Posts Tagged ‘socialism’
Monday, February 15th, 2016
And how are things going in South America’s socialist paradise?
Venezuela’s opposition legislature has declared a “nutritional emergency,” proclaiming that the country simply does not have enough food to feed its population. The move comes after years of socialist rationing and shortages that forced millions to wait on lines lasting as long as six hours for a pint of milk, a bag of flour, or carton of cooking oil.
Opposition legislator Julio Borges announced the measure on Thursday, which would allow the legislature to push for more imports on basic food goods and inspect government-owned food companies to ensure they are meeting efficiency standards. “This will make corporations and expropriated lands produce food again, will simplify the process of national and foreign investment, and establish incentives for investors,” Borges promised.
People are fighting each other in virtually empty supermarkets to buy the little food available, and via Powerline comes word that they’re rationing electricity to shopping centers.
The problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money. And when that happens, people die. “In a hospital in the far west of this beleaguered country, the economic crisis took a grim toll in the past week: Six infants died because there wasn’t enough medicine or functioning respirators.”
Bunches of one-party Democratic cities like Detroit have managed to bankrupt themselves just on union pensions and the welfare state. If Bernie Sanders got his wish and America actually tried socialism, how well do you think such blue bastions would fare when they were finally allowed to steal people’s money with both hands?
Tags:Economics, socialism, Venezuela
Posted in Communism, Economics | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2016
While one of the two leading Democratic contenders for President openly calls for socialism, let’s check in on how one socialist paradise is doing:
The only question now is whether Venezuela’s government or economy will completely collapse first.
The key word there is “completely.” Both are well into their death throes. Indeed, Venezuela’s ruling party just lost congressional elections that gave the opposition a veto-proof majority, and it’s hard to see that getting any better for them any time soon — or ever. Incumbents, after all, don’t tend to do too well when, according to the International Monetary Fund, their economy shrinks 10 percent one year, an additional 6 percent the next, and inflation explodes to 720 percent. It’s no wonder, then, that markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future. The country is basically bankrupt.
Inflation has gotten so bad that Venezuelans are now paying more than 1000 bolivars to the dollar on the black market. Which is why the government is flying in planeloads of money. As P. J. O’Rouke said of similar hyperinflation in Nicaragua’s own socialist paradise economy: “You have to go to Moscow University two or three times to make money worth this little.”
But with the opposition party having defeated the socialists in parliamentary elections, they can turn things around, right? Well…
Socialist president Nicolas Maduro has changed the law so the opposition-controlled National Assembly can’t remove the central bank governor or appoint a new one. Not only that, but Maduro has picked someone who doesn’t even believe there’s such a thing as inflation to be the country’s economic czar. “When a person goes to a shop and finds that prices have gone up,” the new minister wrote, “they are not in the presence of ‘inflation,’ ” but rather “parasitic” businesses that are trying to push up profits as much as possible. According to this — let me be clear — “theory,” printing too much money never causes inflation. And so Venezuela will continue to do so. If past hyperinflations are any guide, this will keep going until Venezuela can’t even afford to run its printing presses anymore — unless Maduro gets kicked out first.
But for now, at least, a specter is haunting Venezuela — the specter of failed economic policies.
Philip K. Dick once noted that reality is that which, if you ignore it, doesn’t go away. Socialists may not believe in hyperinflation, but hyperinflation very much believes in socialism…
Tags:Economics, hyperinflation, Nicolas Maduro, socialism, Venezuela, Welfare State
Posted in Communism, Economics, Welfare State | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 8th, 2015
It turns out that 100% inflation, widespread repression and corruption and endemic shortages of basic consumer goods are not a recipe for electoral success:
Electoral authorities in Venezuela say the opposition coalition won a key two-thirds majority in the National Assembly in legislative voting.
The National Electoral Council has published on its website the final tally of results from Sunday’s elections showing that two previously undecided races had broken in favor of the opposition, giving them 112 out of 167 seats in the incoming National Assembly. The ruling socialist party and its allies got 55 seats.
The supermajority gives the opposition a strong hand in trying to wrest power from President Nicolas Maduro after 17 years of socialist rule. It now has the potential votes to sack Supreme Court justices, initiate a referendum to revoke Maduro’s mandate and even convoke an assembly to rewrite Hugo Chavez’s 1999 constitution.
Sooner or later, socialists always run out of other people’s money.
