Venezuela seizes toilet paper factory to avoid shortage

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24185342

by antr • 13 years ago

41 41 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

zebra• 13 years ago

Too much socialism is not a good thing. Same for the capitalism.

fiatmoney• 13 years ago

"Too much" makes it rather tautological.

jlgreco• 13 years ago

Yeah, that comment is something of a Yogism.

ihsw2• 13 years ago

We can play the word game and throw political ideologies around like frisbees, but the real issue is price controls.

During the Hurricane Sandy disaster there were price caps on gas and the desired effect was to discourage panic buying, but the opposite occurred -- since suppliers had no interest in accommodating the authorities then supply dried up.

It's not a matter of the suppliers being greedy assholes about it, but there were real and higher costs associated with supplying gas to NYC and the surrounding areas. They just didn't want to take the hit to their pocketbooks and I don't blame them.

What also happened was the well-connected people were able to make arrangements for their own private supplies of gas, and those people included politicians, business leaders, and other wealthy people, but it was secretive and supply was restricted to them. The politicians were publicly attacking/shaming "scalpers" who were trying to sell gas at a fair price, meanwhile they were secretly making back-room deals for themselves.

What's the lesson here? Depends on who you ask and what you goals are. Instituting price caps usually results in suppliers losing interest and disappearing, which is probably what happened in Venezuela.

Oh, and a black market of gas emerged. There were iOS and Android apps for finding suppliers and becoming a supplier yourself. I'm usually the first to ridicule statements like "the market corrected itself" but it stands to reason that it applies here quite well.

dnautics2• 13 years ago

What also happened was the well-connected people were able to make arrangements for their own private supplies of gas, and those people included politicians, business leaders, and other wealthy people, but it was secretive and supply was restricted to them. The politicians were publicly attacking/shaming "scalpers" who were trying to sell gas at a fair price, meanwhile they were secretly making back-room deals for themselves.

This needs to be repeated. Time, and time again.

wjnc• 13 years ago

There's a nice Econtalk on 'price gouging' [1] that talks at length on this subject. ihsw hits the highlights.

[1] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2007/01/munger_on_price_1.h...

throwaway_yy2Di• 13 years ago

Apparent explanation here, in more depth than "price controls => shortage":

"This Is Why There Is No Toilet Paper in Venezuela"

http://transitions.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/06/17/this_i...

The problems of the local toilet paper industry are illustrative. Typical of the global supply chain, many inputs that manufacturers need to produce toilet paper are also imported. But since Venezuela has extensive currency exchange controls to regulate the flow of foreign currency (which can either be bought/sold or obtained through trade), the government must approve all imports -- and the red tape involved is legendary.

In theory, the way the Venezuelan system should work is the following: The government authorizes imports by selling dollars that businesses buy to make international purchases at a heavily-subsidized price -- discounted at a much lower price than what the black market sells it for. After the imports have arrived and have cleared customs (lines at ill-equipped Venezuelan ports can last weeks), local manufacturers produce their goods, and then sell their products at tightly-controlled prices.

[...]

In reality, the government's ineffective regulation not only discourages investment, but creates incentives for people in the chain of production to take advantage of access to cheap dollars and sell them in the highly profitable black market. With "import dollars" reallocated to currency arbitrage, there is little money left to import the raw materials needed to make things that Venezuelans need.

dnautics2• 13 years ago

In reality, the government's ineffective regulation not only discourages investment, but creates incentives for people in the chain of production to take advantage of access to cheap dollars and sell them in the highly profitable black market. With "import dollars" reallocated to currency arbitrage, there is little money left to import the raw materials needed to make things that Venezuelans need.

The irony is, substitute "wall street" for "black market" and this is exactly what the US is doing, albeit on a slower, less aggressive timescale, and with marginally less ineffective regulation.

_Adam• 13 years ago

I don't quite understand. Can you explain in detail?

calibraxis2• 13 years ago

Venezuela is the happiest country in South America, according to the World Happiness Index published last week by the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network. (http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/you-pr...)

The BBC article portrays a country reacting quickly and aggressively to "avoid any scarcity of the product". And US critics (who view Venezuela as an enemy for disobeying their ideology) are reduced to writing articles about toilet paper.

