What's the definition of a "socialist"?

 

Waay back in 1970 a Soviet defector warned us about what's happening today

I wrote the piece below in 2015.  Current events prompted me to re-post it.

Yuri Bezmenov was the son of a high-ranking Soviet army officer.  He attended elite schools in Moscow and later worked as a propagandist for the KGB.  Eventually he became disillusioned with communism and in 1970 he defected to Canada.  He spent the rest of his life explaining that the Soviet strategic plan for defeating the U.S. was not on the "kinetic" battlefield but by getting our "elites" to disparage and discredit virtually everything about our principles and way of life.

If they succeeded, there would be no need for war, as the U.S. would no longer have the will and means to oppose communism. 

Bezmenov tried tried to warn us.  No one wanted to listen.

Stage One: Demoralization – Rejection of any notion of American exceptionalism, rejection of fundamental founding principles, deprecation of religion (portraying believers, especially Christians, as unenlightened, "uncool"), leading to a loss of any semblance of national identity.  (Remember "I'm going to fundamentally change America"?  Pressure by elites on peers and academics to convince them that the values set forth by the Founders were inherently flawed, racist, sexist, etc.  Get the "elites" to re-write our history, to make Americans--especially students--question the legitimacy of all American achievements--and thus to believe our founding principles aren't worth defending.

Stage Two: Destabilization – Using economic, financial, and national security crises to get Americans to accept government rules they normally wouldn't have tolerated.  Inciting racial conflict.  Push for higher government benefits for victim groups that must eventually bankrupt the government (Cloward-Piven).  Make unemployment and welfare benefits as attractive as jobs to many people.  Use crises to elect politicians who will promise more "free" benefits ("Hope and change").  Push the idea that jobs are--and should be--created not by private enterprise but by government.  Push the idea that economic recovery and public safety demand passage of laws that exceed all previous government authority (the trillion-dollar "Stimulus" bill, "cash for clunkers," bailout of AIG, more regulations on industry, Obamacare, president violating U.S. immigration laws by executive order, using the IRS to punish conservative groups, etc).

Stage Three: Normalization – A period in which people are so overwhelmed by the destabilization that they begin to accept a ‘new normal’.  Media elites push stories to persuade people to accept losses of freedoms and abandonment of our founding principles.  Thus when a Democrat U.S. senator proposes jailing anyone who argues that global warming isn't caused by humans via CO2 emissions, and no one bats an eye.  Yale students can sign a petition calling for eliminating the First Amendment and no one in the Mainstream Media is critical.  Unprecedented, intrusive government control is gradually accepted as “just the way things are.”

Next up: – Federal registration of all guns;  federal regulation of the internet (already proposed);  Democrat-appointed FCC commissioners creating a "rule" requiring that anyone stating a "political opinion" on the internet must first obtain a license from the FCC;  confiscation of handguns in cities deemed to be "emergency areas" due to a high rate of shootings.  Of course this will be billed as merely a temporary measure and anyone who opposes it will be called a racist, since most of the victims will be black.  Next:  Making it a crime to collect rainwater that falls on your own land (the state of Oregon already fined a family for this "crime"!).  Making it a crime to plant certain legal crops without government permission (a principle upheld by the U.S. supreme court way back in 1946!).  Making it a crime to plant a vegetable garden in your own front yard.  (That too has already happened.)

History provides ample warning signs to anyone who wishes to see.  Current events are similarly full of warning signs. Socialism has never worked anywhere it’s been tried, and an all-powerful, untouchable government is a huge danger. Yet leftist "elites" and low-info voters are eager to do anything to hasten the end of freedom, capitalism and free markets.

If it wasn't so tragic it would be a matter of great amusement to watch both groups--"elites" and anarchist thugs--systematically destroying the greatest system for human achievement ever known.

I wrote the above in 2015, five years before the Chinese virus started the Democrat party's push for total control.   Five years ago some of it seemed over-the-top, un-possible.  But in the past year...

 

Venezuela's misery continues; no mention that socialism had any role in causing it

A week after Venezuela's national electrical system failed, most of that country is still without electricity.  But don't worry, citizen:  That could never happen here!

Now the water system in that nation's capital has failed, people are drinking from sewers, patients are dying in hospitals, gasoline can't be pumped from underground tanks, food is rotting because refrigerators don't work.  Looting is spreading.  One Venezuelan described it like this:

This is what losing a war must feel like. Aren’t they going to help us with water? With food? How much longer until people start dropping dead in the streets?  I have to walk 17 km to get home.  When I get there I won’t have food or water.  I don’t even know if my family will be there. If they are, I won’t be able to feed them.  And if they aren’t there I won’t know how to find them.”

But don't worry, citizen: That could never happen here.

To the extent that the average American voter knows anything at all about the disaster in Venezuela, most probably  think "No surprise: third-world country, poverty, rickety systems. That couldn't possibly happen here."  I doubt more than one percent of Americans know that before Venezuela elected a socialist as president, it had the highest per-capita income in all of South America.  The people of that hapless nation never imagined their country could possibly disintegrate so quickly.  

And yet...it did.

Depending on which poll you believe, it's possible that about half of Americans believe Socialism is good!  All the cool elites say so.  They couldn't be wrong, cuz they're so...elite!  So it's fine if we vote for a socialist for president here, because what happened to Venezuela couldn't possibly happen here! 

Of course most Americans know literally nothing about the realities of socialism, so when they're assured by the Lying Media elites, and pols like Kamala and Fauxcahontas Warren and Cory Booker and AOC that socialism is faaabulous, half of U.S. voters will cheerfully vote for socialism here--i.e. for the Democrats. 

After the astonishingly dumb Dem congresscritter and mainstream-media darling  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said "we must overhaul America's 'garbage' status quo, which is enslaved to 'irredeemable' capitalism," not a single member of the mainstream media printed a critical word.

The socialist mayor of NYC, Bill de Blasio tweeted recently: "Brothers and sisters, there is plenty of money in this country. There is plenty of money in this world.  It’s just in the wrong hands." 

The Lying Media is already covering for the progressive/socialist (i.e. Democrat) pols running for president, by avoiding any mention of the key role of socialist rule in causing disasters like the crisis in Venezuela.  I predict that very soon left-ruled organizations like Wiki will scrub their pieces on Venezuela of any mention of "socialism."  If Wiki even bothers to note the ghastly misery in Venezuela, they'll imply it's due to poverty, or too little rain, or Yankee imperialism--anything except the real cause: socialist rule.  The "elites" at Wiki will praise Hugo Chavez as a "heroic reformer" who was undermined by sinister "anti-socialist forces."

 

Similarly, Dem politicians pushing socialism for the U.S. will studiously avoid linking the misery in Venezuela to socialism.  Instead they'll blame that country's woes on Trump, or global warming, or the CIA, or U.S. oil companies.  We'll hear endless demands that the U.S. join other countries in promoting Venezuelan efforts to "achieve constructive dialogue and democratic solutions to the current political crisis."

Translation: "We demand that the U.S. give the heroic, struggling Venezuelan government billions of dollars to help them end the suffering of ordinary Venezuelans.  But note well, citizen: that suffering has nothing whatsoever to do with electing a socialist regime."

Venezuela: Food so scarce the socialists have troops guarding stores

Shoppers thronged grocery stores across Caracas today as worsening shortages prompted Venezuela's socialist government to put Venezuela’s food distribution under military protection.

Interior Minister Carmen Melendez said yesterday that security forces would be sent to food stores and distribution centers to protect shoppers.

“Don’t fall into desperation," she said on state television.  "We have the capacity and products for everyone. The stores are full.” 

That statement was a stunning denial of reality:  As Venezuelan shoppers could see for themselves, yesterday in Caracas shelves were mostly bare. Customers struggled and at times fought for items. 

A security guard demanded that shoppers not take photos of empty shelves.

A supermarket in east Caracas on Jan. 9, 2015.

President Nicolas Maduro last week vowed to implement an economic “counter-offensive” to steer the country out of recession, including an overhaul of the foreign exchange system.  Predictably, he didn't provide any details.

Between price controls and fear of a currency devaluation, companies don't know how they'll be able to restock merchandise--a situation that would instantly worsen the already dire situation.

