America is Headed for a Venezuela Style Economy and Government

Do you remember the days when a vacation to Venezuela was one of the best prizes you could win on The Price Is Right? If so, you may be surprised that such a thriving nation could be brought to its knees almost overnight.

Sadly, if the wrong combination of events line up, even the greatest nation on Earth can be brought down, leading to utter chaos for its citizens.

By looking at the unraveling of Venezuela’s economy and government, we can see which events contributed to the collapse and heed the warnings they offer for our own nation. As preppers, this information can make it easier to clarify goals and make it easier to gauge how much time is left before a similar disaster occurs in the United States.

Economic Failure Can Be Hidden by Media Spin and Statistics

When it comes to profitable, tangible assets at the national level, few things can rival oil. Even though the price of oil has gone down, it remains the lifeblood of industry and consumer-based activities. Despite Venezuela having the largest oil reserve on Earth, Venezuela’s looming collapse was well hidden by media spin and statistics.

Here are just a few things that contributed to the collapse (but were presented as economic benefits):

• When Hugo Chavez rose to power in Venezuela, he promised his policies would lift people out of poverty, spur consumer spending, and lead to greater and better-distributed wealth for everyone. As went the USSR and many other collapsed nations who took their socialist policies too far, so now goes Venezuela.
• It is not necessarily fair to say that money spent on the betterment of others is a bad thing. However, when that money is spent at the cost of building up vital infrastructure assets, it can spell disaster. In the case of Venezuela, oil refining and blending plants were sacrificed for the sake of socialist ideals.

Right now in the United States, we are given all kinds of false statistics (the number of people obtaining unemployment benefits is actually much lower than the number of people with no job).

If you look carefully, you will find that just about every “positive” financial indicator used to promote socialism in our own nation has some kind of hidden factor that indicates economic failure.

The best thing you can do is go by your own cost of living and income levels. If you are not better off now than you were 7 years ago, and your neighbors and family are not better off, then you know the media and statistics aren’t quite right.

That’s why you should take steps now to reduce your reliance on any basic items or services that can be rationed, controlled, or denied to you.

Global Factors can Cause Internal Economic Collapse

It is fair to say that if global oil prices had remained high, the yoke of pure socialism would not have triggered an economic collapse as quickly as it did. The collapse in oil prices revolved around events happening outside of Venezuela, which is why you should try to keep track of what is going on in the world.

Watch the FOREX trades, commodities trades, and trends in global unrest. Since Africa and South America are both coming up quickly on the terrorism map, any number of things related to these third world countries could trigger a major collapse or hostile takeover right here in the United States.

Want to prep but not sure where to begin?

Inflation is a Defacto Currency Devaluation

Do you remember the 1980’s, when you could buy a pound of ground beef for about $1.39 a pound? Despite all kinds of “increases” in food production, the average cost of cheap meat these days is around $4.25 per pound.

Even though we haven’t had a bank holiday in the last 40 years, every dollar in your pocket is only worth one quarter of what it was before. In Venezuela, the currency value has dropped over 700%.

If your money is buying less, don’t fall for the media hype that you need a higher wage (of which approximately one third will go to taxes) when it is the currency weakness that is causing your money problems. Do what you can to store away important resources, and focus on prepper items that will enable you to meet you food, water, shelter, and medical needs first.

Remember that de facto and actual currency devaluations can be caused by both internal and external factors of which there are many that could trigger a collapse at any moment.

Money Can’t Buy What Isn’t Available

It is no surprise to preppers that in Venezuela, basic necessities like food, water, medicine, electricity, and other basic needs are being rationed. Venezuela serves as grim validation for what all preppers know the government will do with available resources, and why it is so important to develop and maintain a self-sufficient lifestyle.

Governments Don’t Go Away Overnight

More than a few people watching the steady decline of our nation seem to believe that our leaders will head for the nearest bunker and leave the people to kill each other off. Clearly, Venezuela proves that government agencies will be around and will attempt to control the situation even as it spirals out of control.

As the government gets more desperate, you will see the following tactics (which will only make things worse):

• Increased reliance on laws and punishment. “Do not rely on the government for anything, especially your survival.” (Fr. Frog) As important as this may be, governments will seek to impose increased limitations on free speech, gun rights, other weapons, and self-sufficiency.
• Attempts to control or stop the flow of money.
• Increased election fraud. Most people will recognize that the candidates have no tangible answers and are likely to be unsuccessful at anything remotely useful.
• Increased killing of the civilian population by government agencies.
• Politicians will isolate themselves more and more from the people as they fight among themselves and get caught up in their own desperate attempts to gain control.

Riots and Protests Will Continue Until Balance is Achieved

During a major societal collapse, not everything the government does will be bad, even though in general it seeks to impose limitations. Here, as in Venezuela, our society and way of life cannot continue when our law enforcement officers are shot dead just for doing their jobs.

There comes a point when protests and peaceful revolutions are no longer healthy and become just as dangerous as anything we might fear from a dictatorship. We have seen this in Syria, and a similar pattern is being repeated in Venezuela.

As individuals, one of the best things we can do is gain control of personal stress levels so that it will be easier to achieve other goals. When it comes to riots and protests, our goals aren’t so much about physical survival needs as they are about meeting communication and team-formation goals.

It is our job to open and maintain a dialogue with others in our own community who disagree on vital issues such as gun rights. We are the ones that must come to an understanding among ourselves in a civilized way so that opportunistic terrorist and criminal elements cannot use our division to destroy us.

I am not saying this is an easy task, but it must be done.

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