Our american story is written everyday. Its not always pretty, but its real. And we show you like noone else can. This is our american story. This is america tonight. Were here to fully get into the nuances of everything thats going on, not just in this country, but around the world. Getting the news from the people who are affected. People need to demand reform. Ali velshi on target. You are watching inside story. We are looking at the deepening cries crisis in venezuela, the store shelves empty and political turmoil and the dropping price in oil combines to bring tough times. Our guests are still with me. Professor, what is the consequences for the average venezuela on the street with the currency, and there is said to be more on the way. Well, the consequences are dire, the fact that as a result of Currency Exchange controls that are in place for 12 years in yenz venezuela, the distortions in the economy resulted in minor production levels and relying on the imports. What that means is that inflation in venezuela is high for a very long time. The fact of devaluation is going on and the formals devaluations are behind of what is happening on the streets, people have to wait in long lines to find subsidized products and then turning to the black market. Not just in food, but in medicine, which is a really dramatic crisis at this moment, people are just not able to access medicines. In countries where there are current controls. We are forced to get creative and one of the things that happens is a secondary market starts up and people that are lucky enough to have the currencies with neighbors or dollars, change those at a very preferential rate. Venezuela ans suffering the most dont have access to the other currencies. No, they dont have access to that and for every control, whether the control of currency or the control of any other price of a good or a services in venezuela, which translates into scarcity for the common citizen there is black market. That is cost prohi bib tif for the common citizen. The problem of building a transition is you have a system of prices, costs and salaries, wages, which is based on the fiction that the dollar is equivalent, there is an Exchange Range of six to 1. That is fiction. And then, you have the black market, which probably gets or puts the dollar at a rate of a thousand per dollar and other official rates that the government has. So whatever you place your new value for the u. S. Dollar in the u. S. Economy, you have to think about the devaluation of five, six, seven, ten or 20 times for the price of economy. The salaries are calculated structured based on that fiction. Inflation is high and people cant afford with the current salary what they need to survive. You need more than 7 minimum wages to pay for the basic goods that a family needs and then, if you make the adjustment in the dollar and in the prices that you need to do, 3,000 percent in dollar terms, then whats going to happen with the salaries. You have to some way match wages to that increase in prices and thats going to create a spiral of inflation. People cant afford to pay whatever they could later find if you made the adjustment. Venezuelians are in desperate need for a transition and that requires understanding dialogue of all of the Political Forces and the Productive Forces in the country and that is one of the more difficult scenarios that you can think about in venezuela these days. You are lucky to have a car with a big gas tank they are filling up and headed for the columbia border and tell the gas in your car for ten times more than you paid for it. Absolutely. The government increased the price of gags like 6,000 percent, it is still the cheapest in the world, by far. This points to a larger reality that was mentioned before, it has to do with the idea of specific measures, everyone knows has to be taken and extremely politically costly and nobody is talking about taking them. The opposition lacking a clear message of what it is going to do. When it comes to power and devaluation. Will they increase the price of gasoline to a market rate that is internationally viable, itchnt heard that. What are they going to do in spurring the productive economy. Part of the reason that the people are not taking the streets to support one position or the other are the lack of the alternatives. Absolutely there are these kinds of distortions that are at the heart, and contributed to them and imposed them over time and created they economic crisises, but the real problem has to do with the dependency on the oil. I want to talk about the end game and given how you are describing the country today. These people have decided that today they will be arrested. I know that im being surveilled. People are not getting the care that they need. This is a crime against humanity. Hands up. Dont shoot. Hands up. Dont shoot. What do we want . Justice. When do we want it . Now. Explosions going on. Were not quite sure is that an i. E. D. . V you are watching inside story. The ambitions for venezuela and the influence extended for beyond the countrys board herbs and using the oil reserves he made friended and aided the economies of many. When latin america was souring on the economic ideas, chavez made the partnerships. Chavez forged a particularly close relationship with castro. And working in the venezuela government and providing lots of oil on the easy terms to a cuba that really recovered from the loss of the super power economic support from moscow. With cha vez gone, what now. What could we see in the coming year, destabling to the neighbors, or the caribbean. All those are possible. What we are seeing now in venezuela is political paralysis. We have a weakened government and divided opposition despite its strong showing in the last elections we have desperation in the streets and marked by not protests, but protests over the daily sufferings of life. It is unclear where thats going. The explosive protests like we had in 1989 and that is a scenario that could lead to regionally. A lot of people that can have left the country and leaving behind a lot of poor people seeing no way out. There is almost a million venezuelians that have past 50 years or so, now representing a huge that we never thought when we realized the potential that venezuela has as a country. You mentioned the impact in the region, one thing is on one side of venezuela you have columbia, who is cull min nating, finishing and apparently with success a Peace Process that setting columbia in a different scenario than it was. Then you have cuba, they are transitioning out of the depend ensi with venezuela with this new opening between the u. S. And cuba that president obama is promoting and hes going there next week. So the cubans are looking north. Columbia it is already standing on its feet with regards to the Peace Process and then to the caribbean, the problem was it was depending on venezuela because of the oil for them. But now, alternative energy, and cheap oil is resolving the problem that venezuela was once resolving for them what. Is happening to venezuela is that just what is unthinkable, is that venezuela, at the same time, it is much less of impact of what it was when you thought it about a few years ago. The other thing i have to say is that venezuela has become a very important passage for narco operations and organized crime because of the weakness of the laws. So the threat there is becoming more established state. Thinking about the solutions to move ahead. The governor on the other hand, i want to disagree with one thing, the opposition is looking divided but at the end it is not as much divided at the government itself. The government is divided. The opposition faces the problem of leadership because of the calculations about the possibility of becoming the next leader. The men that challenged the structure to mobilize is a very powerful voice as it is, they are in the streets and promoting a recall referendum. It is written in the constitution. It mobilizes people. It gives the citizens a pathway to resolve the crisis and has the merit if it happens, in the last two years of the presidency, it could provide for a transition because the Vice President and the new coalition could finish with this program of transition and if it happens before you have an election to choose so i think that is a path that he has signalled to venezuela and the world which is respectful if i was a member of the government i would take his word and walk through the path at the same time walking through the election system. I want to thank the guests, thats the inside story story. Join us tomorrow for a preview of president obamas trip to cuba. How do reopen a relationship that was all but dead for over 50 years. Thanks for watching. Good night. The u. S. Calls on north korea to refrain from fuelling tensions after pyongyang carriess out another Missile Launch live in doha. Also on the program live in doha. Also on the program