Posted on 05/28/2017 4:53:34 AM PDT by RoosterRedux
With all of the unrest, riots and murders in Venezuela these days, it’s easy to overlook one very basic question about the abysmal conditions its citizens are enduring. Venezuela has some of the richest farmland in the western hemisphere and was a net exporter of agricultural products until very recently. How can the people be starving? That’s the question being tackled at the Washington Post this week and the answer comes down to a single source: it’s the socialism, stupid.
At a time of empty supermarkets and spreading hunger, the country’s farms are producing less and less, not more, making the caloric deficit even worse.The case of Escobar’s chicken farm is only one of thousands of such examples, but it’s an excellent one to describe the problems the farmers are facing. He had a ranch with nearly a quarter million hens in a country where people are starving to death. That would mean the opportunity of a lifetime in any free portion of the world. But the socialist regime in Venezuela has taken charge of every aspect of the food production and distribution supply chain. They determine how much Escobar will be paid for his eggs and it turns out to be a net loss for him rather than a profit. Unable to buy sufficient amounts of feed and new chicks to raise, Escobar’s farm is withering and will soon be gone.Drive around the countryside outside the capital, Caracas, and there’s everything a farmer needs: fertile land, water, sunshine and gasoline at 4 cents a gallon, cheapest in the world. Yet somehow families here are just as scrawny-looking as the city-dwelling Venezuelans waiting in bread lines or picking through garbage for scraps.
Having attempted for years to defy conventional economics, the country now faces a painful reckoning with basic arithmetic.
“Last year I had 200,000 hens,” said Saulo Escobar, who runs a poultry and hog farm here in the state of Aragua, an hour outside Caracas. “Now I have 70,000.”
Socialism/Communism. Absolutely no incentives to do anything except let the state do it for you.
...komanizm
When a government tries to operate a market system, they learn that it is simply not possible...too many moving parts that must be synchronized.
And then there are the kickbacks which become part and parcel of a system that permits government workers to reach into and interfere with production and distribution.
But the socialist regime in Venezuela has taken charge of every aspect of the food production and distribution supply chain. They determine how much Escobar will be paid for his eggs and it turns out to be a net loss for him rather than a profit. Unable to buy sufficient amounts of feed and new chicks to raise, Escobar’s farm is withering and will soon be gone.
Because I think I see a connection in how socialism is used and the cause of dumb kids coming out of school.
If anyone else sees that connection ... the starving of education or information or something like that ... I welcome the conversation.
Ironic that the question comes up as a question after the USSR, S. Africa and other socialist dictatorships....
I guess the average Venezuelan citoyen would rather be starving, than starving, fatigued, robbed and beaten up.
...and locked up.
Farming’s hard. Takes time, and make that peacetime. Time without interference, sabotage by govt, etc.
Feel the Bern...
Famine is always local
When the article is projected to America, the masses in LA can be starved out even though there are massive agricultural lands close by. That is true for pretty much all American cities.
The civil war will be won by starving the cities
Free societies are cooperative. I make shoes and trade them for your bread. You trade your bread to farmers for their raw materials. (Money, today, is the medium of exchange.)
Socialism, where farms are, ironically, organized into “cooperatives,” are societies based on force. The medium of exchange is force, not money. The starvation is a symptom that the society itself has failed. Nobody can suddenly start farming and expect to trade for money or shoes. The society will come and take whatever you have; thus the rich, productive land lies fallow. Who would waste the energy to farm when they will lose their product to the takers?
In America we have small amounts of socialism and the society mostly works. A small amount of socialism is like having an aching knee. It is painful, but you can live with it. When, however, socialism reaches a typing point it’s like all the ailments of old age inflicted on your body at once. You can’t live with that much pain.
I seem to remember (back when most teachers were not yet full-blown progressives) that a teacher or professor gave a lesson on communism by averaging all the grades in the class and giving every student the same average grade. Those who had worked hard for good grades were thus punished and the slackers were rewarded. So the hard workers slacked off, as the effort was not worth it, and the class average declined.
Would a (public) school teacher even dare to use such a lesson today? I doubt it!
It doesn't have to be an official holiday right away, people could just wear a black band and explain this is to honor the innocents who have died under leftist socialist policies, like Hillary or Bernie's. Or in the case on this post the innocents in Venezuela who were mostly defrauded at the polls and lost their freedom, their nation and then finally their lives.
There is not a single leftist socialist tyrant in history who did not build their power on a mountain of skulls.
Only because you cannot eat it.
Except that the state does not DO anything; it only gives orders!
With all the lush farmland in the USA why are 43 million people on food stamps?
The same reason Ukrainians starved in the 30’s...
Hey remember that beauty Queen Alicia Machado from Venezuela? The one who said President Trump "fat shamed" her? Well, all her time in the buffet line stateside makes a lot more sense now.
And Atlas is shrugging. Escobar needs to sell his farm and immigrate somewhere else.
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