Related Videos
Related PagesSee All
Video Transcript
However on this is will with prager you today we are joined with lindsay cargo was a professional baseball player with the Seattle mariners how are you doing today I'm doing great are you guys doing doing great over here beautiful Los Angeles here in Florida right orlando yeah it's probably a little bit hotter over here in Florida but whether it's nonetheless there's no clouds in the sky so it's a good same here and so we have you on the air today talk about your experience in Venezuela I spent some time there just a little while ago why were you there in Venezuela yes About six weeks in Venezuela in 2016 from the beginning of October until the Middle of November and then an additional six weeks this past year in 2017 from the beginning of November and until the Middle of December so altogether about three months in Venezuela throughout the course of the of a 1314 months span I was there playing baseball the first year I was there I was nice the called America playing for the team Viagra and the this past year's previous year I was there playing in Caracas which is the capital plan for the the lions so they're playing baseball in the Venezuelan professional baseball League that's awesome I'm sure there's so many people who have no idea about what's actually going on in Venezuela right now with socialism and how high prices have gotten on everything could you tell us a little bit about your experience in Venezuela yeah there's so much to talk about really I guess I'll start with the first time that I got there I landed 1230 at night and I was contacted by a member of the front office of the team saying that I have to sit in the airport and wait for them to come pick me up at about five in the morning because there was road work being done on the roads so I have to hang out in the airport for a couple of hours so I get off the plane and I'm in the airport by myself and one of the first things that I noticed was the overwhelming amount of military personnel that was present in the airport with a Strapped across their chest and shotguns strapped across their chest and it looked to be like a probably 50 to 50 ratio of military personnel to civilians and it was something that you definitely don't see in in America was definitely taken a back by that when I first stepped off the plane but anyways I set in the airport for five hours and I finally got picked up at 530 in the morning I walked outside I looked around the mountains anybody who's been to Venezuela knows that it's one of the most beautiful places landscape Why is that you can go to it's giant Green mountains hugged up right on the Coast next to the ocean it was really beautiful I mean it was just object poverty everywhere I looked in the Hills and the shanties and brand new buildings and brand new homes being built without running water just trash cans on top of the houses to collect rainwater to take showers with and we drive as a sun's coming up and gets the field and I find out at the field that the real reason that they had to come pick me up at 530 in the morning was because the roads were too dangerous to drive on in the Middle of the night people would throw Toxic cars and try to try to get cars to pull over to the side of the road so they could rob them or steal their vehicles and out of just utter desperation to try to feed their families or whatever means necessary but it was definitely right as I stepped off the plane it was an eye opening experience right from the beginning for sure that's actually crazy seeing a lot of people with guns at the airport is completely different here than in Los Angeles here no one has guns so most definitely Switch yeah absolutely it was yeah our baseball games there will be a lot of people would still go to the baseball games or be about 15 to you know sometimes we play in front of 25000 people the government funded the League because they wanted the people at the baseball game as opposed to in the streets protesting so baseball games kinda kept the people busy to where they didn't have time to think about being out in the streets protesting the government but almost every single baseball game a champ would erupt from the crowd in Spanish that would be the government's going The government is going down and it would get the Venezuelan players on my team pretty pumped up but it was there be 10 arm guards with riot gear on every foul line so 20 guards on the field during the entire game just making sure that nothing happened and you know it's weird coming out of a baseball game being done with the baseball game you're used to kids asking you for your autograph when you're done with the baseball game in America but after every single baseball game that I hadn't been a sway like kids weren't never did and never asked for an autograph they were always asking for food Always you know they always say it always get my attention and and look at me and and motion some food in their mouth and beta comedian and try to get me to give them my leftover postgame spread so that they can eat so they didn't have to go hungry that night so that was also pretty humbling experience to witness that day in and day out after every single game and it's just such a world situation there would you say that the people of Venezuela but recognize that it's the government's fault they dislike and distrust their government Percent absolutely Venezuela is full of wonderful passionate people very passionate people I would even describe them as very patriotic people who have a lot of pride for their country and you know if anybody knows about the history of Venezuela Venezuela used to be a well spring of of wealth where people would go in vacation a lot of Americans in the 80 's and early 90 's would go on vacation in Venezuela because it is so beautiful and a lot of people are very the only way you could describe them as is I think it's past the point of of anger and moved into into hurt they're just they feel helpless and the people that have the means to leave the country or leaving the country I've talked to a lot of people that are getting their situations in order so they can