Though Maduro is still President, there are a lot of things the new government can do to improve the lives of their citizens:
To end food shortages, the new congress can immediately lift price controls so entrepreneurs have an incentive to produce or import. The only way to strengthen the “strong bolivar,” as the late Hugo Chávez named the currency, is to make it valuable enough for people to hold. That means lifting capital controls and ending the central bank’s multiple exchange-rate system so business can get access to dollars. On current course Venezuela will run out of international reserves and face default in 2017. Restructuring debt now with creditors would make that prospect less painful.
Which brings us to oil. Chávez used the country’s energy wealth to buy permission in Latin America—and Massachusetts; remember Joseph Kennedy’s Citgo PR campaign—for his many human-rights violations. As long as governments in the Caribbean were getting low-priced petroleum from Venezuela, they voted with the military government in Caracas at the Organization of American States.
Chávez and Mr. Maduro have also traded oil for security help from Cuba’s intelligence apparatus. Putting an end to these trades would retain more resources inside Venezuela and send a signal that the days of government repression are numbered. Meanwhile, rejoice that one of this hemisphere’s lost countries has a chance at revival.
Tags:Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy, Hugo Chavez, hyperinflation, Latin America, Nicolas Maduro, socialism, Venezuela
Posted in Communism, Economics, Elections, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
I know I should be talking about Trump or immigration or jihad, but fresh takes just aren’t occurring to me this morning. So instead, let’s just talk about newly minted Labour head Jeremy Corbyn’s freakshow of a shadow cabinet. (For those not conversant with UK political terms, the “shadow cabinet” is the cabinet of the opposition party (in this case Labour) which would (theoretically) take over if the Tories were to lose power over a no-confidence vote; since the Tories currently enjoy an absolute majority, it would take a pretty big political upheaval for this to happen before 2020.) Evidently it was quite difficult for Corbyn to even find Labour MPs willing to take positions in his shadow cabinet.
A few choice examples:
Kerry McCarthy, shadow secretary of agriculture, is a hardcore vegan, and I’m sure her absolute opposition to meat will really help Labour win back not only the British butcher industry, but also the working class white voters that used to be Labour’s largest block of support. She’s also a supporter of homeopathic medicine.
The new Shadow Chancellor (finance minister) is John McDonnell, who openly states his desire to overthrow capitalism, wants to nationalize banks, praised the IRA for it’s bomb-setting and killing activity, and has fantasized about traveling back in time to assassinate Margaret Thatcher.
Shadow defense secretary Maria Eagle’s biggest issues seem to be gay rights and opposition to mink farming, neither of which tend to weigh heavily in defense policy.
Diane Abbott, shadow secretary of state for International Development, once said that “blonde, blue-eyed Finnish girls” at London hospitals were unsuitable as nurses because they had “never met a black person before” and that “white people love playing ‘divide & rule.'”
This isn’t just a “let’s have a laugh at the expense of the far left freaks” post (fun though that may be). To a large extent, personnel is policy, and this shows how quickly extreme left-wing/Social Justice Warrior ideas can take root at the center of a major political party if they have enough adherents in the overclass. Right now, there’s no shortage of Democratic Party activist who would love to make veganism the official policy of the United States government, and as Obama appointees have shown, would not let little things like “laws” (or the lack thereof) stand in the way of implementing their extremist policies were they be placed in a position of power.
It can happen here…
Tags:Communism, Democrats, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Kerry McCarthy, Labour, Maria Eagle, Social Justice Warriors, socialism, UK, vegans
Posted in Communism, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Social Justice Warriors | No Comments »
Friday, September 11th, 2015
It’s the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and thanks to the super-genius foreign policy ofthe Obama Administration, radical Islam is more powerful than ever before!
The Islamic State attacks the Kurds with mustard gas Hey Obama: Big, bright red line here! What are you going to do about that? Nothing, eh? Just going to keep up your just-for-show pretend-war against the Islamic State?
The thermocline of truth at the Pentagon: “More than 50 intelligence analysts working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials.”
Mark Steyn: “Since I last appeared in Copenhagen, some three-quarters of those I shared the stage with that day have been shot at, firebombed or forced to retire from public life and go into hiding.”
If you hit a pedestrian in China, do you: A. Stop to render aid, B. Flee the scene or, C. Back over again to make sure they’re dead?
“The policies of Jeremy Corbyn, the old-fashioned socialist on course to be elected leader of the U.K.’s Labour Party, are wrong not because they’re left-wing, but because they’re delusional.”
Thanks to the Magic Power of Socialism(TM), in Venezuela there’s no justice like mob justice. (Hat tip Instapundit.)
Could Putin be undone by a European court rulings?
How Bush43 helped keep Russia from invading the rest of Georgia in 2008.
