The $755 Condom Pack Is the Latest Indignity in Venezuela

[Bacchus4.0]

Source: Bloomberg

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/the-755-condom-is-the-latest-indignity-in-venezuela

Venezuelans who already must line up for hours to buy chicken, sugar, medicines and other basic products in short supply now face a new indignity: Condoms are hard to find and nearly impossible to afford.

“The country is so messed up that now we have to wait in line even to have sex,” lamented Jonatan Montilla, a 31-year-old advertising company art director. “This is a new low.”

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Venezuela had the third-fastest rate of HIV infections per capita in South America, after Paraguay and Brazil in 2013, United Nations data shows. The country also has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies on the continent after Guyana, at 83 per 1,000, according to 2012 data from the World Bank. This compares to just 4 per 1,000 in Germany and 31 in the U.S.

On the auction website MercadoLibre, used by Venezuelans to obtain scarce goods, a 36-pack of Trojans sells for 4,760 bolivars ($755 at the official exchange rate), close to the country’s minimum monthly wage of 5,600 bolivars. At the unofficial black-market rate used by people with access to dollars, the cost is about $25, compared to $21 in the U.S.


Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-04/the-755-condom-is-the-latest-indignity-in-venezuela

[Fred Sanders]

1. Who cares? This is Breaking News? Expensive rubbers?

[Bacchus4.0]

2. I'd say people who take the time to respond n.t

[sulphurdunn]

10. You seem to be banging

the "see how bad Venezuela is" gong daily. Why?

[sulphurdunn]

11. You seem to be banging

the "see how bad Venezuela is" gong on a daily basis. Why?

[VanillaRhapsody]

3. Yeah it is.....if you cannot afford them....it is news!

did you not read the rate of HIV there?

WTF is wrong with you?

[starroute]

5. If you don't care, why read the thread?

Or do you think the Venezualan sugar shortage isn't important either?

[Fred Sanders]

6. See post # 4.

[Manifest Destiny]

4. Bloomberg has turned into a non stop propaganda outfit.

They are the New York Post of so called financial information sources. They usually run 4 anti-Putin/Russia stories a day. Now they are onto Venezuela. Read the comment section and one can see that even regular traders think they have become a propaganda bullhorn.

[starroute]

7. Gee, and I thought the story was about the US trying to prompt a Venezuelan coup

Who would have guessed that a news item about the Venezuelans being screwed over would be anti-Venezuela?

[Thor_MN]

8. Isn't it about them NOT screwing?

I know, I'll go sit in the corner now.

[Calista241]

9. Nothing to see here. Move along!

[packman]

12. Do the Rush Limbaugh birth control technique

After all, how expensive can aspirins be?

[christx30]

13. Due to shortages of medical supplies,

and the difficulty in getting products there, aspirins are probably too expensive to hold between your knees.

[FSogol]

14. Next time you fly to Venezuela, take along a duffel bag of condoms.

[Bacchus4.0]

15. and sell them n/t

[Nye Bevan]

16. Yet more evidence of Obama and Biden's fiendish plotting against this benighted country.

First they infect Chavez with cancer to kill him, then Joe Biden plots a coup against his successor. And now this. What next?