In the past month the price of oil, which accounts for nearly all the country’s export earnings, has plunged.  It's now selling for less than half of last year’s peak, cutting the amount of imported goods the government can buy.

“This is the worst it has ever been -- I’ve seen lines thousands of people long,” said a shopper in east Caracas. “People are so desperate they’re sleeping in the lines.”

Here's how Reuters reported it:

(Reuters) - Lines are swelling at Venezuelan supermarkets, with some shoppers showing up before dawn in search of products, as a holiday slowdown in deliveries sharpened the nation's shortages.

Lines snaked around the block at grocery stores and pharmacies around the country, with consumers in some cases gathering before dawn under the gaze of National Guard troops posted to maintain order.

Business leaders have said the situation will improve soon as distributors return from the often extended Christmas holidays, though many consumers blamed the socialist economic policies of President Nicolas Maduro.

"I don't know what the government is doing. It gets worse every day," said Elizio Velez,  who arrived at 5 a.m. at a Caracas supermarket in search of chicken and toilet paper.

"This is insane, it's like the end of the world," he said, noting that troops had fired shots in the air as scuffles broke out in the line.

I've been writing about the situation in Venezuela for years now because the plight of Venezuelans so perfectly shows two crucial things you need to know:  First is that socialism so predictably leads to shortages of everything.  This happens in large part because to keep the support of their base, socialist leaders set price controls on virtually every necessity.  If the real-world price is higher than their arbitrary ceiling, the socialist government will often pay the difference ("subsidy") to keep from angering their base.

What few low-information people realize is that that subsidy money has to come from somewhere.  So some other sector of the economy must be looted to keep the game going.  But eventually all the cash cows are killed off.

Now what?

Well, says the socialist, if we can't afford to import some commodity, we'll just force domestic businesses to sell it below cost.  Yeah, dat's da ticket.

Let us know how well that works, would ya?  In Venezuela, fertile farmland seized from farm families by the government now sits idle.  Having taken the productive land from those who knew how to produce food, the government finds no one willing to step in.  And those that do lack the knowledge and skill.

Now, if a socialist nation has a foreign benefactor willing to pour in cash and goods--as the former Soviet Union did for Cuba for decades--an illusion of deliriously happy socialist success can be played out for many years.  Again, Cuba is a great example

Or for nations that had developed a strong private sector before going socialist, a new socialist gummint can survive for decades by looting the wealth of that sector.  Of course they don't call it "looting" but "paying one's fair share" of taxes.  Or "spreading the wealth"--a favorite of the emperor.  You've heard a dozen euphemisms for this.

When foreign benefactors tire, and after the socialists have killed all the cash cows, socialist governments know they can still con their people into docility for another year, and then another, by claiming shortages are not due to the moral and economic insanity of socialism but are being caused by a Sinister Foreign Conspiracy.  Both the current and previous presidents of Venezuela have repeatedly claimed shortages are due either to U.S. sabotage or eeeevil businessmen who are hiding goods somewhere.  Same deal for Cuba.

The second lesson Venezuela can teach those with an IQ above room temperature is how astonishingly fast the implosion can happen.  In Venezuela's case things went from prosperous to universal shortages in about 15 years, but other socialist thugs have done it much faster.

Why do I write about Venezuela for American readers?  Because you have a choice:  You can keep watching American Idol (or whatever the current popular TV fad is), keep voting for Dems and RINOs, and reap the faabulous socialist paradise now on display in Cuba, Venezuela, Russia and a dozen other countries; or you can get mad as hell and take this country back.

If you have kids--or if you're a college student and think one day you might--you might want to consider those options carefully.

In 2014 Venezuela's inflation rate was 64%. No connection to socialist policies at all.

Socialists keep trying socialism.  And the results are uniformly awful.

I've written a lot about the disaster that is socialist Venezuela here, here and here.  Now the latest lesson in Venezuela--a nation that went socialist under the dictatorship of the late Hugo Chavez and continues under current president Nicholas Maduro.

Venezuela has been deteriorating for several years--shortages of everything, then food rationing; massive civil demonstrations against the repression, government thugs killing demonstrators and so on.  Currency falling in value, inflation, the socialist president nationalizing businesses because he and his lackeys are convinced that will magically make goods appear on the shelves.

One pictures Maduro holding a gasoline nozzle at an empty filling station:  "I have this nozzle in my hand!  I control it!  So I demand that it give me gasoline when I squeeze the lever!"  And then staring at the pump in dull, dim-witted surprise when no gasoline comes out.

Anyway, short answer:  The nation's central bank announced inflation was almost 64 percent this year.  Oh, and in case there could be any doubt, it announced that Venezuela's economy is contracting.

There are endless examples of the fruits of socialism.  They're right out in the open, for anyone to examine.  Problem is, our schools don't examine those societies, those inevitable failures, so your kids graduate thinking socialism is absolutely fine.  Instead they're taught that all ideas, all cultures, all religions are equally valid,

They are totally defenseless against the bullshit peddled by socialists.  Things like "No one needs to work, yet everyone can have everything they want, for free, if you just elect us."

Most adults instinctively recognize that that's utter bullshit--an ancient siren song, sung by con artists and scammers for millenia.  But highschool kids--and I suspect about half of college students--know nothing about history, so if they haven't personally experienced it, it's not real to 'em.

This isn't an indictment:  If no one has taught you, and you're not old enough to have experienced something directly, how are you supposed to know its easily-predicted outcomes?

So back to Venezuela:  The socialists won an election, then got a socialist legislature to change that nation's constitution to remove term limits and allow Chavez to stay on as president.  They've done all the things socialist thugs do, and the effects are just as non-socialists predicted.

Sort of like Obamacare:  "We have this great plan:  We force everyone to buy health insurance, and if you're one of our favored groups we'll give you a nice fat check which will make yours almost free.  So 30 million more people will have health insurance, but everyone will pay less.  And it won't add a dime to the deficit!  Isn't that great?!

And half the country applauds wildly.  "What a brilliant idea!  The Democrats care Sooo much about ordinary Americans!"   And against that kind of wide-eyed adoration, trying to point out that this is fiscally impossible gets nowhere.

Finally, if you want to see how far gone the U.S. Left is, here's how a writer for "The Nation" sees the situation in Venezuela.  You won't believe it.

Survey of 16-19 year olds shows a majority thinks everything should be free

Recently a Boston university released a study of "Generation Z"-- 16-to-19 year olds.  Some of the results are both easily predictable and don't bode well for the continuation of the U.S. as a viable nation.

Among the results:  Over half said anyone who wants to should be able to become a U.S. citizen.

Interesting.  I'm not surprised:  College students are known to be woefully naive in terms of how big systems work in the long term.  This is not an indictment:  We were all there at that age.  Fortunately back then at least a fair number of our professors weren't ultra-leftists and showed us how to analyze such things.  Hint:  The answer was *not* "If it feels good, do it."

Almost two-thirds (64 per­cent) of the subjects said they thought health­care should be free.  We suspect this group did not include people trying to go to med school, but we could be wrong.

One wonders why the study didn't ask 'em if they thought food and housing should also be free.  After all, you can die just as quickly for lack of either of those two as for lack of free medical care, so wouldn't the same argument apply to all three?

One wonders how farmers would react to such a plan.  Wait, I'm pretty sure our Z respondents would simply say "the government will pay them a fair price for growing food, and everything will work just fine."

But if that's true, why isn't Cuba awash in food?  They have a great, warm climate with plenty of rain, and lots of people looking for jobs and food.  Why isn't it working for them?

Wait, I know the Left's answer to that one:  The eeevil U.S. "blockade"!  Except no such blockade ever existed.  Other nations have always been free to trade with Cuba, and have.  Yet Cuba--with all salaries officially capped at $20 per month--yes, special snowflakes, you read that right--is short of everything.

But other socialist paradises exist.  At least paradise for the ruler and members of his family.  Consider Venezuela--like Cuba, shortages of everything.  They even ration coffee, fer cryin' out loud.  In one of the biggest coffee-growing nations.  How does this happen? 

The former Soviet Union has had communism/socialism longer than anywhere else--and had shortages of *everything*, including food.   But no one tells you about it.  You might wonder why that is.

Another totally unsurprising result:  By 53 to 30 percent, they said college should be free for everyone.

