shopper hunting for tissue in Caracas. “I’m 71 years old and this is the first time I’ve seen this.”

One supermarket visited by the Associated Press in the capital on Wednesday was out of toilet paper. Another had just received a fresh batch, and it quickly filled up with shoppers as the word spread.

“I’ve been looking for it for two weeks,” said Cristina Ramos. “I was told that they had some here and now I’m in line.”

Economists say Venezuela’s shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government’s controls on foreign currency.

“State-controlled prices – prices that are set below market-clearing price – always result in shortages. The shortage problem will only get worse, as it did over the years in the Soviet Union,” said Steve Hanke, professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University.

President Nicolás Maduro, who was selected by the dying Hugo Chávez to carry on his “Bolivarian revolution”, claims that anti-government forces, including the private sector, are causing the shortages in an effort to destabilise the country.

The government this week announced it also would import 760,000 tonnes of food in addition to the 50m rolls of toilet paper.

Commerce minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on “excessive demand” built up as a result of “a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country”.

“The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper,” he was quoted as saying Tuesday by state news agency AVN. “We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down.”

Finance minister Nelson Merentes said the government was also addressing the lack of foreign currency, which has resulted in the suspension of foreign supplies of raw materials, equipment and spare parts to Venezuelan companies, disrupting their production.

“We are making progress … we have to work very hard,” Merentes told reporters on Wednesday.

Many factories operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers.

Merentes said the government had met the US dollar requests of some 1,500 small- and medium-sized companies facing supply problems, and was reviewing requests from a similar number of larger companies.

Chávez imposed currency controls a decade ago trying to stem capital flight as his government expropriated large land parcels and dozens of businesses.

Anointed by Chávez as his successor before the president died from cancer, Maduro won a close presidential election on 14 April against opposition candidate Henrique Capriles, who refused to accept the result, claiming Maduro won through fraud and voter intimidation.

He filed a complaint to the supreme court, asking for the vote to be annulled, though that’s highly unlikely to happen since the court is packed with government-friendly justices.

Patience is wearing thin among consumers who face shortages and long queues at supermarkets and pharmacies. Last month, Venezuela’s scarcity index reached its highest level since 2009, while the 12-month inflation rate has risen to nearly 30%. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items, and stock up when they find them.

Fleming said monthly consumption of toilet paper was normally 125m rolls, but that current demand “leads us to think that 40m more are required”.

“We will bring in 50m to show those groups that they won’t make us bow down,” he said.

Guardian

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Comments

92 responses to “Venezuela runs out of toilet paper. ‘excessive demand’ ?”

  1. master09 Avatar
    master09

    This is how much shit in the world we have.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      :-))) And another forest dies in Canada …. huhuhuhuhuhu
      (good thing they re-plant as much as possible – otherwise we’d all be in shite by this time))
      (reason the French invented the ‘bidget’.)

      1. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        shame on you to confuse shit with shiite; how respectful it is!!! your head may have been in the “bidet”; need some scott to wipe your mouth

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Look up ‘shite’ in an Oxford dictionary … dickhead.
          (speaking of mediocre English …)

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            i do not need to look anywhere since i smell it as soon as i see your nick; your hypocrisy wont help you and you owe the shiite community a big apology for insulting it so grossly; shame on you. As far as your refined low street vocabulary is concerned, i need more scott

          2. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Wanking again ??

          3. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            you seem allergic to facts and the truth makes you choke. You modify facts in poetic diatribes to make them suit hariristan agendas in a jerky way while stupid bloggers watching the APE applaud you. When one confronts you with facts, you lose your temper and you exhibit your real street nature stuttering rubbish insanities

          4. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            It sure is. It can’t even thpell thcott (lithp) 🙂

          5. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            this moron did not get yet that scott is a famous toilet paper trade mark; i guess he still uses stones as refugee or plumma in australia

        2. Leborigine Avatar
          Leborigine

          You really can’t be that stupid!! Shite has nothing to do with any religion you Wanker. Unless you are trying to create a fitnee, your comment is absolutely useless. I would also like to suggest that you change your name to realsyrian or revert back to syriaphylis!

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            this blog insults shiites christians and alawis; i dont need to mention it; it is obvious. i think you suffer from paranoia and you imagine seeing things, visual hallucination. Do you hear voices? did you ever speak with allah? am just asking you because i am trying to help. I am psychiatrist

          2. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Your a psychiatrist??? Bwuhaha! Allah yehdee.

