Changes

The entrepreneurs couldn't raise the prices with the frozen prices and now they had to pay more to employees starting to lose money and closing they businesses and factories causing mass unemployment and shortages. The response of the government was to seize the companies and accuse them of conspiring and being financial speculators.

The entrepreneurs couldn't raise the prices with the frozen prices and now they had to pay more to employees starting to lose money and closing they businesses and factories causing mass unemployment and shortages. The response of the government was to seize the companies and accuse them of conspiring and being financial speculators.

Chileans started to make huge lines to get basic goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste and food. The black market flourished which only accepted U.S. Dollars. People started selling everything that they had in order to get dollars to buy the basics. The Government created the Committees for Popular Supply (''Juntas de Abastecimiento Popular, JAP'') rationing a country that had been previously prosperous.<ref name=Lira/>

Chileans started to make huge lines to get basic goods such as toilet paper, toothpaste and food. The black market flourished which only accepted U.S. Dollars. People started selling everything that they had in order to get dollars to buy the basics. The Government created the Committees for Popular Supply (''Juntas de Abastecimiento Popular, JAP'') rationing a country that had been previously prosperous.

 

A ration card was implemented, and it was only with the ration card that the people could get the basics like rice, potatoes and cooking oil, the ration card was needed to feed your family. The ''JAPs'' were in every neighborhood where the ration card was stamped by the head of the ''JAP'' who was a member of the Popular Unity leftist parties. This was used to excluse political opponents and the government accussed those people of being "an oligarch" or "an enemy of the people". Food became politicized the situation in Chile was just just deteriorating on daily basis.<ref name=Lira/>

The rumors began in May 1971: shortages, shortages, rationing of food and other essential items. The cards for this purpose were being printed in the Santiago penitentiary. The Undersecretary of Economy, Oscar Garretón, categorically denied: "This is an irresponsible campaign, aimed at creating social tension". But Allende himself speaks already, ominously, of "stocks to be exhausted" in fifteen days or two more months. The Government granting "good money": important salary readjustments -44%-, and applying a brake on the rise in prices, has meant that Chileans have more money than in 1970 and are spending more on all kinds of things. Rumors of crisis and shortages precipitate people to build up their own stocks, and thus produce precisely the crisis and rationing: "Hence the irritation of the Government with the wave of rumors on the matter". In order to undermine this systematic campaign, the Minister of Economy, Mr. Vuskovic, addresses the country on national TV. He explains that the greater purchasing power of the population has been reflected in a higher volume of sales than in any previous period.

The rumors began in May 1971: shortages, shortages, rationing of food and other essential items. The cards for this purpose were being printed in the Santiago penitentiary. The Undersecretary of Economy, Oscar Garretón, categorically denied: "This is an irresponsible campaign, aimed at creating social tension". But Allende himself speaks already, ominously, of "stocks to be exhausted" in fifteen days or two more months. The Government granting "good money": important salary readjustments -44%-, and applying a brake on the rise in prices, has meant that Chileans have more money than in 1970 and are spending more on all kinds of things. Rumors of crisis and shortages precipitate people to build up their own stocks, and thus produce precisely the crisis and rationing: "Hence the irritation of the Government with the wave of rumors on the matter". In order to undermine this systematic campaign, the Minister of Economy, Mr. Vuskovic, addresses the country on national TV. He explains that the greater purchasing power of the population has been reflected in a higher volume of sales than in any previous period.