And finally, by an even wider margin (53 to 25) they agreed that "Government needs to do more to help students pay for college if they can't afford it, even if it means raising taxes on other people."

One has to ask:  Who ARE these alien teenagers?  Surely you've raised your kids far better, right?  Where did these people get the notion that everything they "need" (want) should be "free"?

Which of course really means someone else pays for it.

Wait, isn't that exactly what socialism promises?

Isn't that what the emperor promised with Obamacare?  How can it be possible to give health insurance to "millions" of people who couldn't afford it, and still have the average family save $2,500 a year?  How many idiots bought that outrageous bullshit?

Wait, I know:  The parents of 53 percent of Generation Z.

Lord, our nation is doomed without Your help. 

Leftist: Hey, here's a great idea! Let's forgive all personal debt!

Most people on the political Left seem only slightly familiar with logic--which is no disadvantage when it comes to leading what passes for thought on the Left.

A writer for the Vox blog illustrates this perfectly, in a post commenting on an article written by Russell Brand--who I gather is some sort of entertainer--about what a great idea it would be if the government ordered that all personal debt was immediately cancelled.

Of course neither Brand nor the Vox blogger actually uses the phrase "...if the government ordered..."  Because of course who else would have the power to do that?  Instead they couch it in the passive tense:  "What a good idea cancelling personal debt would be," as if it just happened all by itself.

Gosh, this seems oddly familiar.  Have we seen this before?

Why yes, we have!  It's the same basic idea as Obamacare ("you can get free health care"), Obamaphones or any other liberal/"progressive" program:  If you elect us, our party will have the government give you free stuff.  All you want.

Here's the core 'grafs:

The key issue is...if a debtor gets an extra dollar he's likely to spend it on current consumption, whereas a creditor is likely to save it. In a full-employment economy, reducing the creditors' savings reduces the pool of capital available for investment. That raises interest rates and slows investment, even as the new money in the pockets of debtors raises consumption. The economic impact is neutral in the short-term, and by reducing investment you get a negative long-term impact.

But if the economy isn't at full employment — i.e., it's in need of stimulus — then this works differently. Because inflation is low, the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of the diminished pool of capital. But the newly enriched debtors will still raise their level of consumption, boosting the economy. Even better, with more demand for consumption goods in the economy, companies may even be inspired to invest more. That boosts the economy's long-term prospects.

It's hard to cram as much ignorance into a single paragraph as the writer did in that second 'graf.

There's no doubt that forgiving all debt would unlease a torrent of consumer spending.  And the guy correctly sees that wiping out creditors' investments would "reduce the pool of capital available for investment."  He concludes in a full-employment economy" the long-term impact would be negative.

But see how deftly he waves away that profound negative in the second 'graf:  He argues that "the central bank will keep interest rates low regardless of the diminished pool of capital."  But of course even rock-bottom interest rates only help if a bank is willing to loan money to borrowers.  If the government has just forgiven all debts, how eager does he think banks will be to loan more money?

If the government is powerful enough and ruthless enough to forgive all personal debt once, what would keep it from doing so again?  But no matter--with "newly enriched debtors" flooding the markets with spending, all will be just super.

Ponder that phrase "newly-enriched debtors" for a moment.  One wonders if the writer would use the same euphemism for a bank robber or mugger:  Not violent or lawbreaking, merely...newly enriched.  This tells you almost everything you need to know about the guy's worldview.

One wonders if the writer has heard of Venezuela:  The socialist government of that country decided businesses were making too much profit, so they simply seized half a dozen businesses that they accused of setting prices too high.  This caused all businesses to double their efforts to sell goods at no profit, and now Venezuela is awash in products and the country's economy is roaring.

Just kidding, of course:  Other businessmen saw the trend and said "I don't think we should be doing business under this lawless government--let's go somewhere else!"  The supply of virtually everything got smaller and smaller.  Even the price of coffee went through the roof--in one of the world's largest coffee-exporting nations!  Now the government has started rationing food.

Yeah, that worked reeeally well.

But to leftists/socialists/"progressives" all such programs are a great idea, and in Left-thinking they should work.  So if they fail it's either because they were sabotaged by mysterious forces ("reactionaries", "counterrevolutionaries") or because they didn't go far enough.

It'll be interesting to watch this proposal gain momentum in chic leftist circles.  Hey, if you're a leftist/Democrat how can you not like something that give everyone thousands of dollars to spend, while penalizing only "rich" savers and banks?

Socialism doing predictable things in Venezuela, part gazillion

Socialism in Venezuela continues to do the things it does everywhere: economy contracting, prices soaring and the local currency slumping:  on the black market dollars are worth 11 times the official government exchange rate. 

The reason is that Venezuela imports 70 percent of the goods its people consume, and you can't buy imports with bolivars.  As a result, one in four basic products were unavailable in shops in January, the last time the government published scarcity figures.

On the black market the bolivar has fallen to 71 to the dollar from 23 when President Nicolas Maduro succeeded Hugo Chavez in April of last year--a drop of 300%.  The official exchange rate, reserved for imports of food and medicine, is 6.3 bolivars per dollar.

The dollar shortage is turning Venezuela into a two-tier society similar to the Soviet Union and Cuba.  Venezuelans with access to dollars--foreigners, tour agents, airport taxi drivers and prostitutes--aren't hurt much by inflation because they can trade their greenbacks at ever higher rates. But those who can’t are seeing their living standards decline.

Maduro claims the black market was designed by the bourgeoisie to destroy his Socialist government.

The shortage of dollars has led to shortages of everything from bottled water to toilet paper, and pushed prices up:  Last March--the last month for which figures are available--prices were 59 percent higher than a year earlier.

Rising prices, increasing shortages and a jump in crime have fueled three months of anti-government protests that have killed at least 42 people.

Drinks vendor Luis Alberto Paredes lives with his sister and their 85-year-old mother. His walls and roof are adorned with flags and posters of Maduro, Chavez and the Venezuelan Communist Party.  Paredes, who lives on a minimum wage of about 4,200 bolivars a month (about $60 at the black market rate), says he has to buy coffee beans for his stand from street hawkers for nine times the regulated price, because the supermarkets are always out of...coffee.   

In Venezuela.

That's like not being able to buy corn in Iowa.

So why is all this happening?  Are all these problem caused by some policy of the socialist government?  If so, what's the policy?

Well, being socialists they believe business is bad, and that businessmen are filthy rich because they exploit the rest of the population.  So they set a cap on what businesses could charge.  If this cap turned out to be too low for the businesses to make a profit, tough shit--the socialists believed the businessmen would still work hard to provide goods even if they didn't make a profit.

Surprise, morons.  The businessmen said "We quit."  And the shelves went bare in about two hours.

Wait, hasn't the Obama administration (I was gonna say "our government" but it sure as hell ain't ours) put price caps on things here too?  Hasn't the government dictated what kinds of insurance you can sell, and what the insurance has to cover, and who has to buy it?

Why yes, yes they have.

But given the experience of other government attempts to control markets, isn't that...uh...sorta risky?

Ohh, no, citizen.  Because the emperor is way smarter than the guy running Venezuela.  You have nothing to worry about!

Just ask Jay Carney, or Eric Holder, or Jeh Johnson, or Valerie Jarrett.  These people are all really, really smart.  They don't make mistakes.  And if you think they made one you're wrong.

Oh, and a racist.

An American visits Cuba

If you've ever met one you know Leftists, socialists, "progressives"--and most Democrats--are practically giddy about the wonders of communism or socialism or whatever the latest camouflage term is.

Not only do they think socialism is wonderful...they think it works.

Take, for example, Venezuela--which once had the highest per-capita income in Latin America. Then the morons heard the siren song of the socialist Chavez:  Hope and change! Free phones! Free housing! Free university education! And they bought it.

Now that they have it, how have things worked out?

Shortages of everything. Government troops beating peaceful protesters in the streets. But hey, it's all good, eh? Because...socialism! Viva la revolucion!

"But...but...but..." (Leftists sputter a lot when they're fighting cognitive dissonance) "Venezuela is an exception!  Socialism actually works reeally well!  Look at Cuba, for example! Free health care! Virtually no crime!"