Islamic attack leaves leaves 30 dead in Cameroon.
Jihad kills 10 in Tajikistan, U.S. embassy shut.
“Tunisia is experiencing psychopath drain.”
Muslims riot in Rotherham. (Hat tip: Jihad Watch.)
Believe it or not, Republicans actually have the demographic edge in 2016.
Abilene cop killed in home.
This sounds super, super, super, super, super, super dumb.
After a long hibernation, Blue Dot Blue has awakened from her deathless slumbers.
Dwight has a pretty swell memorial to Oliver Sacks up.
Lawfully use your legal firearm to protect your foster kids in Nevada? Watch your kids get taken away.
Liberal writer discovers America. “I spent the night at the Chateau Motel & Liquor Store, which is a brilliant business idea that absolutely needs to come east.” #Merica (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
“Here is the only important fact versus the hyperbolic claims about aspartame and health: There’s a correlation between sugar consumption and health problems. There’s no link between artificial sweeteners and health.”
The ghost homes of Japan. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Texas most-wanted sex-offender caught.
Creeper in Williamson County:
Deputies are searching for a man that allegedly injured a 12-year-old girl at a Williamson County park over the weekend.
It happened Saturday, Sept. 5 at around 5:50 p.m. on the Rattan Creek Park Trail, west of Parmer Lane at Dallas Drive. Investigators say the girl was walking on the trail at a bridge near where two paths intersect when she was approached by an adult male from the south. The Sheriff’s Office says he made several comments regarding the child’s beauty, saying she appeared older than she was, and asked various questions about her and any companions.
The suspect grabbed the child by the arm, tight enough to cause minor injury. He let go when one of the child’s friends approached them, and walked away from the trail, heading north into the woods, investigators say.
The subject was described as a white male, approximately 6’0″, with a slim to medium build, short brown hair, and believed to be in his late 30s. He was last seen wearing a white tank top, blue jeans, and had a large tattoo (possibly Old English text) on his left shoulder, extending down to his chest. The suspect was described as having unusually long fingernails.
If this suspect is observed in the area, you are asked to call the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office Detective Jason Waldon at (512) 244-8631 or jwaldon@wilco.org or after hours (512) 864-8302.
Read More at: http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/Deputies-Searching-For-Man-That-Injured-Child-At-WilCo-Park-202903.shtml
Keep an eye out…
The Shooter in Her Cooter.
Tags:9/11 Attacks, Abilene, Austin, Blue Dot Blues, Cameroon, Democrats, Dwight Brown, Guns, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Japan, Jeremy Corbyn, Jihad, Kurds, Mark Steyn, Media Watch, Oliver Sacks, Rotherham, Russia, science, socialism, Tajikistan, Tunisia, UK, Venuzuala, Vladimir Putin, Williamson County
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 4th, 2015
Thanks to the Magic Power of #Socialism™, in Venezuela a 36-pack of condoms now costs as much as an iPhone:
Venezuelans who already must line up for hours to buy chicken, sugar, medicines and other basic products in short supply now face a new indignity: Condoms are hard to find and nearly impossible to afford….
On the auction website MercadoLibre, used by Venezuelans to obtain scarce goods, a 36-pack of Trojans sells for 4,760 bolivars ($755 at the official exchange rate), close to the country’s minimum monthly wage of 5,600 bolivars.
It take a special kind of socialist magic to make your people too poor to have sex.
In other Venezuela news:
The Maduro government has seized a supermarket chain. I’m sure that will do wonders to make more basic goods available to people.
They’re also arrested pharmacy owners for “conspiring” to create long lines out their stores. Maybe Maduro thinks business owners can conjure hard currency out of their own asses.
Interview with opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
One wonders if The Road to Serfdom or Economics in One lesson have ever been translated into Spanish…
Tags:condoms, Economics, Foreign Policy, Henrique Capriles, hyperinflation, Nicolas Maduro, socialism, Venezuela
Posted in Communism, Economics, Foreign Policy | No Comments »
Sunday, January 25th, 2015
Greece’s far left-wing Syriza Party has won a big victory there, claiming about half the seats in Parliament.
What does it mean? I took a stab at analyzing it before. Even with a majority, there’s a good chance Syriza will have to continue meeting the EU’s demands (which means pretending to impose austerity measures) if they want mean old Aunt Angela to keep loaning them money. Remember: Greece has never practiced real austerity. Not once since the European Debt Crisis hit has Greece balanced its budget, and its deficit for 2014 was 12.2% of GDP.