BTW, Krugman and even Greenspan actually advocated nationalizing US banks as a condition of the bailout. (They advocated selling the banks to private investors after cleaning them up. But we could imagine the US public owning the banks rather than wealthy elites.) A bit bigger than toilet paper. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/23/opinion/23krugman.html)

lemma• 13 years ago

Paragraph 1 is a non sequitur in the purest sense of the term.

Paragraph 2 mentions US critics, but unless the link changed, the article is a link to the BBC which: 1. is British and 2. a reporting of fact with no judgement expressed. In any case, your comment reveals more than any op-ed ever could.

Paragraph 3 is again bizarre assuming we're reading the same article (I double checked as I've read this story before- the news here seems to be the nationalization part).

So I'll conclude with this: there's a lot of criticism of the US sharedand discussed on this site, but I never notice anyone get so defensive about it, whether they agree with it or not. Why is this article so troubling to you? Especially if it's something you claim is so insignificant.

rickjames28• 13 years ago

Yeah, right. Just like the Soviet Union was the happiest country when their people sat in line for toilet paper.

I'm sure Krugman would fit right in Venezuela.

CamperBob2• 13 years ago

Paraphrasing some recent studies, it turns out that the largest determinant of one's 'happiness' is how well one is doing compared to one's peers. The happiness of individual members of a peer group doesn't say much about how that group compares to its own peer groups at the next level up, which in this case would be other national economies and economic schools of thought.

Put another way, I imagine the World Happiness Index published last week by the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network would have been impressed with the "progress" made in places such as Jonestown, Guyana.

alexeisadeski3• 13 years ago

Socialists, I love you. Please don't ever change.

unsigner• 13 years ago

Toilet paper was a precious rarity in 1980s Bulgaria. Those ignoring the lessons of history are doomed to carefully collect yesterday's newspapers and stack them in the bathroom.

Zuider• 13 years ago

Pravda was printed on such rough paper. Ach, how The truth hurts!

VladRussian2• 13 years ago

obligatory http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087747/ - the "USSR toilet paper line" opening clip from it (sorry couldn't find it with original english soundtrek) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR0I3DgWXX8

What i'm genuiely wondering about is how Marx missed the "toilet paper effect" in Das Kapital while he was so true on the money with the rest of the theory.

toiletpaperwtf2• 13 years ago

So I had to create a throwaway account since this is kind of a sensitive subject, but:

Why do so many people in the Western hemisphere use toilet paper? If you had fecal matter on your hand, would you wash it, or just wipe it with some paper and call it good? I've never actually understood this, and it leads to questionable personal hygiene. (Let's just say I put a finger somewhere during..um..and it didn't exactly come out clean.)

The ideal way to wash is with water, and maybe afterwards pat down with some TP to dry off. That's what a lot of South Asian countries and the Japanese do. I hope the American and European people learn to do this simple trick some day. Might help decrease the use of this ridiculous anachronism and save some trees.

kmfrk• 13 years ago

Maybe the water isn't clean enough in many Venezuelan households.

You don't tend to see bidets in a lot of places, but you can basically spend $20 on a simple add-on to your toilet and go paper-free, if you want.

oleganza2• 13 years ago

So if you have not-clean-enough water in your tap, you'd wipe out shit from your hand with a paper instead of washing it off? The water then must be more dirty than whatever you got on your hand then.

antr3• 13 years ago

I don't know why I know this, but I'm pretty certain most of the toilet paper is produced from tree farms, not impacting on deforestation. Have a read in the annual reports, CSR reports, of toilet papers manufacturers such as Kruger, P&G, Kimberly Clark, etc. Btw, I spotted a flaw in the "hand + water " argument... how do you make sure the tap is clean after washing your hands?

iopq• 13 years ago

left hand for the butt, right hand for everything else

_delirium• 13 years ago

It's reasonably common in southern Europe to have bidets in the bathroom for that purpose. You're right that they're uncommon in the US and northern Europe, though.

clarry• 13 years ago

We use toilet paper to wipe our butts, not our hands. So we shouldn't get fecal matter on our hands to begin with. Though we still wash our hands afterwards.

How do you wash your butt with water? I wash my body parts (in shower) using my hands to rub. Should I apply my hands on butt at loo? Sometimes I do it, but that's only when paper doesn't do a good job. But then my hand is in direct contact with fecal matter and there's a good risk of getting it under fingernails too. Of course I wash my hands as well as I can afterwards, but regularly dirtying them that way does sound like questionable personal hygiene.