Michael J. Totten is a gifted writer who recently visited Cuba to see for himself if the Left's glowing tales of communism's success in Cuba were true. He wrote of his trip in "The Last Communist City" in City Journal, and it's well worth a read. Highlights:

He was appalled by the economic misery endured by the average Cuban.

Many American tourists return home convinced that the Cuban model succeeds, but that’s because they only see the tourist areas and don't get out on the "real" economy.

Outside Havana's tourist sector, the rest of the city looks as though it suffered a catastrophe on the scale of Hurricane Katrina:  Roofs have collapsed, walls are splitting apart, window glass is missing.  Paint has long vanished--a luxury no one can afford.  Most people struggle to eke out a life in the ruins.

In 1958, Cuba had a higher per-capita income than much of Europe.  And the wealth wasn’t just in the hands of a tiny elite.  Cuban society was as much of a middle-class society as Argentina and Chile.”

But then in 1958 Fidel Castro and his psychotic comrade Che Guevara overthrew the government and took power.  Now Marxists have ruled Cuba for more than a half-century. They promised liberal democracy, but after Castro was secure in absolute power the wraps came off and they instituted full-fledged communism. The objectives were--ostensibly--total equality and the abolition of money; the methods were total surveillance and political prisons. The state slogan, then and now, is “socialism or death.”

But in a totally shocking and unexpected turn of events, the result was not prosperity but total economic collapse. 

Longtime Cuba resident Mark Frank writes vividly about this period in his book Cuban Revelations. “The lights were off more than they were on, and so too was the water. . . . Food was scarce and other consumer goods almost nonexistent. . . . Doctors set broken bones without anesthesia."  He quotes a resident saying Cubans “used to make hamburgers out of grapefruit rinds and banana peels; we cleaned with lime and bitter orange.”

Because the Castro regime was the first openly communist one in the western hemisphere, the Soviet Union was eager to make it look like a success--and was willing to give Cuba billions of dollars worth of...virtually everything each year to achieve that appearance.  While it's hard to confirm the numbers, some economists estimate Soviet gifts accounted for almost a third of Cuba's economy!

When daddy subsidizes a third of your economy it makes horrible policies look a lot better.

But when the Soviet Union broke up these subsidies ended, and the Castro regime had to do something to make up the loss.  Castro wasn’t about to change his firmly communist ideology but as more things vanished from shelves and with no "hard" currency he decided to replace the Soviet subsidy with tourists, mostly from Europe and Latin America.

Of course tourists would have to eat, so the regime allowed people to open restaurants in private homes—though no one outside the family could work in them. (That would be “exploitative.”)  Another profit center was government-run stores that sold relatively luxurious imported goods to tourists.  But for the average Cuban almost nothing changed.

The United States has a minimum wage; Cuba has a maximum wage—$20 a month for almost every job in the country. (Professionals such as doctors and lawyers can make a whopping $10 extra a month.)

Even employees in the showcase tourist industry don’t get a higher salary. The government contracts with Spanish companies such as Meliá International to manage Havana’s hotels.  In its pitch to win the contract, Meliá told the regime it wanted to pay workers a decent wage. The regime happily agreed, so the company ostensibly pays hotel workers $8–$10 an hour. But at the regime's insistence the company doesn't pay its employees directly.  Instead it pays the compensation to the government, which pays the workers...the standard 67 cents per day.

In other words, the Castro regime simply pockets most of the $8-$10 per hour that the company pays in wages.

Totten asked several Cubans working at his hotel if that was really true. All confirmed that it was.

Socialist paradise.  Absolute equality.  For the workers, anyway.

The maximum wage is just the beginning. Not only are most Cubans not allowed to have money; they’re hardly allowed to have things. The police go to great lengths to ensure that the average Cuban--forced to live miserably--actually does so.  Dissident author Yoani Sánchez describes the harassment in her book Havana Real: “Buses are stopped in the middle of the street and bags inspected to see if we are carrying some cheese, a lobster, or some dangerous shrimp hidden among our personal belongings.”

The government defends its maximum wage by arguing that necessities are either free or so deeply subsidized in Cuba that citizens don’t need much money.  The free and subsidized goods and services, though, are as dismal as everything else on the island.  Cuba hardly has any cars, so people wait in lines for up to two hours each way to get on a bus. And commuters must pay for their ride out of their $20 a month wage.

At least local commuter buses are cheap. By contrast, a one-way ticket to the other side of the island costs several months’ pay; a round-trip costs almost a year's salary.

And "free" is useless if goods aren't available.  Sánchez describes an astonishing television appearance by Raúl Castro in which he boasted that the economy was doing so well that every Cuban could finally have...milk.  “To me,” Sánchez wrote, “someone who grew up on a gulp of orange-peel tea, the news seemed incredible.”  And sure enough, Raúl’s boast that Cubans were finally producing enough milk for everyone was deleted from the official transcript of the speech in the government-run newspaper.  In true Orwellian fashion the regime didn't want a written record of Raul making a statement that every Cuban knew was an outright lie.

And that much-touted "free" health care?   Patients have to bring their own medicine, their own bedsheets, and even their own iodine to the hospital.  Most of these items are available only on the black market--if they can be found at all--and must be paid for in hard currency.  The Castro regime made a deal to send Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil—and the island now faces a shortage of doctors.

Housing is free, too, but so what?  Americans can get houses in abandoned parts of Detroit for only $500—which makes them practically free—but no one wants to live in a crumbling house.  Almost everyone in Havana lives in a Detroit-style wreck, with caved-in roofs, peeling paint, and doors hanging on their hinges at odd angles.

Education is free and the country is effectively 100 percent literate, but does it take a totalitarian police state to get virtually 100% literacy?  Somehow almost every other country in the Western Hemisphere has managed the same feat, without the brutal repression.

Even such basics as cooking oil, sugar and soap are scarce.  People who manage to acquire these stand on street corners and whisper “cooking oil” or “sugar” to passersby, and then sell the product out of their home. If they’re caught, both sellers and buyers will be arrested, of course, but in a dismal economy a lot of people take the risk.

Until a few years ago ordinary Cubans weren’t even allowed to set foot inside tourist hotels or restaurants unless they worked there, lest they see for themselves the luxurious lifestyles of decadent capitalist nations-- like Mexico, Chile and Spain.  But a few years ago the regime stopped barring Cubans from tourist hotels and restaurants.

Of course most Cubans can’t afford to go to these places anyway:  A restaurant meal in Havana costs an entire month’s salary for the average Cuban.  A single bottle of beer at a tourist restaurant costs a week’s salary.  A middle-class tourist can easily spend more in one day than most Cubans make in a year.  Totten had dinner with four Americans at a tourist restaurant. The only Cubans in the place were the cooks and the waiters. The bill for five was about $100--five months’ salary for Cubans. 

Vital as the tourist industry is for the regime, it also poses a problem--because it enables Cubans to see how foreigners live. The only way to prevent this would be to shut down the hotels, and the regime can’t do that because it needs the money.  So Cubans working in this industry can't avoid seeing the vast contrast--and that most of the tourists don't seem particularly smarter or more motivated than the average Cuban.  No wonder the regime wants to keep foreigners and locals apart.

Tourists tip waiters, taxi drivers, tour guides, and chambermaids in hard currency, and to stave off a revolt from these people the regime lets them keep the money.  As a result they’re relatively rich compared to most Cubans.  In fact they enjoy elite privileges—enough income to afford a cell phone or go out to a restaurant occasionally—that ordinary Cubans can’t afford.  Totten asked a few people how much maids earned in tips:  Supposedly they got about $1 per day for each room. If they clean an average of 30 rooms a day and work five days a week, they’d earn $600 a month—a staggering sum in Cuba, 30 times the official maximum monthly wage.

Only in the bizarre economy of a communist country is the cleaning lady richer than the doctor. Yet even these relatively rich Cubans are poor compared to the middle class--or even the poor--outside Cuba.

For example, American Leftists complain about “food deserts” in U.S. cities, where the poor supposedly can't find a nearby store that sells nutritious food.  But if they want to see a real food desert they should come to Havana.  Totten writes of going to a hard-currency grocery store across the street from a tourist hotel, where the few Cubans lucky enough to have hard currency could shop to supplement their meager state rations.  It sold rice, beans, frozen chicken, milk, bottled water, booze, a little cheese, minuscule amounts of rancid-looking meat, some low-end cookies and chips from Brazil—and that was it. No produce, cereal, no cans of soup, no pasta.  And this was a place for Cuba’s “rich” to shop.

