Posted on 05/30/2016 5:14:40 AM PDT by HomerBohn
We are witnessing someting unprecedented in our life time: An entire country, Venezuela, is shutting down before our eyes.
Here’s the latest on the increasingly desperate situation in Venezuela, from The New York Times, May 28, 2016:
(1) Electric blackouts: Electricity is being rationed. To save electricity: ◾Courts and other government offices operate for only two half-days a week, the equivalence of one full day. ◾Public schools are closed on Fridays.
(2) Water shortage: Water is also being rationed. As an example, water arrives just once a week, on Thursdays, to the neighborhood of San Antonio de los Altos. But the water is a brownish color and is making people sick. Many Venezuelans say they have gotten skin irritations from showering or from the inability to bathe and wash their sheets and towels.
(3) Food shortages: ◾Last week, protests turned violent in parts of the country where demonstrators demanded empty supermarkets be resupplied. ◾Coca-Cola Femsa, the Mexican company that bottles Coke in Venezuela, said it’s halting production of sugary soft drinks because it ran out of sugar.
(4) Many people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a dispute between the government and phone companies over currency regulations and rates.
(5) There is little traffic in the capital, Caracas, because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out. Buildings downtown, including government buildings, are empty.
6) Public health crisis: People are dying in hospitals, from electric blackouts, broken medical machines (X-ray, dialysis, scanning, incubators), and chronic shortages of medicine (antibiotics, intravenous solutions), bandages, soap, gloves, beds, water (doctors preparing for surgery at the University of the Andes Hospital in Mérida clean their hands with bottles of seltzer water), and even food. Whatever supplies there are are stolen by hospital staff to sell on the black market. The government can no longer afford to buy imported medicine. Patients are asked to bring their own blankets, sheets, pillows and toilet paper. The result: the rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, from 0.02% in 2012 to to over 2% in 2015; the rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period.(Source)
Venezuela’s socialist government blames the problems on an “economic war” being waged by elites who are hoarding supplies, as well as the U.S. government’s efforts to destabilize the country.
President Nicolás Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chávez, rejected the political opposition’s call for accepting international aid and described the move as a bid to undermine him and privatize the hospital system. Instead, Maduro insisted that “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one.”
But most economists agree that Venezuela is suffering from years of economic mismanagement, including over-dependence on oil and price controls that led many businesses to stop making products. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet when oil prices were high, the government saved little money for hard times. Now, oil prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014.
Meanwhile, Sean Penn, buddy of the late Hugo Chavez, is still no where to be seen in Venezuela. He’s in France, screening his new movie, The Last Face, at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie, directed by Penn, has been booed by audiences and savaged by critics.
I get dibs on the hot chicks and the oil.
"It’s all about politicians wanting power. There is a strong group that believes in socialism and they are used by politicians as a means of hitching a ride on the corruption gravy train. If, instead of socialism, this group believed in Satanism, or some other equally crazy notion, these same politicians would be the strongest advocate for whatever type of crazy got votes. It’s about the Clinton-sized corruption once you get the job. It has nothing to do with creating utopian society or whatever the crazies say they want."
Exactly. It is, in the end, just raw power and corruption that is the source of the attractiveness of socialism to politicians.
What would a new “migrant” crisis do to the 2016 election?
Maduro is doing a fine job all by himself destabilizing the country without the help of the CIA...
Sooner or later they will see the writing on the wall. The only option is to hunt down and kill the elites. Only then will there be a chance to restore order. It's not the PC answer but it's the only way to right the cart and turn it around...
She saw all of it happen in the early Soviet Union. And was smart enough to realize that it would happen anywhere and everywhere Socialism was implemented, because the belief systems that lead adherents to adopt Socialism are always the same.
America's young people - thanks to government education - are entering into the debate completely unarmed. Thus, the superficial appeal of Bernie's "You deserve free stuff!" message is overwhelming.
I believe the top General in the Army has asked Maduro to step down...
I do think his concern is this winding up to be a military coup and lots of bloodshed battling his socialist goons (national police) for control over the country...
That illustrates it all! Too bad some Americans are too stupid to even interpret what this picture means!
The next step is to start shooting wreckers.
Print more money... Then burn it to generate electricity.
Lots of leftists look at Venezuela with glee.
They secretly love the drama, hardship and violence.
Change!! is often just a a euphemism for Destruction!!
They excel at destroying, but are terrible at building.
Exactly right. America is a richer country so it would take longer to milk it dry. Maybe add another 10-20 years before the inevitable collapse. Or, more likely, it would eventually look like Romania under Ceausescu.
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That’s it precisely. It will just take longer for America to be milked dry by the third world socialists. But it will happen. It’s inevitable and nothing can stop it.
“In a cemetery in New York State, Ayn Rand is trying to suppress a smile.”
She already saw this movie play out in Russia, long ago.
Bernie Sanders was recently asked about the failure of socialism in Venezuela.
His reply was “no comment”.
See my tagline.... :)
.
6) Public health crisis: People are dying in hospitals, from electric blackouts, broken medical machines (X-ray, dialysis, scanning, incubators), and chronic shortages of medicine (antibiotics, intravenous solutions), bandages, soap, gloves, beds, water (doctors preparing for surgery at the University of the Andes Hospital in Mérida clean their hands with bottles of seltzer water), and even food. Whatever supplies there are are stolen by hospital staff to sell on the black market. The government can no longer afford to buy imported medicine. Patients are asked to bring their own blankets, sheets, pillows and toilet paper. The result: the rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, from 0.02% in 2012 to to over 2% in 2015; the rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period.(Source)
PING!
...like Ted Kennedy to Milton Friedman.
Occurs to me they’d need to impose feudalism:
Oil and agricultural sites need be identified, secured, and operated in a truly feudal fashion. Private security forces control access and order. A designated local dictator makes decisions, largely unchallenged. Locale immigration tightly controlled. Everyone works, under a benevolent dictator.
This could transition into proper capitalism as order & productivity is normalized. The problem at this point is the enormous potential wealth available (oil industry) is too concentrated and requires too much intelligent coordinated effort which is to easily subverted by theft & vandalism. Only feudalistic imposed order can beat the anarchy back into productive order.
Alternative is complete burnout of the society, self imposed scorched earth destruction of the emerging anarchy. The USA managed a capitalistic culture in part because much land was available for the productive to work without interference; Europe being already well populated required the imposition of order and still can’t function without socialistic overtones.
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