            Please do help me, I hear voices, a lot of voices, mostly moaning, like when YOUR biting a pillow while your getting ‘jack hammered. I don’t just suffer from paranoia, am also schizophrenic, all due to being exposed to things like yourself.

          3. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            RealLebanese suffers from title-obia… Every day he has a new career.
            He will insult Yalibnan staff soon enough and they will have him banned for the lost count of nth.

          4. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            I must admit though, it makes me laugh. You know that hamster game at the arcades, the one that you smash with a hammer and it pops out of a different hole with a different colour and a different profile, thats this thing! A try hard desert dweller who wants to be Lebanese.

          5. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            whack-a-mole HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

          6. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Needed Hannibal. New ‘Site Party’. Gathers at the coffee-shop… or a KFC.
            Banner – A pink&black flag with picture of a mole on it holding a hammer.
            (In hard-hat, of course. 😉
            The party gathers on Tuesdays. (I think that is a ‘free’ day so far).
            (Women welcome – no children)
            Leb-Coffee (cardamum-enhanced) is poured into 3 ceremonial cups lifted high to the ‘DarkGod’ of ignorance (a piece of mine-slag mounted over the bar).
            Votes are held for the ‘worst-idiot-of-the-week’, then everyone runs into YaLibnan Street waving the banner and hammers, and chanting with deadly fervour;
            ‘Whack A Mole Whack A Mole Whack A Mole’.
            (I have a vison … people falling over laughing in un-calculated numbers.)
            (Party rules, leader, constitution, and sizes of hammers – debated ad-infinitum every other day of the week – with reports of debates written slowly on clay tablets to be fired, decorated, then broken up later and used to re-pave Yalibnan Street to make it more colourful.)

          7. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Hahahaha thats the one! I couldn’t remember what it was called yesterday.

          8. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            i never insult anybody; i just notice facts; but we all know truth hurts; thus by bringing up the truth, if you feel insulted, this means you are an insult to yourself not me insulting you…morality: in the future try to respect yourself

          9. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            admin, we need help; our vulture herd is being massacred by this new truth exposing invador; we tried all the annusra lies tricks and tactics you taught us and he is still defeating us; please admin hurry up before he massacres us… wain wain, crying

          10. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            try phenothiazines suppositories or pessaries

          11. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            now they consider real lebanese to be real stupid; i knew the herd here is not lebanese

          12. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            if you have a donkey and you put on his front leborignine, does it become a human being? no. you can can call yourself whatever you like, you remain what you are. let me make it easier for your simple mind: you wrap a piece of fecal matter (fishke in lebanese, i bet ti’il lsenak billebneneh) with nestle or crunch or bounty wrap, does it become chocolate!

          13. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            You are right, if you have a donkey and you put leborigine on his front, it will not become a human being, it will become a RealLebanese. We also do not want to know about your staple diet. If fishke is your thing, then enjoy!

          14. Patience2 Avatar
            Patience2

            Or just RealStupid.

          15. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            your intelligence 3am bitsharshir; 7ittollak shi tosht a7san ma yourou7o bil majroor

    2. RealLebanese Avatar
      RealLebanese

      you guys in here have excellent olfactory bulbs, you smell shit till 20 inch far but you are blind, none of you sees the atrocities the annusra is comitting in syria and bragging it on you tube; you are accomplice of these crimes; slemit 3ouyounkom bass albkom il mi3meh

      1. Leborigine Avatar
        Leborigine

        B l a h , b l a h, b l a h . . .

        1. RealLebanese Avatar
          RealLebanese

          you need one “a” and you get the anagram of yourself; b e l a h….l a a b a, let me try once more a h b a l; i strongly suggest you adopt it as nick; honestly it suits you

          1. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Wow, you can spell! Shatir kteer! Here’s one for you to keep you entertained:
            E D B T Zee

          2. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            lol

          3. Patience2 Avatar
            Patience2

            Actually, I think ‘Leb’ means Bzzz … Bzzz … Bzzz . Maybe??

          4. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            lol,I was waiting for it!

          5. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            let me guess what comes out of your mouth; again trying anagram trick; going by phonation, the i is missing; i or eye (hay’tak darir b3id min hon, mi3me el alb). So i is missing and you where belching ibzzz, no, bzzzzi, no let me try once more zzzzib. Thats it you are dyslexic and belching zzzzib

      2. master09 Avatar
        master09

        What the F are you talking about little man. Wow you seem to bla bla bla do you need some toilet paper. You seem to blow a lot of air be careful of stretch marks. Lol

      3. Hannibal Avatar
        Hannibal

        The day annusra rape your ass will be a good day for all of us… Once I post it on YouTube then we will come in and wipe them out like cockroaches.