Castro wants the world to compare Cuba to poor third-world countries like Guatemala or Haiti.  But Cuba isn’t a developing country; it’s a country that was highly developed just 50 years ago but has been destroyed by its communist government.

Fifty-eight years ago Havana was an elegant, modern city. It should be compared not with Kabul, Guatemala City, or Port-au-Prince but with formerly communist cities like Budapest, Prague, or Berlin.  And the comparison is devastating.

On his last night in Cuba Totten dined at the restaurant on the top floor of his luxury tourist hotel.  He had his first and only steak on the island, with wine from Chile. The bill was about what he would have paid to have a pizza delivered at home--but more than a month’s wages for ordinary Cubans.

Not surprisingly, he was the only customer in the place.

Venezuela's socialist, totalitarian government offers us some useful lessons

Leftists are always claiming that socialism is SOoo much better than free markets and capitalism.  So much more fair.

All right, Sparky, have at it:  Let's see how well socialism works when socialists have total power.  Because one would think the best test of a system is, how well does it work?

Take Venezuela:  Not long ago it had the highest per-capita income in South America, thanks to its huge oil production and resulting export income.  But today basic commodities such as toilet paper, rice, milk, meat-- and amazingly, even coffee (!)--are so scarce that people line up literally for hours to buy them.

What caused this catastrophic fall?  The main reason is that Venezuela is ruled by a 100% socialist government.  The previous president--Hugo Chavez--believed that the law of supply and demand was simply a fiction, used by companies to rob the poor and reap unfair profits.

Accordingly, three years ago he rammed a "progressive" law through the country's rubber-stamp legislature.  Rousingly named the "Law on Fair Costs and Prices," its stated purpose was to "ensure greater social justice."  It created a "National Superintendency of Fair Costs and Prices" with the authority to set supposedly "fair" prices at both wholesale and retail levels.

Companies charged with violating these price rules would be fined, or could even to have their goods confiscated by the government.

In a truly astonishing demonstration of bureaucratic frenzy, in just three years this agency issued more than 500,000 rules establishing the maximum legal price of virtually everything.

Chavez--a chest-thumping speaker who often gave three-hour speeches without pausing--knew price controls would be wildly popular with his core supporters from his experience setting the price of gasoline:  In Venezuela the production and refining of oil and the sale of gasoline are all controlled by the national oil company.  Since the government owned the company, Chavez issued an order that the company sell gasoline for just 6 cents per gallon, the lowest price in the world.

Executive orders--what a concept!

Unfortunately it cost the (government-run) company almost $2 a gallon to extract oil, refine it into gasoline and distribute it to stations.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the problem:  With domestic consumption of 600,000 barrels of gasoline a day, the sale price ordered by Chavez was forcing the company to lose $20 billion a year.

Forced by the president's decree to lose roughly $20 billion a year on gasoline sales, the state oil company had little money for exploration, production and maintenance, and had to depend on government funding for these things.  Of course Chavez wasn't willing to be seen as giving billions to explore for oil while other commodities were disappearing, so the state oil company was essentially looted.

The effects were totally predictable:  as exploration and maintenance were cut back, oil production dropped dramatically.

You'd think this clear and distressing demonstration would have convinced the socialists that there was probably some small flaw in their theory, but of course it didn't:  Emperors--which by this time Chavez essentially was--are immune to feedback from bad results, since they can simply issue decrees (sometimes called "executive orders") and everyone will rush to obey.  Not having to answer to anyone, Chavez and his supporters began fighting an ever-escalating war on that "fictitious" law of supply and demand.

The insane destructiveness of those measures can be seen in the country's production of...well, everything.  But the shocker is coffee.

Venezuela was once the largest coffee producer in the world.  But for some mysterious reason--reasons are always mysterious to Leftists--with the selling price of coffee strictly controlled by the socialist government, fewer coffee growers were willing to bust their butts to maximize production, and by 2004 the country was forced to import coffee for the first time.  By 2012 imports of coffee had reached 43,000 metric tons a year.

Today the movement of coffee beans is attended with the care usually reserved for shipments of gold bullion.  Every move is carefully monitored by government bureaucrats.  Any significant transport of food items anywhere in Venezuela must be declared to them.  The truck, merchandise, driver, dates of delivery--everything must be declared ahead of time to make a delivery.

But mysteriously--there's that word again--even with bureaucrats micro-managing shipments and deliveries, production of everything has continued to fall.  So now the socialist government has declared that the reason the shelves are bare must be that people are "hoarding" scarce goods. 

Solution?  Control the amount of purchases directly.

(Is any of this starting to sound familiar?)

Thus the socialist government is rolling out a new system of ration cards.

Of course they don't call it that.  Instead it's being touted in all the Venezuelan papers (owned and run by the government, of course) as a grocery loyalty card.  For example, Britain's socialist newspaper The Guardian describes it like this:

Working-class shoppers – who sometimes [??] endure hours-long queues at the stores to buy cut-price groceries – are welcoming the plan.

“The rich people have things all hoarded away, and they pull the strings,” said Juan Rodriguez, who waited two hours to enter the government-run supermarket near downtown Caracas on Monday, then waited three hours more to check out….

Patrons will register with their fingerprints, and the new ID card will be linked to a computer system that monitors purchases.  It will sound an alarm when it detects suspicious purchasing patterns, barring people from buying the same goods every day. But [the Food Minister] said the cards would be voluntary, with incentives such as discounts and entry into raffles for homes and cars.

Oh yes, we totally promise that using these cards will be voluntary.

The notion of winning a car in the raffle may get a lot of support, because it's almost impossible for ordinary Venezuelans to buy one.  Toyota ended its operations in the country after the government denied it permission to remit payment to its parent (the manufacturer) for the handful of cars purchased last year.  Most Venezuelans wanting a car must buy second-hand.  Which made the value of used cars approach the official price of new ones. 

You probably won't be surprised to learn that the country's current president Nicolas Maduro signed an executive order regulating the price of used cars--ostensibly to combat inflation.

The legislation would allow the government to set car prices, ensure that used car prices don’t exceed new car costs and provide licenses to individuals to import a vehicle using an account in euros or dollars with a state bank, Maduro said in a national address.

When the market value of used cars is virtually the same as the official price of new ones, you'd think that would be a tiny clue that something is seriously wrong.  But not to determined socialists and Leftists.

Venezuelans are trying to compensate for shortages and rationing by buying food from street vendors.  But as might be expected, government bureaucrats moved quickly to close that loophole:

The government ordered Tuesday that sidewalk vendors may only sell basic foods if they respect price controls….Foods subject to the government resolution [order] are “rice, corn flour, wheat flour, pasta, beef, chicken, turkey, lamb, goat and pork.”

Also canned sardines, tuna and mackerel; powdered whole milk, cheese, eggs, soy milk, edible oils, margarine, legumes, sugar, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, ground coffee, coffee beans, and salt.

The [order] allows 30 days for sidewalk vendors to conform, and says that whoever infringes it will be penalized with the “confiscation of their goods.”

The real mystery here isn't the scarcity but the absence of common sense by the socialists.  Specifically: why haven’t they reached the obvious conclusion that forcing producers to sell essentially at their costs absolutely guarantees that supplies of everything so controlled will decrease?  It's almost like they're terminally stupid or something.

When something you do produces disastrous results, rational humans analyze the failure and change what they do. It's called a "feedback loop."  You would think the disastrous experience with price controls would lead rational people to stop doing it, but in fact the opposite is happening:  the socialists are doubling down on greater controls, greater distortions of economics.

What's preventing the feedback loop from working for Venezuela's socialist government? 

Stupidity is certainly a candidate, but I suggest the main factor is that they believe they'll be in power for the rest of their lives.  The socialists are like the Castro regime:  They rule absolutely, with no significant prospect of ever losing power.  If they never have to worry about being held accountable or being out of power, why change?  And since they totally control all broadcasting and newspapers, no word of the true scope of the disaster reaches most of the public--except for the personal experiences of the populace.

