#economic-hardship

#economic-hardship

Taking a taxi in Havana is an increasingly difficult mission, growing more complicated and expensive from one day to the next as drivers run out of the rationed gasoline they receive. When you say taxi, you might find an almendron—a classic car used for public transportation—a gacela—one of the government's yellow minibuses—a cocotaxi—a motorized tricycle with a shell—a bicitaxi—a man pedaling for tourists under an umbrella—a motorcycle, an electric tricycle, or even a horse-drawn carriage.

Christmas follows a routine: shopping, dinner, gifts, family celebrations that vary from humble to lavish, reflecting a country growing increasingly unequal, like Venezuela. The holiday season in Caracas in 2025 masks what is on the minds of many Venezuelans. Festivities are overshadowed by the greatest geopolitical tensions the country has faced in decades, amid the largest recent deployment of U.S. military assets a volatile threat hanging over Venezuela's Caribbean border.

It is a beautiful, late autumn morning as I sip a cup of coffee and watch the lingering, golden yellow leaves of a maple tree fall gently to the ground. The smell of banana bread completing its final minutes of baking wafts through the air. For this, I am thankful. This is the fifth consecutive year that I've been fortunate enough to publish this editorial here at Battery Power.

I don't mean the obvious. There is fascism rotting not just our nation but the world, fascism so bad that common folk have begun calling it what it is and not just the communists and anarchists I spend most of my time with. The government shutdown, an event engineered by one party alone, exists solely to squeeze to death the programs they couldn't cancel the funding for through legal means, permanently crippling only the social subsidies that they deem unfit.

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In Jakarta, the phenomenon of 'manusia silver' illustrates how the inhabitants adapt to economic hardship, with some earning up to 200,000 rupiah on good days.

We already have too many problems. We need peace, not more trouble.