Sounds like food stamps to me. (Oh, sorry, we don’t call it food stamps anymore. Now it’s called SNAP!)
Miami Herald: Chávez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies.
“I have called it a Good Life Card so far,” Chávez said in a brief statement made on the government television channel. “It’s a card for you to purchase what you are going to take and they keep deducting. It’s to buy what you need, not to promote communism, but to buy what just what you need.”
Former director of Venezuela’s Central Bank, Domingo Maza Zavala, said this could become a rationing card that would limit your purchases in light of the country’s recurring problems with supplies.
“If the intention is to beat inflation, they should find a good source of supply for the entire market and not only for centers that are part of social chains,” he said. “To do that, you need to encourage local production with the help of the private sector, since they cannot do it by themselves. The government cannot become the ultimate food distributor.”
Humberto Ortega Díaz, minister for public banking and president of the Venezuelan Bank, minimized such criticism and said that all this measure is trying to do is to improve service at the government supply chains.
We’re right there behind you, Hugo! Or are we way ahead of you? Oh never mind.
(H/T to reader Michigan)
