1300 or so words and not once did they say the 'S' word. Either of them (Socialism, Socialist).
Posted on 09/04/2017 6:24:05 PM PDT by Bon mots
CARACAS, Venezuela — Food shortages were already common in Venezuela, so Tabata Soler knew painfully well how to navigate the country’s black market stalls to get basics like eggs and sugar.
But then came a shortage she couldn’t fix: Suddenly, there was no propane gas for sale to do the cooking.
And so for several nights this summer, Ms. Soler prepared dinner above a makeshift fire of broken wooden crates set ablaze with kerosene to feed her extended family of 12.
“There was no other option,” said Ms. Soler, a 37-year-old nurse, while scouting again for gas for her stove. “We went back to the past where we cooked soup with firewood.”
To read more, visit the NY Times...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Quite amazing how the New York Times can write over 1300 words on the collapse of Venezuela and not once mention the word “SOCIALISM”.
It’s almost as if that word had to be somehow eliminated from the collective vocabulary when it comes to all things about Venezuela as a failed state - what was once the model for Bernie Sanders and his bernouts.
>>Ms. Soler prepared dinner above a makeshift fire of broken wooden crates set ablaze with kerosene
Doesn’t she care about saving the Erf? Her CO2 emissions are going to destroy the wealthy people’s homes on the coast!
Could be worse. In North Korea they have to decide: Should I put it in the fire or in the pot?
Starnesville ping.
We should offer to send them Bernie Sanders - he’s the one who knows how to make socialism work, right?
I remember when a cord of wood was about $35. Boy does that seem long ago now.
I bought up some extra charcoal when WM overbought. Great price. They were doing end-of-season sales on their propane (good for regular cooking) - but could not quite pull it off. Still there might have been a way. I still need to look.
They’re eating cats in Caracas.
Every American professor should have to spend a year in Venezuela.
The closest they come to any attempt at an explanation appears in paragraph 23:
Many economists trace the inflation to problems at the state oil company.No mention of the nationalization of foreign oil company capital assets in 2010.As the company's production declined, it became increasingly dependent on the outside world, depending on foreign companies to pump oil and even on the United States for the crude oil used in refining. Now the use of these foreign contractors is generating steep bills at a time when the company has little income to pay them.
No mention of the oddity of a nation that is one of the most oil-rich in the world having to import "crude oil used in refining" from the United States.
I guess the New York Times sees that as too obvious to mention, although obviousness doesn't usually inhibit them.
I do note the use of the superfluous words "used in refining" in that sentence about importing crude from the US.
It's as if they feel a little guilty about pointing out such an embarrassing fact, and want to let Venezuela off the hook a little bit by making it sound like "crude oil used in refining" is some sort of special stuff that may have to be imported from elsewhere to an oil-rich country.
Socialism is their fake religion. They believe it and when it fails cognitive dissonance kicks in to save them.
This is the same newspaper that in the 1930’s told us lifein the Soviet Union was fine, and there was no genocide going on in Ukraine.
There’s only one solution: more socialism!
Why don’t all those celebrities send donations down there? They are not helping folks in Houston so why don’t they help the Venezuelans.
I posted a story here some time ago that said the rich people there are doing fine and have nice, fully-stocked grocery stores much like Central Market, Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. I can’t put my hand on it right now.
Long term weight goals can be met by voting Socialist
It is remarkable to observe. An economy as robust as Venezuela's used to be takes a great deal of stubborn, systematic damage over time to be brought as low as it has, and they've managed it. Every single step along the way was a product of Chavez's socialismo. The expropriations of private property, the nationalizations of corporate property, the tinkering with taxation, the printing of money (until they ran out of money to pay for the paper), the rationing, the insistence on a command economy while the demand economy was staggering, and the death blows in the form of inflation and the government's stubborn refusal to bend its ideological policies in response to the clear evidence of the real world. Maddening to watch, because by the time anyone admits that the past has been full of failure, which they are yet to do, the situation is irrecoverable.
There is a true economy - it is the black market economy and it is Venezuela's only lifeline at the present time. A police state of sufficient rigor and brutality can suppress even that, (excepting those portions that bribe the state), and the Venezuelans have expert Cuban consultants who are hard at work in that regard. This is a long way from its end state, however tragic and unnecessary it is at the moment. If Zimbabwe's model holds, Maduro will soon demand international money with his own people as hostages: "pay me or watch them starve." In Zimbabwe, it worked.
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