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.”
We've all seen those piles and piles of food thrown out into the garbage. Excuse me, if they are throwing out tons and tons of food, then they aren't starving. A week ago, there was a "staving" guy pictured standing on stacks of potatoes still in burlap bags which were supposedly salvaged from the garbage. Sorry, but that's not garbage.
The guy complaining about his chickens didn't mention if his hog production has increased so we aren't getting the whole story. Perhaps he should go into the garbage collection business and truck all those free piles of food waste to his hogs and chickens.
So in a place completely capable of producing more than enough food for its citizens and their neighbors as well, farms are underutilized or sitting vacant, producing nothing.
We are constantly hearing about farmers starving. Problem is we've also seen pictures of those starving farmers' homes with bare ground around the house without a single vegetable or fruit planted. But they have a dish on their roofs. Explain that. Same with street food vendors, no home gardens. Even city dwellers and supplement their food with window and patio gardens.
And those empty store shelves? Heck, I've complained and complained on FR that our only grocery store in my dinky Texas town always has empty shelves due to poor management. Has been like this for years. If you grab the last two gallons of milk, it's a guarantee someone will ask for one of them. Half the items in the weekly sales circular were never ordered. Want fish? Then you have to set up a meeting "the guy in the back" and basically do a drug deal except for fish so when checking out the cashier and sacker make faces and say they didn't know there was any fish.
Venezuela voted for their government and are too lazy to provide for themselves. No sympathy.
Not only that.
The Gov also pays them NOT to work.
My daughter’s 6th grade teacher provided this lesson 2 years ago. It was memorable for her bc she works hard for her grades. Of course she attends a private school.
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"
Well stated !
Communism just spreads the misery among the masses, while the elites prosper.
This is important for all preppers to remember.
There is less than a weeks worth of food at ANY food establishment, some even less.
City dwellers often do not have the same level of access to grocery stores as those in the rural or suburban areas, mainly because they have run them out by thievery and violence.
After they realize that Uncle Sugar is not going to save them, hunger will push them out of boundaries they were not comfortable crossing.
Be aware.
Imagine if Zhou Enlai--who was far more a pragmatist than Mao--had ascended to power in 1964. China would have evolved more along the Soviet Union lines by the late 1960's, and it's possible that the opening of China with the outside world could have happened by the late 1960's, and great economic reforms that Deng Xiaopeng implemented in 1979-1980 would have happeened 6-7 years earlier. And there would be no Gang of Four, since Mao's wife would be out of the picture by the middle 1960's. And the Cultural Revolution would likely not have happened, either.
Unfortunately for Escobar "the people" now own his land. He still needs to move, though!
I remember being taught the evils of McCarthyism.
And today's students are not being taught that McCarthy was right 90% of the time!
That was the purpose of alerting thru the ping .. you are exactly correct.
That need to be aware is called :" Situational Awareness",
and is not limited to just what is within your field of vision.
The conditions in Venezuela are a good reminder for us all.
Exactly right.
Thanks for the ping, TIK.
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 Healthcare is sooo simple, only gov can get it right!
Same as almost any famine.
Political corruption and mismanagement.
A modern day example of PRECISELY what Ayn Rand wrote about in Atlas Shrugged!
For those who would watch, listen and pay attention, the chaos in Venezuela a teachable/learning moment!
For those who don’t watch, listen or pay attention, or who carry water/make excuses for/have been intimidated or bought off by the LIEberal/Socialist/Marxist/Fascist/Communist bastards of the world, NOTHING that happens in Venezuela will register in their fantasy world except “They did not do it right! WE can do it better! ELECT US or PUT US in charge!”
The dual Evils of Islam and Communism will sorely test the courage & will of the leaders and inhabitants of the “FRee World” in the years to come!
President Trump may be the “Shining City on the HIll’s LAST opportunity to restore FReedom to the West!
MAGA!
YUP!
That is why we should “Hope for the best and prepare for the worst!”
I thought you might find this thread interesting.
We have a missionary to Argentina in today and he said the same thing ... The people no longer have any will.
That is what happened in Puerto Rico, too!
I don’t know when it began, but when I lived there in 1989, the destruction was well underway. Puerto Rico’s recent declaration of bankruptcy was the coup de grace, i.e. “an action or event that finally ends or destroys something that has been getting weaker or worse.”
I’m with you. Government has no business getting involved with healthcare.
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