Obviously it's impossible for ordinary Venezuelans to avoid seeing the long lines and the bare shelves, or to be unaware of having to stand in line for hours to buy cooking oil or rice or toilet paper.  But the socialist government uses their control of newspapers and TV to keep repeating the government line that shortages are all the fault of greedy businessmen, or the CIA or their Colombian neighbors or some other form of foreign interference.

A devotion to government control of the economy isn't unique to Venezuela's leaders, of course:  U.S. Democrats and Obama rammed through a total takeover of health insurance, convinced that they knew better than ordinary people what those people needed.  Then by a series of presidential decrees Obama delayed the starting date of the law's most burdensome provisions until after the 2014 elections, hoping this would avoid costing Democrats control of the senate.

It's the same kind of magical thinking as Nicolas Maduro believing that fingerprinting Venezuelan supermarket buyers will put food on the shelves.

Of course Obama and the Democrats are far more educated and sophisticated than Venezuela's socialists, and with the help of the Democrat-covering media and an impeachment-proof senate they may yet retain power.  But what made the socialists in both nations think shutting off freedom of choice and ignoring the laws of supply and demand was a good idea in the first place?

One possible answer is that once someone buys into a paradigm, they can only choose from solutions that are within the paradigm space.  Venezuela's socialists keep pushing price controls because the notion of ending them isn't within the boundaries of their mental system. The only options any humans actually have are the ones they allow themselves to consider.

In the case of socialists--both in Venezuela and here at home--they're firmly wedded to price controls and won't consider any other option. To accept that price controls don't work--that in fact they make millions of ordinary people miserable--is to accept they and all their useless functionaries are either stupid or willfully stubborn.  In any case, that they're failures.

Similarly, U.S. Democratic leaders are psychologically unable to reject the government takeover they voted for--Obamacare--for exactly the same reason.

If this is Thursday this must be a food line. But where?

Look at all the peeps in that *huge* line.  Wow, must be election day!  Or maybe some store is giving away free diamonds or similar.

Oh, wait:  This is a pic in Venezuela, and the people are lining up to buy *food.*

Ask your nearest socialist, "progressive" or Democrat to explain why people have to line up to buy *food* in the socialist workers' paradise of Venezuela.  Just see what kind of bullshit excuse they come up with.

Odds are they'll claim a) there is no shortage of food or coffee or cooking oil or toilet paper in Venezuela; b) any claim that there are shortages is simply anti-socialist propaganda by eeebil rich folk trying to cheat the po' folk by higher prices; c) that this photo is NOT a line for food; d) that this photo was not taken in Venezuela; and e) anyone implying that socialism doesn't result in a workers' paradise is a raaacist.

Venezuelan street scene

If you have enough brains to come in out of the rain, the vid below will tell you a great deal.

It's from Venezuela, and shows long queues outside three markets.  The people line up because--because they see *other* people queuing up. 



In Venezuela, under the woeful socialist mismanagement of N. Maduro (hand-picked successor to Hugo Chavez), *every* consumer good is in short supply.  So when you see a queue, it's probably because someone's brother gave 'em a tip that the market he works at got a shipment of...anything.  So if you join the queue, you might get one package or kilo or liter of...X.  Same thing happened daily in the former Soviet Union and other East Bloc countries.

Multiply all the people in all the queues in the whole country by...what, five bucks an hour?  What's the total national cost of all those wasted hours?

But of course Maduro and his socialist cronies running the gummint don't have to stand in line, so it don't mean shit to them, right?

Endless shortages are the inevitable result of socialist thugs running governments.  And if you think we can keep listening to the Left, and electing their unqualified socialist candidates to office, and still avoid this fate, you deserve to live it.

Socialism sounds *so* seductive, but is a prescription for shortages and failure.

Leftist mag claims Venezuelan demonstrations are a plot to seize power for...the right wing??

"The Nation" is a far-left rag staffed by socialists and revolutionaries.  Normally they enthusiastically support every revolution.

But interestingly, they don't like the protests in Venezuela.  And if you've got a high tolerance for idiocy you can check out their "logic" here.

Short answer:  They believe the demonstrations in Caracas and other cities in Vz aren't "genuine."

Seriously, that's what this pencil-neck ex-Berkeley poli-sci professional propagandist wrote.

Behind the scenes, the protests are a reflection of the weakness of the Venezuelan opposition, not its strength.

Seriously?  You're claiming the packed crowds filling block after block, street after street don't amount to genuine protest?

And you'll love the guy's "reason:"  He claims the protesters aren't authentic because he says they're all (gasp!) middle-class.

That's right, comrade:  Middle. Class.  Not the poor working folks that communist theory says are the only people who can make "real" revolutions.

Not only that, the socialist author claims the *real* purpose of the demonstrations is to take power back from the Glorious Socialist Peoples' Party and give it to the eeebil Rich Overlords.

The author roasts the leading political figures of the opposition--one for the crime of having had a "friendly 2005 sit-down with George W. Bush," another for having been "trained in the United States from prep school to Harvard’s Kennedy School, an elite scion if ever there was one."

Well there ya go, campers!  If anyone has any ties to the U.S., they're politically disqualified from taking any leadership role in another country--according to this guy, at least.

Oh, and he excuses the violence of the colectivos--groups of armed thugs, usually on motorcycles, who beat and shoot unarmed protestors.  According to the author the thugs "are in reality among the most independent sectors of the revolution, those most critical of government missteps and hesitations."

These forever victims of the state have nevertheless bet on its potential usefulness in the present, or at the very least have insisted that the alternative—handing the state machinery back over to traditional elites and voluntarily returning to a life on the defensive—is really no alternative at all. This is not a decision undertaken desperately or nostalgically, however, but instead with the most powerful optimism of the will...because to bet on the Bolivarian [i.e. socialist] government is to bet on the people, to wager on the creative capacities of the poor that always exceeds that state.

He's seriously claiming that the organized groups of armed thugs shooting and beating unarmed protesters are "victims of the state" instead of working for the government.  Interesting.

Mind-boggling bullshit.  Commenters on the piece claim businesses are deliberately holding products off the market to destabilize the government.

I wish Venezuelans the best, but have to say I'm not optimistic about their chances.  With guys like this author casting this as an attempt by "the rich" to overthrow a supposedly beneficent, legally elected government, and with China and Cuba both having huge investments in the socialist government, I suspect the Maduro regime will kill thousands more rather than yield.

Venezuela's economic disaster--the lack of most staple commodities, caused by dumb government policies and currency controls--should be a lesson for other countries on the pitfalls of socialism.  Of course it won't be.

And so it goes.

Caracas street scene

According to a regular columnist at the Huffington Post, the unrest in Venezuela has been instigated by...the U.S. government???

Yep, that's what he said.  Funny, I hadn't noticed a single word from the U.S. government supporting the protesters, but maybe they've just been reeeally quiet about it.

In related news, here's a photo of Caracas yesterday:

You may think there are a lot of people there--sorta like the Tea Party gatherings in DC a couple of years ago.  But I hear the Elites at MSNBC estimated the crowd as "a few hundred demonstrators"--just as they did for the Tea Party.

Gosh, sure looks like more than a few hundred, but...our media wouldn't lie about something so easy to disprove, would they?

3 killed in Venezuelan protests

Well, looks like Venezuelans have just about had enough of their socialist government's bullshit, repression and incompetence.  The following is from...ah, I'll tell you at the bottom.

Is This the End of Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela?

In the midst of runaway violence, inflation, and shortages of basic goods, Venezuela’s youth have taken to the streets—to take on its Orwellian government.

The text from my friend Luis surprised me. He got a masters degree from an elite Manhattan university and had returned to Venezuela full of hope. He was hired by a local NGO working on poverty abatement issues. But now, he’s fed up.

“Nothing works. There are lines to buy everything. Prices have gone through the roof. You can’t go out at night for fear of getting shot. If you want to get married, finding a place to live is impossible. The country has become unlivable.”

Luis’s story is a depressingly common one on the streets of Venezuela’s major urban centers. People are tired of enduring one of the world’s highest inflation rates, scarcities of basic staples like toilet paper, and the near certainty that things are going to get worse before they get better. A few days ago the Associated Press reported on Venezuelans camping on the sidewalk to get information about emigrating to Ireland.