        1. RealLebanese Avatar
          RealLebanese

          jardon mitlak; go clean your mouth ya kazer and stay hiding where you are ya jabane

  2. master09 Avatar
    master09

    This is how much shit in the world we have.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      :-))) And another forest dies in Canada …. huhuhuhuhuhu

      1. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        shame on you to confuse shit with shiite; how respectful it is!!! your head may have been in the “bidet”; need some scott to wipe your mouth

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          Look up ‘shite’ in an Oxford dictionary … dickhead.

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            i do not need to look anywhere since i smell it as soon as i see your nick; your hypocrisy wont help you and you owe the shiite community a big apology for insulting it so grossly; shame on you. As far as your refined low street vocabulary is concerned, i need more scott

          2. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Wanking again ??

          3. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            you seem allergic to facts and the truth makes you choke. You modify facts in poetic diatribes to make them suit hariristan agendas in a jerky way while stupid bloggers watching the APE applaud you. When one confronts you with facts, you lose your temper and you exhibit your real street nature

          4. CHANNIBAL Avatar
            CHANNIBAL

            lol

          5. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            It sure is. It can’t even thpell thcott (lithp) 🙂

          6. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            this moron did not get yet that scott is a famous toilet paper trade mark; i guess he still uses stones as refugee or plumma in australia

          7. CHANNIBAL Avatar
            CHANNIBAL

            roflol

        2. Leborigine Avatar
          Leborigine

          You really can’t be that stupid!! Shite has nothing to do with any religion you Wanker. Unless you are trying to create a fitnee, your comment is absolutely useless. I would also like to suggest that you change your name to realsyrian or revert back to syriaphylis!

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            this blog insults shiites christians and alawis; i dont need to mention it; it is obvious. i think you suffer from paranoia and you imagine seeing things, visual hallucination. Do you hear voices? did you ever speak with allah? am just asking you because i am trying to help. I am psychiatrist

          2. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Your a psychiatrist??? Bwuhaha! Allah yehdee.

            Please do help me, I hear voices, a lot of voices, mostly moaning, like when YOUR biting a pillow while your getting ‘jack hammered. I don’t just suffer from paranoia, am also schizophrenic, all due to being exposed to things like yourself.

          3. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            RealLebanese suffers from title-obia… Every day he has a new career.
            He will insult Yalibnan staff soon enough and they will have him banned for the lost count of nth.

          4. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            I must admit though, it makes me laugh. You know that hamster game at the arcades, the one that you smash with a hammer and it pops out of a different hole with a different colour and a different profile, thats this thing! A try hard desert dweller who wants to be Lebanese.

          5. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            whack-a-mole HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

          6. 5thDrawer Avatar
            5thDrawer

            Needed Hannibal. New ‘Site Party’. Gathers at the coffee-shop… or a KFC.
            Banner – A pink&black flag with picture of a mole on it holding a hammer.
            (In hard-hat, of course. 😉
            The party gathers on Tuesdays. (I think that is a ‘free’ day so far).
            (Women welcome – no children)
            Leb-Coffee (cardamum-enhanced) is poured into 3 ceremonial cups lifted high to the ‘DarkGod’ of ignorance (a piece of mine-slag mounted over the bar).
            Votes are held for the ‘worst-idiot-of-the-week’, then everyone runs into YaLibnan Street waving the banner and hammers, and chanting with deadly fervour;
            ‘Whack A Mole Whack A Mole Whack A Mole’.
            (I have a vison … people falling over laughing in un-calculated numbers.)
            (Party rules, leader, constitution, and sizes of hammers – debated ad-infinitum every other day of the week – with reports of debates written slowly on clay tablets to be fired, decorated, then broken up later and used to re-pave Yalibnan Street to make it more colourful.)

          7. CHANNIBAL Avatar
            CHANNIBAL

            boring nonsense

          8. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Hahahaha thats the one! I couldn’t remember what it was called yesterday.

          9. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            i never insult anybody; i just notice facts; but we all know truth hurts; thus by bringing up the truth, if you feel insulted, this means you are an insult to yourself not me insulting you…morality: in the future try to respect yourself

          10. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            admin, we need help; our vulture herd is being massacred by this new truth exposing invador; we tried all the annusra lies tricks and tactics you taught us and he is still defeating us; please admin hurry up before he massacres us… wain wain, crying

          11. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            try phenothiazines suppositories or pessaries

          12. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            now they consider real lebanese to be real stupid; i knew the herd here is not lebanese

          13. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            if you have a donkey and you put on his front leborignine, does it become a human being? no. you can can call yourself whatever you like, you remain what you are. let me make it easier for your simple mind: you wrap a piece of fecal matter (fishke in lebanese, i bet ti’il lsenak billebneneh) with nestle or crunch or bounty wrap, does it become chocolate!