go to chili or to Spain and but they're just really hurt they have a lot of pride for the country and they they really hate to leave but it's something that they feel like they have to do in order to to live a better life They're living now I mean there are plenty of times where I walk into the convenience store and there would not be bottles of water so I have to I have to make sure that I prepared the day before by taking bottles of water from the field or filling up bottles of water wherever I could whenever they had I had nature had to stock up and buy them in advance but there are plenty of times when I went into their version of what would be our C or walgreens and there was no water on the shelf so that was another interesting experience for you I would say The things that I tell people that that I noticed the most where the the military presence was absolutely unbelievable I stayed in a hotel what was considered to be one of the nicest hotels in the country and there were plenty of days where I where I woke up I didn't have running water or didn't have hot water the hot water wouldn't turn on or I couldn't flush my toilet and but there was a mall there was a three story mall underneath my hotel that I was able to walk around that I felt pretty safe but you walk Small and you're walking past military guards know every 30 feet and it's something that takes a little while to get used to another thing was just walking into restaurants and then tank telling you that they didn't have certain food for the day like chicken or marinara sauce know be like walking into olive garden America and then saying we don't have any chicken today or we don't have any know alfredo sauce in it lots of times I go to restaurants and what would be a four page menu would be condensed into a little tiny Right up of five choices that you would get for food items that you could pick from based off what they had in stock on that particular day didn't know whether they were gonna have more chicken the next day or not and it was it was kind of kind of crazy to see that happening and then the long lines that I noticed at atms and banks money was almost impossible to come by when I was there they move to a system where almost everybody had Bank card Because I talked to a couple of the locals and they said that in order to to pay for anything there you have to bring stocks I mean stacks of food and the lines I mean stacks of money and the lines at the atms would be people would wait for two hours and the most that you could take out in any given day while I was there was 500000 bees and just to put that in perspective when I got there in 2016 a plate of chicken and rice and avocado and plantains was I think 3000 bees When I left six weeks later it had gone up to 778 thousand bees so it had more than doubled in the six weeks that I was there so fast forward 13 months later I come back to the country in the same plate of chicken and rice and beans and plantains is 45000 bees and I left six weeks later in the Middle of December and the same plate of food was a hundred and 5000 bees so in the course of 14 months the inflation had went from 3000 205000 and All only able to get out 500000 bees from the m at one given time so enough to pay for five lunches and then you have to stand in line the next day and do it all over again for two hours so it was luckily for me I was able to to trade my money on the black market but if I was trading my money through the government Exchange rate at the airport or anything like that if I wouldn't have been able to feed myself so the government doesn't control the Exchange rate and they they don't really do a good job Accurately representing the inflation that is happening in that country so it's its runaway inflation and it's it's only getting worse I think I just saw on the news a couple of weeks ago that the hospitals are no longer allowed to put as a cause of death for children starvation because if the hospitals were allowed to put starvation as a cause of death then it would raise a lot of Red flags in the National in the in the worldwide You saw it's a serious situation that's happening over there I saw it firsthand and it's there's a lot of desperation and a lot of sadness on on the faces of the people that are over there in Venezuela but overall their wonderful people that are going through really tough time for sure you know I don't know how they aren't already Red flags I mean 75 percent of people on average lost 19 pounds and that's ridiculous here two million people leaving the country it's it's horrible sad situation what's going on there and we really appreciate you Everyone what's going on there there's so many people who just don't realize it yeah there's anybody who who complains about the system of of the economic system that we have here in America should should think twice before doing so and and have a little bit more gratitude for what we do have like being able to walk into a building and in turn the lights on and know that they're gonna turn on there's plenty of times when there were rolling blackouts in the city and or just being able to take a hot shower I know those things people take for Grant But or just being able to walk into a garden and know that you're gonna be able to get chicken if you want chicken and those are things that the people are struggling with their or just walking into a walgreens and being able to get a bottle of water and you know those people are gone going without a lot and it's a sad situation but hopefully the governments can turn around and they can they can get back on the right track but it only looks like it's gonna get worse before it gets better unfortunately yeah if you wanna see the detrimental effects of socialism just go visit Venezuela and prager you actually has a video with a debbie She's a on Venezuela what's going on in the country and really how bad it's gone so check out the video if you haven't seen it lindsay I wanna thank you for talking to me and thank you for talking to our audience today there's great insight yeah I appreciate it thank you guys very much yeah this is will with prager you thank you everyone











