[detective]

This is what socialism is like in real life. This is what happens when governments impose socialism on their people.

[BenLurkin]

Feel the Bern

[joshua c]

Socialism is always about helping the poor. I wonder how the poor are doing in Venezuela right now?

[MeanWestTexan]

Bad things happen when you elect a no-nothing populist strong man (or woman).

[Syncopated]

The government is autocratic, they will only respect democratic results as long as it is beneficial to them. Otherwise they illegally seek to annul, in fact or in law, their loss. Examples of this is when they lost the mayorship of Caracas, the capital, and immediately created a parallel unelected mayorship directly appointed by the president, while emptying the old mayorship of its constitutional competences and budget. Eventually they ended by putting the elected mayor in jail.

The executive has taken over the rest of the institution of the State. To the point where all other branches of government are under the control of the president. You can see this with the recent clashes between the newly elected opposition held Legislature and the Supreme Court. The Court has even recently ruled that the Legislature must first present bills to the preside for his approval. Something clearly unconstitutional.

This must also be compounded to the encroaching militarism of the State. Venezuela has a long tradition of coup d’etats, so the government has gradually given lucrative companies, contracts and ministries to high ranking military officials. This creates the incentive to protect the government to protect themselves from corruption charges. This also leads to the military having to violently clash with protestors.

The mismanagement, the military encroachment and the autocratic nature of the government have led to high levels of corruption. It has gotten so bad that there have been sever scandals where officials have even been identified as involved in drug trafficking.

The government has also stymied the freedom of the press. Closing down TV and radio stations that do not support the government, buying off or forcing TV and radio stations to sells or close down; threatening, detaining, imprisoning, torturing or even killing journalists; and even using price controls to keep newspapers from buying paper, forcing them to shut down.

[Navy Patriot]

This is what socialism is like in real life. This is what happens when governments impose socialism on their people.

I thought it was only because they had the wrong Communists in charge? They just need to change Communists.

[ml/nj]

This is Obama's Vision for the United States.

ML/NJ

[chuckee]

720% inflation? I have an idea for a business down there. Head down to Caracas and open a wheelbarrow manufacturing plant for Venezuelans to carry their money around in.Perhaps a wheelbarrow rather than the hammer and sickle should have been the symbol for communist socialism

[aquila48]

Nowhere in this article did I see a reference to socialism or comparisons to The Bern’s policies. But what else would one expect from the Compost.

[Pontiac]

Venezuela, in other words, is well past the point of worrying that its economy might collapse. It already has. That's the only way to describe an economy that the International Monetary Fund thinks is going to shrink 8 percent and have 720 percent inflation this year.

This is what happens when socialist run out of other people’s money.

[I am Richard Brandon]

But they will NEVER learn. Our turn next if Trump fail.

[ameribbean expat]

“This is what happens when governments impose socialism on their people.”

Venezuelans voted for socialism, beginning with Chavez and his Bolivarian bull crap. They get what they deserve. Interestingly, Chavez originally tried a military coup in 1992. Once released from prison, he got elected in 1998.

[GOPJ]

The country with the largest oil reserves in the world can't afford to brew its own beer, stay in its own time zone, or even have its own people show up to work more than two times a week.

Ahhhhh, the joys of Socialism... so 'good' on paper - such a horror in the real world...

[LibertarianLiz]

Hey, Mexico should also be rich. Corruption, that is it in a nutshell. Mexico has two coasts with beautiful beaches. People should be flocking there for vacations, but, they aren't. My daughter went to a destination wedding at a resort in Mexico. She stayed within the compound, as she was instructed to. I worried all the while she was there.

Mexico also has archeological sites of interest from history. People should be flocking there to see them. They have oil.

Why is this country so poor and violent? As I said, corruption is a large part; but, I also think that rule of law, or lack thereof, is vitally important to a civil society.

[lurk]

Even non-socialist countries in South America are struggling due to crippling corruption in the whole system.

Without a Judeo-Christian world view in the hearts of the people, no economic model can succeed.

We’ll never figure that out.

[Billthedrill]

Broke? Venezuela? How could that possibly be? Why, Pete Ross of The Observer says socialism is just dandy, that increasing the size of the government creates clean, sustainable jobs.

Well, of course, it's all based on theft, and if you steal your mark's stuff all at once, the game ends sooner than if you steal it a little at a time. Chavez and Maduro were always stupid and got greedy as well. That's a fatal combination.

[citizen]

Bernie doesn’t believe a word of this propaganda. Venezuela is a socialist paradise.