Toilet Paper Only in the Hereafter
Readers may recall that we have reported on the toilet paper shortage in Venezuela before. At the time our suggestion to the Venezuelan authorities was to simply replace toilet paper with the country's currency, the Bolivar, as evidently there is more than enough of that to go around.
The great leader Hugo Chavez is no longer among the quick. He therefore doesn't have to grapple with the problem anymore – we are assuming that there are no toilet paper shortages in the Hereafter. So one way of getting a decent wipe nowadays if you're a citizen of Venezuela is to follow the great leader of the revolution into the Great Beyond.
Back in May of this year, Venezuela's rulers made the following promise:
"The revolution will bring the country the equivalent of 50 million rolls of toilet paper. We are going to saturate the market so that our people calm down."
But wouldn't you know, in spite of their near complete control over the country's economy, the darn capitalists have somehow thwarted them again!
Obviously, the revolution has a lot of work left to do in order to create the socialist Utopia Venezuelans have been assured will be theirs. The Land of Cockaigne, where the roasted chickens will fly into the comrade's mouths unbidden and toilet paper will be abundant – its creation continues to be obstructed by the machinations of evil capitalist hoarders. So the revolutionaries have decided to strike at the root of the problem.
“Venezuela's government is known for its state-must-do-it-all mindset, inherited from late President Hugo Chavez and his radical followers, known as Chavistas. But late last week, the notoriously inefficient government went above and beyond to shine its populist credentials: It stepped right into Venezuelan bathrooms.
On Sept. 20, President Nicolas Maduro and a new economic panel ordered national price regulator Sundecop to “temporarily” seize plants owned by Manufacturas de Papel CA, orManpa, the company that supplies 40 percent of the country’s demand for toilet paper and personal-care paper goods. Their reasoning? To oversee production, because consumers can't seem to find enough rolls of toilet paper.