          14. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            You are right, if you have a donkey and you put leborigine on his front, it will not become a human being, it will become a RealLebanese. We also do not want to know about your staple diet. If fishke is your thing, then enjoy!

          15. CHANNIBAL Avatar
            CHANNIBAL

            i thinked this libnan site and you calling lebanese donkey

          16. Patience2 Avatar
            Patience2

            Or just RealStupid.

          17. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            your intelligence 3am bitsharshir; 7ittollak shi tosht a7san ma yourou7o bil majroor

    2. RealLebanese Avatar
      RealLebanese

      you guys in here have excellent olfactory bulbs, you smell shit till 20 inch far but you are blind, none of you sees the atrocities the annusra is comitting in syria and bragging it on you tube; you are accomplice of these crimes; slemit 3ouyounkom bass albkom il mi3meh

      1. Leborigine Avatar
        Leborigine

        B l a h , b l a h, b l a h . . .

        1. RealLebanese Avatar
          RealLebanese

          you need one “a” and you get the anagram of yourself; b e l a h….l a a b a, let me try once more a h b a l; i strongly suggest you adopt it as nick; honestly it suits you

          1. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            Wow, you can spell! Shatir kteer! Here’s one for you to keep you entertained:
            E D B T Zee

          2. Hannibal Avatar
            Hannibal

            lol

          3. Patience2 Avatar
            Patience2

            Actually, I think ‘Leb’ means Bzzz … Bzzz … Bzz . Maybe??

          4. Leborigine Avatar
            Leborigine

            lol,I was waiting for it!

          5. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            let me guess what comes out of your mouth; again trying anagram trick; going by phonation, the i is missing; i or eye (hay’tak darir b3id min hon, mi3me el alb). So i is missing and you where belching ibzzz, no, bzzzzi, no let me try once more zzzzib. Thats it you are dyslexic and belching zzzzib

      2. master09 Avatar
        master09

        What the F are you talking about little man. Wow you seem to bla bla bla do you need some toilet paper.

      3. Hannibal Avatar
        Hannibal

        The day annusra rape your ass will be a good day for all of us… Once I post it on YouTube then we will come in and wipe them out like cockroaches.

        1. RealLebanese Avatar
          RealLebanese

          jardon mitlak; go clean your mouth ya kazer and stay hiding where you are ya jabane

  3. Jewy McJew Avatar
    Jewy McJew

    Viva la Toilet-Paper!

    No matter how often communism fails, there will always be another country out there who thinks it is a swell idea.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Exactly.
      Although, I must once again note that there IS a difference between Communism and Socialist Thinking, which way too many confuse as being synonymous terms.
      Especially, the Raging Capitalists – although the Communists get it wrong as well.

      1. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        give me a Scott, good quality toilet paper, certainly needed when you read this blog

        1. Hannibal Avatar
          Hannibal

          Scott must be your name…

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            my name very proudly is a real lebanese name, not a moubanda’ 3afrito-american one like yours

      2. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        there may be a difference between communism and socialism but not between communism and socialist thinking; you are confusing with social democrats

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          semantics … you knew what I meant.

  4. Jewy McJew Avatar
    Jewy McJew

    Viva la Toilet-Paper!

    No matter how often communism fails, there will always be another country out there who thinks it is a swell idea.

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar
      5thDrawer

      Exactly.

      1. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        give me a Scott, good quality toilet paper, certainly needed when you read this blog

        1. Hannibal Avatar
          Hannibal

          Scott must be your name…

          1. RealLebanese Avatar
            RealLebanese

            my name very proudly is a real lebanese name, not a moubanda’ 3afrito-american one like yours

      2. RealLebanese Avatar
        RealLebanese

        there may be a difference between communism and socialism but not between communism and socialist thinking; you are confusing with social democrats

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar
          5thDrawer

          semantics … you knew what I meant.

  5. MekensehParty Avatar
    MekensehParty

    Aljazeera used to cover every one of chavez’s farts

    Let’s see if they’ll mention “his shitty legacy” now

  6. MekensehParty Avatar
    MekensehParty

    Aljazeera used to cover every one of chavez’s farts

    Let’s see if they’ll mention “his shitty legacy” now

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