But if you don't, I'd like to know what it was like before 2006, when oil profits were high and subsidies followed. Did you get a sense the poor were significantly improving in their standard of living at that time? What about the middle class? If not, what do you think held them back?
What would have been the best way to protect that pot of money, and how hard would it have been to do it?
Another way would have been to buy a car, motorcycle, alcohol, etc. Anything that preserves it's value over time. The worst thing would be to have it on the bank.
Do small shops survive in Venezuela? How?
The government limited the days where you can go to the super market to the last digit of the "Social Security Number". So if yours end in 0 or 1 then you must buy on Monday. And nothing guarantees that you will find what you're looking for.
Lines outside supermarkets take 2 hours or more and they only sell you a limited amount of items. 1 Chicken per week.
The government also installed finger print scanners to make sure that you don't buy more than you're allowed.
All this measures are failing and will fail, because the problem is that they destroyed the private industry making us heavily relay on imports. Now that the price of the oil is down there is not enough money to import, so there's simply not enough food, medicines, etc.
Nobody is doing well in Venezuela, except the corrupt people in the government who keep stealing money.