After Obama rejected proposed Keystone line twice, Canada says "Don't bother--we'll sell our oil to Asia instead"

Hey, anyone remember a project called the "Keystone Pipeline"?

It was a pipeline proposed to run from Alberta, Canada, to Illinois--about 1,100 miles.  It would have shipped oil from "tar sands" to the U.S.  From Illinois the oil would join a southern leg of the pipeline and get pumped to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The project would have created 20,000 construction jobs.  It also would have carried oil from North Dakota (which is now the third-largest oil-producing state in the U.S.)--oil that is currently shipped by rail, which is considerably more prone to accidents than totally buried pipeline.

Obama rejected the northern leg of the proposed line in both 2011 and again in 2014, claiming the project posed too much risk to the environment.  The southern leg went ahead, but of course without the connection to the oil fields it's not all that useful.

After two rejections, and no signal from the Emperor that the project would ever be approved, Breitbart is reporting that Canada finally got tired of waiting and acted in its own best interests:  It approved an all-Canadian line running to that nation's Pacific coast.  Canada will sell its oil to Asian buyers.

You need to know what just happened, so you'll know exactly who was responsible when gas here goes to eight bucks a gallon:  We could have bought oil from a friendly, reliable, trustworthy government.  And the economy would have loved the 20,000 construction jobs.  But thanks to Obama and the Democratic Party's veto-proof control of the senate, we'll now have to buy from either from militant socialist governments like Venezuela, or from the biggest funders of world terrorism (Saudi Arabia).

I guess this is what passes for brilliant strategic thinking by your Emperor and his handlers.  Surely there's a brilliant strategy in there somewhere.  We probably don't know enough to recognize it.

Yeh, dat's it.

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.

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?"

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!
==

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.

Venezuela reminds me of someplace farther north...

Venezuela’s legislature voted to hand its socialist president sweeping decree powers Tuesday.  [By contrast, here in the U.S. the president already changes or violates laws by decree, without consulting congress, and congress simply smiles.]

President Nicolás Maduro supposedly wanted more powers in order to take stronger action to "solve" widespread food shortages and shockingly high inflation.

Maduro blames the country’s economic woes on private businessmen conspiring with agents of the U.S. government.  [In the U.S. the president blames Republicans by calling them racists and economic terrorists.]

Maduro is expected to continue a crackdown on private businesses in the country that began earlier this month. Calling businessman “barbaric” and “capitalist parasites,” he ordered the arrests of dozens of them and forced others to slash prices on plasma TVs and other household appliances.  Not surprisingly the order was wildly popular, with people swarming the stores.

[Here it's Obamaphones, and letting people use their EBT card to pay for tattoos, hair styling and liquor.  And problems are the fault of the "evil one-percenters."]

Chavez used a similar tactic to win reelection last year, giving away Chinese appliances such as refrigerators to buy votes.  Maduro found a cheaper way, simply ordering businesses to sell their goods for less.  [Here in the U.S. the president simply orders taxpayers to pay double for new health insurance, and uses the extorted funds to give health insurance to the poor.  Very Venezuelan.]

Last month Venezuela’s inflation rate was 54.3 percent, as the country experienced its worst shortages of toilet paper, cooking oil, and other basic goods in years. Economists say government actions like the recent appliance order and currency controls have drastically reduced private investment.

[What?  Government actions can reduce private investment?  Would cutting private investment, like, maybe cut the number of new, non-government jobs created by businesses?  Unbelievable!]

"These policies will likely have dire implications for Venezuela’s future.  A majority of the people.will  expect the state will provide for them,” said an analyst.

[Here in the U.S. roughly 40% of the citizens pay no income tax and depend on government handouts to live.  But hey, no problem.  Cuz they vote Democrat.  Woohoo!  Keep them policies comin'!]

Update, from the WSJ:

Critics also note Venezuela has for years refused to publish details of how it spends money held in state-run funds created during the Chavez era, even though required to by the country's main anti-corruption law, calling into question why he would need special anti-graft powers.