But even the fake austerity imposed has been too much for the Greek people, who collectively want a cushy welfare state but don’t want to pay the sky-high taxes required to pay for it. Promising people something for nothing has been the left’s popular electoral strategy for more than a century, but reality can only be held off for so long. Germany is not due for a federal election, so it’s entirely possible Merkel might still underwrite another bailout or two if Syriza is willing to continue the farce. A Greece shorn of the Euro would still be broke and badly in debt, and newly Drachma-backed securities would likely be toxic investments for all but the most speculative of bond traders. (Perhaps Syriza should investigate how well that printing money thing is working out for Venezuela.) “Forgive our debts or we won’t let you give us more loans!” is a proposition Merkel would probably find quite easy to refuse, and I suspect the risk of a Greek exit from the Euro is already priced into European markets. If Syriza insists on anything more than (possibly) a token debt haircut, the EU will probably be willing to call their bluff.
It’s generally best for the driver of a 1974 Ford Pinto to avoid engaging in a game of chicken with a Tiger tank…
Tags:Angela Merkel, European Debt Crisis, Foreign Policy, Germany, Greece, PIIGS, socialism, Syriza, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Communism, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »
Thursday, January 22nd, 2015
It was about time to do another update on Venezuela’s failing socialist economy when I dropped by Hot Air and saw that Ed Morrissey had already done all the heavy lifting for me:
“The currency in what should be the richest country in South America has collapsed, as well as its economy, under the dual weight of falling crude prices and the Chavista socialism that has been choking the country for more than a decade.”
More:
Venezuela’s Chavista policies have always ignored economic reality. Socialism is a fantasy economic system, especially as implemented by Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
The difference between Venezuela and the nanny-state petro-economy in Norway is that the latter preserves itself by respecting private property and foreign investment. From the beginning, Hugo Chavez attacked both, nationalizing oil production and criminalizing private investors as part of his “Bolivarian” revolution. When it did that, it chased off the talent needed to run oil production and the investment needed for all other kinds of goods and services. For a short period of time, their oil revenue allowed it to succeed in ignorance. When that failed, Chavez and now Maduro reacted to those predictable consequences by predictably imposing all sorts of rationing mechanisms which only decreased incentives for production and investment, especially in the legitimate economy. Now that the price of oil has collapsed, so has the official Venezuelan economy — and a populace used to a high standard of living now endures massive shortages and ever-increasing oppression to cover it up.
Morrissey, in turn, quotes a big chunk of this Matt O’Brien piece in the Washington Post:
Venezuela’s government is running a 14 percent of gross domestic product deficit right now, a fiscal hole so big that there’s only one way to fill it: the printing press. But that just traded one economic problem—too little money—for the opposite one. After all, paying people with newly-printed money only makes that money lose value, and prices go parabolic. It’s no wonder then that Venezuela’s inflation rate is officially 64 percent, is really something like 179 percent, and could get up to 1,000 percent, according to Bank of America, if Venezuela doesn’t change its byzantine currency controls.
What he said. Er, both of them.
Tags:Budget, hyperinflation, inflation, oil industry, socialism, Venezuela, Welfare State
Posted in Budget, Communism, Welfare State | No Comments »
Monday, January 19th, 2015
Enjoy a Monday LinkSwarm to get your week started:
Police conduct anti-terrorism raids in Germany, Belgium and France. Could this be the start of a real effort to halt Islamic extremism in Europe? I rather doubt it. Too many leftist parties across Europe need Muslim votes, and European elites still seem implacably hostile to the Euroskeptic parties pushing for an end to unlimited Muslim immigration.
Old and Busted: Never again! The New Hotness: More dead Jews? Meh.
The late Anwar al-Awlaki was good at two things: drawing up plans to kill innocent people in the name of Islam, and banging skanky whores.
The Prime Minister of France: “I refuse to use this term ‘Islamophobia,’ because those who use this word are trying to invalidate any criticism at all of Islamist ideology.” (Hat tip: JihadWatch.)
More from France’s PM on the new antisemitism:
“There is a new anti-Semitism in France,” he told me. “We have the old anti-Semitism, and I’m obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now.”
In discussing the attacks on French synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses this summer, during the Gaza war, he said, “It is legitimate to criticize the politics of Israel. This criticism exists in Israel itself. But this is not what we are talking about in France. This is radical criticism of the very existence of Israel, which is anti-Semitic. There is an incontestable link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Behind anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism.”
Michael Totten quotes the late Christopher Hitchens. on the jihadist opinion of the current controversy: “Carving up grandfathers and granddaughters with an axe on New Year’s Eve can be okay if it’s done to protect the reputation of a seventh century Arabian man who heard voices.”
