Quote:
Originally Posted by desertdetroiter
There’s absolutely NOTHING happening in Venezuela that isn’t happening in a half dozen other nations in this hemisphere.  |
This is inaccurate.
Here are some various examples...
Inflation: inflation in Venezuela in the first quarter of 2018 was 454%. Although other countries in CA and SA are experiencing inflation (notably Brazil at 9%), no other country is experiencing it at this extreme rate.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/mobile..../idUSKBN1HI2MO
Poverty: Almost 90% of the country lives in poverty, up from 48% in 2014. People have lost an average of 24 pounds in the last year. There isn't enough food.
The country is in free fall. From the NY Post: "The study showed that 87 percent of people in Venezuela, one of Latin America’s wealthiest nations back in the 1970s, were living in poverty last year, rising from 82 percent in 2016 and 48 percent in 2014."
Even Guatemala's poverty rate is at 50%.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost....shortages/amp/
Healthcare: the health care system is collapsing. Among the problems are a lack of medicines, malnutrition, a lack of vaccines, and a lack of hospital beds. There is a 90% shortage of medicine and other supplies.
People are dying due to a lack of antibiotics. Women are giving birth in the street. Diphtheria is making a comeback, at rates even worse than Haiti, when it had been declared eliminated in 1993. Malaria has shot up 76%.
"The PanAmerican Health Organization reported on Thursday that 447 cases of diphtheria, plus seven fatalities due to the disease, had been recorded between the middle of 2016 and the middle of this year.
The numbers is the highest in the region, far above Haiti, which reported 72 cases this year. The disease was declared eliminated in the oil-producing country in 1992.
The numbers on malaria are even worse, Rafael Gottenger, president of the Venezuelan American Medical Association, said from Miami.
“Malaria cases are increasing at an alarming rate. The estimate is that this year we will have 800,000, and one million next year,” said Gottenger, whose organization has long been warning that Venezuela is heading into a humanitarian crisis."
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.miami...182770351.html
Another more recent article on the health problems:
Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro has refused to accept humanitarian aid, blocking shipments of medicine and first aid supplies. Government data shows infant mortality rose by 30 percent in 2016 and malaria infections shot up 76 percent, Reuters reports.
"So most countries when they're hit by a crisis, they're taking aid from other countries, from NGOs," Associated Press reporter Hannah Dreier told NPR in 2016. "But Venezuela keeps refusing to take donations that other countries are offering and is actually turning back shipments of donations that people have given in places like the U.S., not letting medicine in."
https://www.npr.org/2018/02/01/58246...conomic-crisis
To emphasize: Venezuela is BLOCKING aid and medicine. Intentionally. Let that sink in. So no, this is not like other countries in the hemisphere.
I applaud President Trump for looking to help these people, either by giving them refugee status here or providing aid to other countries like Peru that have taken in a huge number of refugees.
I cannot believe any of you would criticize this decision. You complain that Trump doesn't have "feelings" and that he's racist...now he wants to help and that isn't good enough for you either.
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