(I can't believe I'm discussing this on HN.)

notahacker• 13 years ago

A high pressure hose, accurately directed, works wonders. Though some paper to wipe afterwards helps. They're common enough in Asia to make me wonder why Europe hasn't caught on - at least in hotels and public bathrooms.

(I can't believe the level of discussion around toilet paper is more sophisticated than the discussion on the associated socioeconomic issues...)

GrinningFool• 13 years ago

No need for a throwaway account, seems to me - discussing hygiene shouldn't be a sensitive matter.

If you had fecal matter on your hand, would you wash it, or just wipe it with some paper and call it good? Yep, never understood this myself.

Then I discovered disposable wet wipes followed by a bit of TP to dry off. The equivalent of wiping with a clean soapy cloth. Next best thing to a full cleaning in the shower and uses less paper-like material by far.

hncomment2• 13 years ago

As a North American who enjoys discussing taboo subjects clinically and honestly, and in the interest of cultural understanding, I would explain it as:

Cleanliness standards for the hands are much higher than for the rectum area. For hands, not just water but soap is expected, after any work with biologically-suspect materials or surfaces (raw foods, places of illness, bathroom visits).

But for "down below," the paper-wipe is considered sufficient, with usual assumptions about clothing, bathing schedule, etc. The paper enables wiping until there's no trace (on the white paper) of any feces. The seated toilet (less common in other regions) helped spread open the rear cheeks; after standing any surfaces that were only-paper-wiped seem very nearly 'retracted' so as to not even be in contact with underwear. Within 12-24 hours, a full-body bathe and freshly-cleaned clothes are likely.

Still, those with predictable bowel movements may time them so they immediately precede a daily shower. In many bathrooms the sink is close enough to allow wetting toilet paper for part of the cleanup, and prepackaged moistened wipes are rising in popularity, and have long been used for messy-baby-cleanup.

Turning things around and looking at rinse-cultures, I'm probably not alone among North Americans in wondering:

(1) Doesn't the spray get droplets of feces-water mix everywhere? (Supposedly ideal bathroom hygiene is to close the toilet lid before flushing, to avoid sending a mist of toilet water into the air. Any forced-water rinsing seems to guarantee a mixed-mist reaches everywhere, including parts of the buttocks and legs far from the rectum that are never contaminated by paper-wiping.)

(2) Short of absolutely drenching yourself with multiple power rinses, how do you know you're "done" - that none of the remaining dampness is still fecal-contaminated water? (White paper provides a visual completion indicator.)

(3) My very rough impression is that fecally-transmitted diseases (typhoid, hepatitis, cholera, anything diarrhea-causing, etc.) are more prevalent in rinse-cultures. Are you sure that "a lot of South Asian countries" should be the "ideal way to wash" model, as opposed to the other way around? (North American practice would change very fast if there were evidence paper-wiping was insufficient to protect health.)

cabalamat• 13 years ago

Still, those with predictable bowel movements may time them so they immediately precede a daily shower.

Do people actually do this? It seem to me a bit, well, anal.

toiletpaperwtf2• 13 years ago

Answers:

Not really, it depends upon the spray. Most sprays are gentle, not the high-pressure hosepipe you seem to be imagining.

You can always check with paper. Other than that, you check with your hand. Still much cleaner than leaving dried fecal matter in your rectum.

That has more to do with the water supply being contaminated with fecal matter, and not enough fresh sources of uncontaminated water being available for drinking in those countries.

mikeash• 13 years ago

I wash my hand rather than merely wiping it because I'm going to use my hand to touch other things afterwards, like food.

Until and unless people are picking up food with their butts before eating it, the comparison is nonsensical.

oleganza2• 13 years ago

Apparently the fact that all other TP factories went bankrupt (or were prevented from being created by the loving government), so there is just one and it cannot produce enough of paper to satisfy demand, is not a hard proof of a total failure of government's policy. If the government was doing nothing wrong in the first place, why would there ever be a situation like this?

I really doubt if this factory's owners somehow unfairly prevent competitors from jumping in and satisfying demand. And if they do, most probably they use government as a nice tool to regulate competition out of existence.

In other words: whenever something globally shitty happens for no obvious reason, it's always a government and its monopoly of violence at fault.

bmmayer1• 13 years ago

A classic example of the so-called solution to shortages being the problem in the first place. Who's going to invest in a toilet paper factory in Venezuela now if it's just going to get stolen from you?

Venezuela seizes toilet paper factory to avoid shortage

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