Christmas in Venezuela: What’s life like after Socialism destroys your Country

Article on Venezuelan prepper
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-12-25/christmas-venezuela-what-its-after-socialism-destroys-your-country
-Gary
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Thanks Gary, a fantastic read.

I get some emails from people there and what they are going through is just terrible.
Venezuelans have lost in average 19lbs because of the extreme poverty and lack of food.
So that you know, in general it’s the other way around: In developed countries poor people tend to be more overweight than the more affluent segment of society. They can afford a better lifestyle, exercise, education on what to eat, buy more expensive healthy food rather than just junk food.
When a society becomes so poor that they end up losing weight, then you’re talking about an extreme SHTF situation.

Do yourself a favour and read the article linked above. Its worth every minute of your time.
At the end of the day it’s a similar situation to other worst-case, large scale disasters. The only right answer is to just get the hell out of there. Most of the rich and middle class have left Venezuela already.

Of particular interest is the part about Christmas and toys. People that are literally starving will still do an extra effort to get their kids something for Christmas, something to put a smile on their faces.
It reminds me of Argentina in many ways.

Right before we left we sold a lot of our belongings. I remember posting how toys brought in a lot of money. They sold at a premium. My kids had many I had brought from abroad, US and Europe. I explained to them that we couldn’t take most and they were more than happy to sell them and then go to the toy store to buy new ones after we left. Many sold for even more money than what I paid for them, even after being used for some time.  I know, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it? And preppers will rarely mention stuff like this. In theory its all tools, guns, knives, bullets and food. Well, in the real world it turns out that for millions that are going through a real, long-term SHTF, a nice toy for their kid is a ray of light in their otherwise dark existence.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas.

FerFAL
Fernando “FerFAL” Aguirre is the author of “The Modern Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse” and “Bugging Out and Relocating: When Staying is not an Option”