Posted on 08/03/2017 12:49:39 PM PDT by Lorianne
undits should have fixed terms,” left-wing author Naomi Klein recently told the BBC. Awarded “jobs for life,” most professional commentators — whether opining in newspaper columns like this one or blathering on television — suffer no consequence for making predictions that turn out “spectacularly wrong.” Klein’s (partly tongue-in-cheek) solution? Hold our pundits to account by making them reapply for their sinecures every four years, banishing those whose prognostications prove most wide of the mark.
The socialist Klein’s embrace of market forces, however selective, is welcome. Might I offer the unfolding horror in Venezuela as the first litmus test of her proposal?
On Sunday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in a referendum designed to rewrite the country’s constitution and confer on him dictatorial powers. The sham vote, boycotted by the opposition, was but the latest stage in the “Bolivarian Revolution” launched by Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. First elected in 1998 on a wave of popular goodwill, Chavez’s legacy is one of utter devastation.
Thanks to Chavismo’s vast social welfare schemes (initially buoyed by high oil prices), cronyism and corruption, a country that once boasted massive budget surpluses is today the world’s most indebted. Contraction in per capita GDP is so severe that “Venezuela’s economic catastrophe dwarfs any in the history of the history of the U.S., Western Europe or the rest of Latin America” according to Ricardo Hausmann, former chief economist of the Inter-American Development Bank. Transparency International lists Venezuela as the only country in the Americas among the world’s 10 most corrupt.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Socialism could work if the “right people” were in charge. And if enough of your rights were taken away and the government had total control over everything.
> Socialism could work if the “right people” were in charge.
Exactly. If Bernie had won he would have done socialism without all the mistakes made by every other leader who tried it. And we’d be living in Utopia in no time. /sarc
Like obama.
Most importantly killed enough people.
Argentina went the same way...
The LA Times?
Quick, Hillary, see if the devil is wearing a parka.
“Elected in 1998 on a wave of popular goodwill”
Baloney.
The jackass Chavez told the poor that if they voted for him he’d take the money from the rich and give it to them.
They elected him.
He took the money for himself.
That’s how socialists work. They take advantage of stupid people.
Socialism/communism is always just one, or a thousand, or a million more murders away from utopia.
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