This week the streets of Caracas and other large Venezuelan cities saw large protests that ended with three people shot dead and dozens wounded.  Eyewitnesses blame the violence on government-sponsored armed motorcycle gangs, similar to the ones used to suppress pro-democracy protests in Iran in 2009.

The protestors are mostly middle-class high-school and college students who reject the path Venezuela is taking.

What path might that be, cupcake?

Their objectives are hazy, ranging from an end to rampant crime to the resignation of the nation’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Mostly, they are desperate. They see a dark future ahead, one in which Venezuela’s slow slide into a Cuban-style autocracy accelerates and is finally realized in its entirety.  In a remarkable act of defiance they have continued to protest throughout the country even after Maduro supposedly "banned” all protests.

This “ban,” apparently decided on a whim and not really enforced, highlights the absurd contradictions of a government that appears to have lost both its propaganda skill and its compass.

On Friday Maduro launched a government program of "peace and tolerance” during which he denounced the protestors as “fascists.” While the launch was being broadcast by all TV and radio stations in the country, the National Guard was attacking peaceful demonstrators with tear gas.

The government claims protestors "want a coup," and that the government is merely defending democracy, while simultaneously forcing a Colombian news channel, NTN24, off the cable grid for broadcasting coverage of the protests.

Venezuelans are accustomed to their government using Orwellian language. Indeed, this is a government that claims the scarcity and inflation caused by its own disastrous economic policies is somehow the consequence of an economic war engineered by the opposition. Its president claims his predecessor died of cancer because his enemies "inoculated” him with the disease.

Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, once claimed capitalism had killed life on Mars, but insane statements clearly did not die with him. It’s clear that the governing elites in Caracas have a shaky grip on reality—and the problem is institutional. Venezuela’s political life has become a bad reality TV show, and the country’s youth simply wants it to end.

The article above is from The Daily Beast--a hard-Left blog.  At first I was amazed that a left-supporting blog would post a single word acknowledging trouble in a fellow-socialist country.  Could a few American leftists, I wondered, finally be willing to criticize socialism?

I know--just not possible.  The word "socialism" never appears in the article, nor does the author describe Maduro's government as "socialist."  Even after tiptoeing up to the line by noting that young Venezuelans "reject the path Venezuela is taking," the author can't bear to violate one of the cardinal rules of the left by actually mentioning what path that is.

When a socialist regime explodes, Leftists and media talking heads dare not name the system lest they be removed from the A-list for cocktail parties in D.C., NY and Hollywood.

Venezuela collapsing under socialism

In the 1980s Venezuela had the highest standard of living in all of South America.  It had the world's 5th-largest reserves of oil and was awash in oil, money, jobs and good things.

Today--just 30 years after that time of wealth and abundance--Venezuelans have a hard time finding toilet paper, soap, milk, rice...you get the idea.  Non-government citizens had to get on a two-year waiting list to buy a car--and now new cars are no longer available.

Toyota Motor Company--which has an assembly plant in Venezuela--said it would shut down its plant because the government’s foreign exchange controls have made it impossible to import the parts needed to build cars.  Other car manufacturers in the country, including Ford and GM, haven’t even started operations this year because needed parts haven't arrived.

What caused this collapse?  Did the oil run out?  Did a neighboring country invade?  Did some plague devastate the population?

Well it actually was a plague of sorts: Venezuela was devastated by the policies of its socialist government, first under Hugo Chavez and now under Nicolas Maduro.

I mention Venezuela's troubles to show how astonishingly fast a nation can go from a flourishing, world-class economy--again, the highest standard of living in all of South America--to poverty.  In Venezuela's case the actual collapse took closer to 15 years than 30.

In this respect Venezuela isn't exceptional:  In almost every case, when the economy of a once-great nation finally collapses that collapse is frighteningly fast.  There are several reasons:  First, the government has a huge incentive to keep up the appearance of normalcy, so as it pulls out all the stops to keep funding the huge deficits that inevitably accompany socialism, it clamps down on the release of all information that might alarm the populace.

Second:  Long before the collapse, a large number of the nation's skilled, educated citizens try to emigrate to freer countries where they can use their skills and ambition to make a better life.  At some point the drain of significant talent and ingenuity makes it too hard for those remaining to keep the productive machinery going.  Bit by bit the nation's production falls off.

In the case of Venezuela, about ten years ago many of the smartest employees of the state-owned oil company (PDVSA) saw what Chavez was doing and started speaking out against him.  Chavez promptly fired them all, replacing them with party loyalists.  Unfortunately (if predictably) the party hacks were less skilled than their predecessors, and the machinery of oil exploration and production began to deteriorate--fast. 

Two years after the mass firing PDVSA drilled a total of just four wells--in a nation with the world's 5th largest reserves of oil!  To put that in perspective, in 2014 private oil companies in Kansas drilled over 3,900 oil or gas wells.

The mass firing was insane.  But of course no one in the country would dare say so for fear of government retaliation.  Chavez routinely seized--yep, just flat stole--newspapers, radio or television stations that printed or broadcast anything critical of his policies.  (Which is why the plan floated by the U.S. FCC to put "content monitors" in the offices of newspapers and broadcasters caused a lot of concern here in the U.S.)

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of a catastrophic economic collapse is that it erases memory of how to do the productive things a modern society needs.  No citizen left in Venezuela will know how to reopen a car assembly plant, or a soap-making factory.  No one left in the country will know how to repair a dead electrical generating plant, or an oil refinery. The engineers have all emigrated to the booming oil business in Alberta, Canada.

A whole generation of Venezuelan children is now growing up whose sole knowledge of obtaining food will be how to find the government store that hands it out--the U.S. equivalent of using an EBT card.

Now, I really, reeeally sympathize with Americans who read this and think, What happened to Venezuela Simply Cannot Happen Here.  You sincerely, deeply want to believe it couldn't.  You literally cannot allow yourself to believe it.  Because to acknowledge the path, the logic, the...cause and effect relationship--is to acknowledge that the policies of "progressives"/socialists--supported by the votes and dollars of well-intentioned Democrats just like you--are disastrous.  Coming to terms with that is to recognize that unless we're granted some astonishing, unprecedented miracle, your kids will likely live that future.

Let me be clearer: The policies you supported--by your vote both for the nation's president and for creatures like Harry "I Destroyed the Filibuster" Reid and Nancy "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in it" Pelosi--have set us on the path to this outcome.

For those who still think it can't happen that quickly:  In the 1960s Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the U.S.

What's Detroit like today?

One of the familiar landmarks of the path to collapse is when a president either demands or simply takes the power to make laws by decree.  They always do that, for three reasons:  First because they believe no one except themselves really knows how to run things; but also because as events start occurring faster and faster they don't want to bother taking the months needed to guide bills into law through the legislative process.  And third is because they love the power of being emperor.

Sound familiar?  Obama has used Executive Orders--or simple decrees--to delay the start dates for the painful phases of ObamaCare or make similar changes to that "law" in other areas 15 times.  By amazing coincidence those decrees delayed the start of painful effects until after the 2014 elections.

It's a total coincidence that this will greatly improve the chances of Democrats losing fewer congressional seats than they otherwise would have.

And establishment Republican congresswhores are scarcely better, refusing to oppose Obama's unconstitutional actions.

Gentlemen, by your refusal to do your job--the one assigned to congress by the Founders as one of the three supposedly-equal branches of government--you have surrendered our nation to tyranny as surely as if you had surrendered to a foreign foe.  May your children eventually be so shamed by your cowardice that they change their names.

"Quien es Juan Galt?"

Dictator vows to seize businesses that don't comply with his decrees

Venezuela is having tough economic times--a direct result of stupid dictatorial decisions by their ridiculously dumb socialist president, Nicolas Maduro, who has basically decreed that businesses must sell their products at a loss.

Needless to say, almost no business owner supports this policy.

No matter:  Maduro is known for his skill for negotiating, and said “We will expropriate whatever needs to be expropriated.”

"You have until Monday to comply; otherwise, I will take the most radical measures,” Maduro said.  “I am determined to make an economic revolution. Nobody, nothing will stop me!” he said.

"I have a pen and a phone, and I do not intend to wait for congress!  Comrade Obama has shown me the way one needs to rule to make progress!"

That last 'graf may have been poorly translated, but you get the drift.