Expenditures that do not require legislators' approval have grown so large that investors, such as those who hold Venezuelan bonds, struggle to quantify state spending and have to make their own calculations of the budget deficit.

Government ministries have not responded to repeated requests over the last year seeking details of spending via off-budget mechanisms that include a fund called Fonden, which has received more than $100 billion.

 Wonder what we'd find if "Organizing for America" was audited?

Socialism is wonderful, part 3,682,192

Yesterday I posted an article about the socialist government of Venezuela seizing two drilling rigs belonging to an American company.  Looks like that's just the start of a new wave of "expropriation."

All done "for the people," of course.   (Oh, of course).

In the name of fairness.  Of course.

Thousands of Venezuelans lined up outside the country’s equivalent of Best Buy, a chain of electronics stores known as Daka, hoping for a bargain after the socialist government forced the company to charge customers “fair” prices.

President Nicolás Maduro ordered a military “occupation” of the company’s five stores....Members of Venezuela’s National Guard, some of whom carried assault rifles, kept order at the stores as bargain hunters rushed to get inside.

“I want a Sony plasma television for the house,” said Amanda Lisboa, 34, a business administrator, who had waited seven hours already outside one Caracas store. “It’s going to be so cheap!”

And if seizing an electronics store and forcing it to sell its goods at a loss secures a million more votes from "the poor" for the socialist government that's just an accidental benefit.

It gets even better.  A savvy politician (say, Obama) would have denied ordering the seizure of the stores, would have blamed a nameless, "overzealous" underling, so he could later claim to be "a friend of business."  But Maduro apparently loves socialist purity more than long-term planning:

Venezuelan president Maduro appeared on state television calling for the "occupation" of the electronics chain.

"This is for the good of the nation," Maduro said. "Leave nothing on the shelves, nothing in the warehouses … Let nothing remain in stock!"

Daka's store managers, according to Maduro, have been arrested and are being held by the country's security services. Neither Daka nor the government responded to requests for comment.

Does anyone doubt that Obama and the Dems would do this in a heartbeat if they thought it'd buy them a few thousand more votes?  Hell, they *are* doing it, right now:  What the hell do you think "free" medical care, "free" cell phones and all the other "free" giveaways are about?

Government of Venezuela seizes oil rigs owned by U.S. company; U.S. media nods approvingly

I found this story...educational:

The socialist government of Venezuela has seized two oil-drilling rigs owned by a Houston company.

The government seized the rigs after the drilling company stopped drilling--a decision it made because the state oil monopoly hadn't paid them for drilling for several months.

A Venezuelan judge ordered the company to surrender the rigs to the Venezuelan national oil company.  Members of the local police and national guard were present as the rigs were taken away.

The national oil company--i.e. an arm of the Venezuelan governent--called the expropriation essential to Venezuela's development.

Let's see here:  My company signs a contract with the government in which we agree to drill specified wells and they agree to pay us a specified rate--a standard agreement in the drilling industry.

My company drills for some period but the government doesn't pay.  I'm losing money hand over fist, so I order my people to stop work until the government pays us.

At which point the government simply waltzes in--covered by men with guns--and takes our property.

And I'm thinking, Is there really much difference between that theft by Venezuela's socialist government and a thousand cases here in which government--at every level--simply takes your stuff, simply by invoking some bullshit legalistic excuse?

Example:  Kelo v. New London, in which the city seized private homes with the intent to give the land to a favored private developer.  The argument was whether the Constitution permitted the city to legally seize private property and give it to a private developer.  That is, did this constituted a legitimate "public use."

The Supreme Court held that it did.  (And yes, that was before Lord Obama.)

Or consider Obamacare, in which the government will force productive workers to buy a certain product or pay a fine.  Oh, and also bars you from contracting for an insurance plan unless it offers maternity care, even if you're a 70-year-old single man.

You work hard, obey the law, pay your taxes.  Then the government decides "We will take whatever we want from you, and you can't do jack-shit about it.  Cuz, y'know, fairness."

We expect it from thug socialist governments like China, Russia, Venezuela.  A lot of us didn't expect it to happen here.