Bobby Jindal: “Islam has a problem.”
“Victimology is the language and currency of our politics.”
All those Harvard professors supporting ObamaCare are shocked to discover they’re paying for it.
“In 2009, 76 Democrats represented primarily white working-class congressional districts. Just 15 of them are still in the House today.”
A majority of the GOP gains since then have come from the Democrats’ near-total collapse in one set of districts: the largely blue-collar places in which the white share of the population exceeds the national average, and the portion of whites with at least a four-year college degree is less that the national average. While Republicans held a 20-seat lead in the districts that fit that description in the 111th Congress, the party has swelled that advantage to a crushing 125 seats today. That 105-seat expansion of the GOP margin in these districts by itself accounts for about three-quarters of the 136-seat swing from the Democrats’ 77-seat majority in 2009 to the 59-seat majority Republicans enjoy in the Congress convening now.
“It was not merely Democratic politicians who were wiped out in November. A plethora of liberal shibboleths were also massacred.”
Virginia voters won’t let a little thing like pleading guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor prevent him from regaining his seat in the House of Delegates. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
How big is Texas?
Three myths about Medicaid expansion. I hope that Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick understand that we didn’t elect them to cave in on ObamaCare…
Are your tweets University of Indiana-approved, comrade? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Feminism’s empathy gap. Or the Shanley Kanes of the world reject the experiences of women that don’t fit their preferred victimhood narrative…
How a Global Warming true believer became a skeptic.
10 bodies, 11 severed heads found in Mexico.
Pictures of empty Venezuelan store shelves, as Socialism continue to work its usual magic.
Liberal California billionaire Tom Steyer may run for the senate. Hopefully he’ll have the same luck as the politicians he donated to in 2014…
Only found out recently that Death by Government and genocide/democide expert R. J. Rummel died March 2, 2014.
Conservatives win several rule fights in the Texas House.
Rick Perry’s farewell address.
Gregg Abbott’s inauguration will have 4 tons of brisket. Or, as we call it in Texas, “an appetizer.”
Times when climbing down a chimney is a good idea: Your name is “Santa Claus.” Otherwise? Not so much.
A cure for cracked winter hands.
“My personality is as spartan as a Danish furniture catalog, why can’t yours be the same?” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
American Sniper kills at the box office:
Tags:American Sniper, Anwar al-Awlaki, Belgium, Bobby Jindal, Democrats, feminism, France, genocide, Germany, Global Warming, Islam, Jihad, LinkSwarm, Medicaid, Mexico, ObamaCare, Paris, R. J. Rummel, Republicans, Rick Perry, socialism, technology, Texas, Venuzuala
Posted in Communism, Democrats, Global Warming, Jihad, ObamaCare, Republicans, Texas, Waste and Fraud | No Comments »
Thursday, December 11th, 2014
There’s been a lot of talk of how low oil prices are screwing Russia, but Venezuela is, if anything, more screwed thanks to the Magic Power of Socialism™:
U.S. currency is vital to Venezuela, which imports as much as 80% of what it consumes; 96% of its exports are petroleum products…In effect, the one-third decline in the price of oil means that the state oil company must either raise or divert enough production because Venezuela effectively owes China 67 million barrels of oil, roughly 27 million more than it did before, for this loan alone. And there are billions of dollars in other loans to consider.
And the outlook for the immediate future is equally grim:
Venezuela’s economy is expected to contract in 2014 and 2015, and even though it’s already recognized as the 14th least competitive economy in the world (according to the World Economic Forum) and the eighth-worst economy for doing business (according to The World Bank), [President Nicolas] Maduro’s laws seem to discourage private investments even more. The new laws reinforce bureaucracy and the difficulty of doing business in the country, particularly in the area of taxes.
“Increasing numbers of low-income Venezuelans are souring on Maduro as they suffer a declining economy, the highest inflation in the Americas, chronic shortages of basic goods and one of the world’s highest murder rates.”
If Venezuela’s economy collapses, they might take Cuba down with them, since the Castro brothers are so heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil subsidies to prop up their own moribund economy.
Compounding Venezuela’s crises is the fact that it’s probably going to default on its bonds. So they’re finally reaching the point in socialism where the run out of other people’s money. Next to that singular problem, U.S. sanctions on government Venezuelan officials for killing protestors are a trivial irritation…
Tags:Cuba, Economics, Foreign Policy, hyperinflation, inflation, Nicolas Maduro, socialism, Venezuela
Posted in Budget, Communism, Foreign Policy, Welfare State | No Comments »