Marie Antoinette apocryphally responded to a comment that the people did not have bread to eat by saying “then let them eat cake.” This is meant to suggest that the French aristocracy was aloof an did not understand the people’s hunger. In Venezuela, President Maduro has responded to the calls for help alleviating hunger by… banning people from lining up at bakeries in the slim hope of getting a morsel of bread.
‘The National Superintendency of Fair Prices has reportedly instituted a policy of fining bakeries that allow lines to stretch out their front doors, according to PanAmPost. The head of this particular bureaucracy, William Contreras, claims the lines aren’t a true indicator of a severe shortage of bread, but rather, a political ‘strategy of generating anxiety.’
“Contreras claims there is no shortage of raw materials to make bread, but seems to not understand that bakeries just bake bread, they don’t process the different kinds of wheat used to make the flour that’s then used to make bread. But this is indicative of the magical thinking of Venezuela’s socialist government: the breakdown of the economy couldn’t possibly because of failed economic policy, and scarcity must be the result of a greater conspiracy.”
It’s almost as if Maduro is going full Holodomor on those pesky Venezuelans…
With the people so disgruntled, it’s no wonder that Maduro has soured on the idea of democracy…