Venezuela approaching economic crisis. But it can't happen here, because...

"Foreign Policy" magazine predicts that Venezuela is about to crash.  Their socialist government has ruined pretty much every aspect of the nation's economy.

Inflation is soaring, and basic staples are increasingly harder to find. Electricity blackouts are frequent, and crime presents an enormous problem for citizens and companies crazy enough to do business there.

The problem for Venezuelans is that their government has no clue as to what to do. …
Venezuela’s persistently high inflation has several root causes. Because of repeated elections and populist tendencies, the government continues to spend much more than it earns via taxes. Since it has few options to finance its deficit, it has been forced to devalue the currency twice this year, and this means producers – who mostly rely on imports to supply the market – are forced to pass this on to consumers.

Taming inflation would require the government to order their finances, but the administration seems reluctant to do so. For example, according to government sources, giving away gasoline for (practically) nothing costs Venezuelan taxpayers $24 billion in direct subsidies and lost revenues. This amount represents roughly a quarter of all spending included in the 2013 budget. But regardless of how dire the situation is, the government refuses to consider decreasing subsidies because it is fearful of a public backlash.

Let's see here:  Government continues to spend much more than it takes in.  Check.  Huge and costly subsidies to "the poor."  Check.  Government refuses to cut these subsidies because it wants to stay popular.  Check.

Gosh, this sounds SO familiar.  Where have we seen these things before?

But don't worry, citizen:  Other socialist regimes may go thru rough patches but nothing similar can happen here in the U.S.  Barack's regime can continue to spend 30 percent more than it takes in forever, with no adverse consequences, because Obama.

See, deficits are only bad when a Republican is president.  With Obama in charge, the normal rules of economics simply don't apply.  It's sorta like "laws"--they apply to Republicans but not to Democrat presidents, who can simply "waive" them and carry on as if nothing was amiss.

If you don't believe there's a double-standard about deficits, look at the NY Times or WaPo:  They were all over G.W. Bush about a deficit of $400 billion, but have no problem at all with King Barack running a deficit three times larger.  Because Obama.

Ah, socialism!  Is there nothing it can't do?  And now, with the gummint running health insurance--and forcing you to buy it or have any tax refund seized by the IRS--everything will be even better!

When governments run the economy, things just work better!

Experience all over the world has shown that when the government controls something, that sector of the economy works SO much better and more efficiently!

Do I have to tell you that was sarcasm?

Consider the latest triumph of government control of markets:  Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper.

In case you think that's just an aberration, they've also run short of other basics like cornmeal, milk, butter and even--astonishingly--coffee.

Not surprisingly the socialist government blames political enemies for all such shortages.  President Nicolas Maduro, hand-picked by Hugo Chavez as his successor, claims anti-government forces--and he specifically included the private sector--are causing the shortages, in order to destabilize the country.  Commerce Minister Alejandro Fleming blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on "excessive demand" built up as a result of "a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country."

See, it's not government mismanagement, it's a plot by enemies of the Benevolent Socialist State!  People are deliberately using the toilet more than normal, in order to cause a shortage.

One imagines roving gangs, funded by rich speculators, hijacking truckloads of toilet paper as they travel from factory to cities.

But experts say the shortages are due to two things:  price controls, imposed by the government to make basic goods cheap (a vote-buying scheme); and government controls on foreign currency.

Many factories in Venezuela operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to buy imported parts and materials.  Chavez imposed currency controls a decade ago to stop capital flight as his government started seizing land and dozens of businesses.

As a result of government mis-management, consumers face long lines at supermarkets and pharmacies. Shoppers often spend several days looking for basic items.

But don't worry, citizen:  Venezuela's problems can't possibly apply to Obamacare.  Because our statists are a lot smarter than their statists.  The experts in the Obama administration have promised us that no shortages will occur under Obamacare.  Instead, medical costs will fall for everyone, without causing any doctors to retire early, and without overwhelming medical providers with patients.

And if you don't know much about economics, or human nature, or history, or current events--which is to say, if you're a typical low-information voter--you'll believe that nonsense.