Socialism's path summarized

In general, free markets manage themselves pretty well:  Supply and demand find a way to equilibrate, both via prices and new suppliers entering tight markets to make money by satisfying a demand for goods or services.  That ol' "invisible hand" is amazingly skilled.

Of course totalitarians of every stripe--socialists, statists, fascists, whatever--absolutely can't *stand* to let people run their own affairs.  They insist on controlling--first just a few things but ultimately every aspect of the economy.

Problem is, they don't know how to manage *anything*--particularly something as complex as an entire economy.  So when things start going south (inevitably), they issue orders or decrees that end up worsening the problems they themselves created.

Socialists/communists/statists/"progressives" ALWAYS go this route:

1.  "Most of our supporters are poor.  We'll fix that by giving them money, which we'll get by taking it from The Rich.  Yeah, dat's da ticket!  Problem solved!"

2.  "Wow, who knew there were so MANY poor?  Or that they'd need SO MUCH?  So when the total needs of the poor for government money exceed revenue, do we reverse course?  Not at all--we'll simply print more money...LOTS of money.  Cuz we wanna "help da people."  

3. After printing LOTS of money, surprise!  Lots of cash chasing too few goods means prices go up!  Wow, who could possibly have seen *that* coming?  We socialists issued a decree that should have made things all better, and somehow this happened.  It's unfair!  And illogical!  It must be because businessmen are cunningly holding back their goods to make more money!  Yeah, dat's it!! 

4. When prices skyrocket, do you admit you made a mistake by printing so much money and cut the money supply?  Not even close! You impose PRICE CONTROLS--which creates a black market by those evil people on the street (who have common sense but no PhD in socialism) so people can get things they want or need, even though they have to pay hugely inflated prices.  No one is forcing either buyer or seller to do this, yet they freely agree to such deals--a lot.  And you can't *stand it,* because it threatens your control.  So you pass a law jailing anyone who buy or sell at more than the government-decreed price.

5. After you impose price controls--ordering businesses to sell controlled items at artificially low prices--the controlled items sell out immediately, and the shelves/stores are empty.  Now what?  Do you realize how stupid you are and stop doing what you're doing?  No way!  You blame the Yankees and businessmen for refusing to supply goods at the decreed, artificially low price.  How dare they refuse to give away their products for less than the cost to produce them?! 

6. After stores go out of business, and businesses that made consumer goods close because they can't make ends meet at the State-decreed price, most of the business class starts leaving the country.  Now what??  Do you realize the productive folks are bailing out, and that your moronic supporters can't run a complex factory, and end price controls?  Hahahahaha!  Of course not!  You declare victory for socialism and move everyone out of the cities to the farms to grow food for the party members.

7.  Eventually your supporters kill a lot of people.  But of course it's not socialism's fault!  And most certainly not YOUR fault.  After all, you did all the right things.  It was just greedy businessmen, or the American CIA, or "counter-revolutionary forces," or the bourgeoisie who sabotaged you.
 
This exact scenario is playing out right now in Venezuela.  Oh, wait--you probably think I just made that up because I oppose statists and socialists.  Actually the link is to the WaPo.

The absolutely hysterical thing is, the Post's editors and reporters totally support Barack Hussein Obama doing exactly the same thing here.  They report--if reluctantly--on the woes of socialism in Venezuela but embrace the same policies here.

What the hell do they think ObamaCare is if not socialism?

Venezuela: The "rule by decree" thing is SO much better than the old-fashioned "laws" way

If you want to see classic "command economy" socialism in action, take a look at Venezuela.

To win votes just before national elections, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro has sent the military into big chain stores to force them to cut prices.  He's jailed businessmen who aren't cooperative enough.  But the fun is just starting:

On Friday Maduro issued two new decrees:  The first limits the rent charged for commercial properties.  The second increases interest rates for savers on low incomes to 16 percent from the current 12.5 percent.

That is SO fabulous!  Why would anyone want to let capitalists and other enemies of socialism set rents and interest rates when the president can do it so much more fairly by *decree*?

You Americans are just beginning to experiment with this enlightened, progressive form of government--your president has changed a handful of laws by decree (you call it, "executive order") such as by ordering your immigration officials to stop deporting children of undocumented immigrants, or ordering delays in the start dates of politically-damaging provisions of your national health-care law, but soon you'll see that this is a much better system, and you can dispense with your woeful, unworkable "congress."

So for example, why should gasoline cost $3.20 per gallon?  The president should simply order that as of tomorrow, no one can sell gasoline for more than, say, $1.50 a gallon.

See how easy that is?

Let's try another one!  How about, "You worker bees don't have the 'right' kind of health insurance.  After today all health insurance policies must provide free maternity care, free birth control and substance-abuse counseling.  Of course these features will increase the amount you have to pay in premiums, but that's totally reasonable, right?  Oh, and one more thing:  If you fail to buy health insurance that meets my specifications you'll be fined."

See how easy that is?  Wait, you say that one's not hypothetical, that it's already happened?  In the U.S.??

Giddowdahere!  No way could the U.S. be more dic...more "progressive" than the Peoples' Republic of Venezuela!  The whole world thinks you Americans are hopelessly backward with that whole "congress makes laws and the president sees to it that they're faithfully executed" thingy.  So...no way.  Hell, the American people would never put up with the kind of cra...the "progressive" policies we have in Venezuela.

Geez, you Americans will do anything to top the wonderful achievements of other countries!
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Serious update:

The leader of Venezuela's main business group, Jorge Roig, said the government's economic policies and excessive controls risk setting up the nation for serious shortages in the coming months.  Roig said businesses nationalized in the Chavez era were operating at half capacity, and that only 2 percent of expropriated land was productive.

In response, president Maduro declared "Mr. Jorge Roig, you have just declared economic war on the country." 

Didja get that?  Guy asserts an opinion contrary to Fearless Leader and the latter accuses him of "declaring economic war" on the country.  Wow, glad we don't have *our* president saying things like that about *his* critics!  Cuz, y'know, that might have a chilling effect on folks, and might push the country closer to class warfare.  Or something.

Lawless, dictatorial regimes--thank goodness we don't live *there*!!

See if you can spot a pattern.  Dateline Venezuela:

November 30, 2013--Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has ordered the arrest of merchants who have raised the prices of their products after being inspected to make sure they had lowered them.

Just 10 days before municipal elections, which the opposition has framed as a referendum on his government, all the nation's radio and television outlets were ordered to broadcast an appearance by Maduro in which he called for an "economic revolution" to protect the "productive middle class."

"This is an economic revolution that we must carry out, a new, productive economic model. We have what it takes, we have the know-how...and nothing or nobody is going to stop our drive to place the economic revolution at the center of our administration," he said.

"Starting Saturday, all the inspections that are made and clearly show that prices have been marked up following the last inspection, or that despite this national day (of economic revolution) they continue to charge the usual speculative prices in a fraudulent way, we will act with all the severity of the law," Maduro said.

"We have to be very strict with these backsliders," he said, recalling that Friday is the 23rd day since he launched "the economic offensive" to lower product prices by ordering the occupation of a chain of electrical-appliance stores he accused of "speculating."

Next:

HARARE, Zimbabwe –  State authorities have ordered foreign shop-owners to close their businesses by Jan. 1 unless they give 51 percent control to local citizens.  According to state media, owners who fail to comply will be arrested.

A top official of the black empowerment ministry said only Zimbabweans had the right to run shops in the country,

Laws compelling this were passed  in 2007.  Foreign shop owners have been criticized for taking retail trade opportunities from Zimbabwean traders by selling cheap imports.

Finally:

Washington--Officials of the Democratic party have passed a law forcing all Americans to buy government-approved health insurance or pay a fine.  All existing health-insurance policies will be cancelled unless they offer free birth control, substance-abuse counseling and maternity benefits.

Officials shrugged off complaints from males that no health policies for men contained these provisions.

Democrats also ignored critics who complained that the law violated the Constitution since all revenue-raising bills are required to originate in the House, while this bill originated in the senate.  A Democrat spokeswoman laughed and dismissed the complaint as not being worthy of a response.

Republicans also charged that no member of congress had actually read the whole bill.  Democrats replied that this wasn't relevant since "it's the law" and that the courts would determine the provisions.

 Yeah, there's a pattern all right.