Posted on 08/03/2007 2:52:40 PM PDT by george76
Robert G. Mugabe has ruled over this battered nation, his every wish endorsed by Parliament and enforced by the police and soldiers, for more than 27 years. It appears, however, that not even an unchallenged autocrat can repeal the laws of supply and demand.
One month after Mr. Mugabe decreed just that, commanding merchants nationwide to counter 10,000-percent-a-year hyperinflation by slashing prices in half and more, Zimbabwe’s economy is at a halt.
Bread, sugar and cornmeal, staples of every Zimbabwean’s diet, have vanished, seized by mobs who denuded stores like locusts in wheat fields. Meat is virtually nonexistent, even for members of the middle class who have money to buy it on the black market. Gasoline is nearly unobtainable. Hospital patients are dying for lack of basic medical supplies. Power blackouts and water cutoffs are endemic.
Manufacturing has slowed to a crawl because few businesses can produce goods for less than their government-imposed sale prices. Raw materials are drying up because suppliers are being forced to sell to factories at a loss. Businesses are laying off workers or reducing their hours.
The chaos, however, seems to have done little to undermine Mr. Mugabe’s authority. To the contrary, the government is moving steadily toward a takeover of major sectors of the economy that have not already been nationalized.
“We are at war,” one of Mr. Mugabe’s vice presidents, Joseph Msika, said in a speech on July 18. “We will not allow shelves to be empty.”
His June 26 decree, much of which was later enacted into law, was draconian: businesses were ordered to reduce their prices by about 50 percent. Shop owners who refused to comply would be jailed. Stores that closed or refused to restock goods would be taken over by the government.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Not so long as the Commies are running the schools.
Here is the kicker. Mugabe’s government will eventually collapse and he and his apostles will retire to France with billions.
And so it proceeds like clockwork. The current ruling class is literally running out of things to steal and hence will turn on itself squabbling over the ever-diminishing loot.
This is socialism's final victory. The middle class has been assassinated, leaving masters and slaves. It isn't difficult to guess who will starve first.
The people are starving and there's nothing the U.S. can do to help them. Any aid sent would go directly to Mugabe and his henchmen.
The masses aren't able to revolt when they don't even have food. I don't know if there is an answer to this situation, either external or internal.
Handouts is whats keeping this thing from imploding. Handouts from expatriates, from the UN, from donations elsewhere, and so on. Maybe this could go on indefinitely, although it might just end when the lunatic dies. After all, hes over 80.
Like Mexicans, they are getting money from Zimbabweans in South Africa. People’s ingenuity to survive should not be underestimated.
Coming to Venezula soon. Chavez is a Mugabe wannabe.
Cooperation and profit, not existing goods, are wealth. The stock of existing goods in any country will not last a month without the real underlying basis. This government does not grok, and thinks it can print wealth when it prints money, and that nefarious enemies are the only thing stopping it from doing so. We have seen it all before a dozen times, and it ends in collectivization and slaughter.
Nobody having the stones for this, the people can either take matters into their own hands and do it themselves internally, or they can simply get up and walk to a sane country and leave Mugabe alone with his goons, commanding the tides to turn back. The world can sustain the people in refugee camps over the border until his pretend government collapses.
Whip Inflation Now!
The price of the buttons went up during Ford’s administration.
Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!
I'm sure the suffering is dreadful, but we should not lift a finger to prevent the coming catastrophe. The worse for Zimbabwe, the better for the rest of the world. Nothing is more important to the well-being of the human race than snuffing out the last vestiges of Marxism, collectivism, and populism once and for all.Well said!!!
:’D
It’s funny how the “have nots” always just happen to live in single party state dictatorships.
Can’t be a coincidence.
Must be capitalist oppression.
South Africa would be the logical choice to do something, but SA is not far behind Z in being screwed up. Sure am glad they got the racist regimes they wanted.
And so it proceeds like clockwork. The current ruling class is literally running out of things to steal and hence will turn on itself squabbling over the ever-diminishing loot... isn't difficult to guess who will starve first.Bingo.
Weapons are controlled by the state.
The money is worthless, so it’s a division by zero error, or somethin’. :’) I’ve actually known someone from Zimbabwe. He fled a few years before I met him, and he was pretty circumspect and reasonable in what he said about Mugabe, but was sure that it was only a matter of time. That was five years ago, when the situation was much better than now. :’) Wonder what he’s thinking now?
Final disposition of the last of the food will come precipitously; normally we can go three minutes without air, three days without water, and three weeks without food, but much of the population probably hasn’t been eating that well for a while.
My prediction is that Europe will step in.
Oh, and the US will be blamed for paying too much attention to Somalia and not enough to Zimbabwe.
In the meantime, the Moslems’ slaughter, maiming, and enslavement of non-Moslems will continue in Sudan.
And Libya will pursue its vilification campaign against Bulgaria (but not “Palestine” apparently) over those nurses held illegally for eight years.
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