Free Republic

Venezuela will remove five zeroes from the bolivar currency rather than the three zeroes originally planned, President Nicolas Maduro said on Wednesday, in an effort to keep up with inflation projected to reach 1 million percent this year. The OPEC nation’s economy has been steadily collapsing since the 2014 crash of oil prices left it unable to maintain its socialist economic system that for years provided lavish subsidies while enforcing strict price controls. Annual inflation in June topped 46,000 percent, according to the opposition-run Congress. The IMF said this week it could hit seven digits this year, putting it on...

Around the world, nations that have been foolish enough to adopt socialist policies either collapsed or well on their way to doing so. Why, then, are so many in the U.S. enthralled with the idea? Countries in direst economic shape have one thing in common: They rely on top-down socialist control to run their economies. There are no long-term socialist success stories. None. France, for instance, elected a socialist, Francois Hollande, as president in 2012. Today, France suffers a 10.3% jobless rate and 25% youth unemployment. Growth is less than 1%. Brazil impeached Socialist President Dilma Rousseff for corruption, but...