Venezuela 10-04-16
Related:
WE MAY BE RUNNING DOGS, BUT WE’VE GOT TOILET PAPER SEPTEMBER 28, 2016 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at POWERLINE
We have chronicled the agonizing decline of Venezuela into socialist decay over the last couple of years. As poverty has deepened, Western news agencies have taken notice of Venezuela’s symptoms, if not, usually, the cause of that country’s disease. CNN Money reports on middle-class Venezuelans who come to the United States to stock up on basics they can’t buy at home:
Carmen Mendoza came to New York to visit her daughter Anabella — and also to buy toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, beans, corn flour, tuna fish, mayonnaise and aspirin.
Mendoza, 66, can’t find these basic goods in her home country: Venezuela.
Socialism, hailed as the way of the future through most of the 20th century, is a system that can’t produce toilet paper.
Just half a block away from her daughter’s Brooklyn apartment, a new Whole Foods (WFM) recently opened and Anabella told her mom check it out. Mendoza fought back tears when she saw fully stocked food shelves and lush vegetables and fruits, a rare sight in Venezuela today. …
“Even though the kids are so innocent, they keep asking me every time we go to the supermarket, ‘Why aren’t aisles of the supermarket in Venezuela like this?'” says Chang, a Venezuelan restaurant owner of Chinese descent.
There actually is an answer to that question, but, while CNN’s story refers to a “deep economic recession,” “severe food and medical shortages,” and how “badly the country is being managed,” CNN never mentions the words “socialism” or “socialist.” So Bernie Sanders fans, and Democrats generally, presumably can read about Venezuela and be none the wiser.
Venezuela’s socialist government has resorted to printing money, as failing despots generally do, with the result that everyone’s savings have been wiped out. At the same time, violent crime is out of control. (To be fair, some of it is perpetrated by the Maduro regime.)
[T]he value of their income has been decimated by Venezuela’s skyrocketing inflation. This year alone, the IMF forecasts inflation will rise over 700% in Venezuela. The country’s government doesn’t provide reliable data. No matter how much salaries go up, prices go up faster.
Mendoza once dreamed she would be retired by this point in her life. But having had her home robbed twice and savings depleted, she must keep working. …
In her free time, Mendoza often accompanies her 25-year old son, protesting in the streets against the government and dodging tear gas bombs police fire at her.
“There isn’t any place in Caracas where you feel safe,” she says.
What will she miss most about New York when she returns to Venezuela this week? “I will miss walking in the streets because you can’t do it there,” Mendoza says.
Comprehensive societal collapse: it is the end point of socialism, wherever it is tried.
Carmen Mendoza came to New York to visit her daughter Anabella — and also to buy toilet paper, soap, toothpaste, beans, corn flour, tuna fish, mayonnaise and aspirin.
Mendoza, 66, can’t find these basic goods in her home country: Venezuela.
Socialism, hailed as the way of the future through most of the 20th century, is a system that can’t produce toilet paper.
Just half a block away from her daughter’s Brooklyn apartment, a new Whole Foods (WFM) recently opened and Anabella told her mom check it out. Mendoza fought back tears when she saw fully stocked food shelves and lush vegetables and fruits, a rare sight in Venezuela today. …
“Even though the kids are so innocent, they keep asking me every time we go to the supermarket, ‘Why aren’t aisles of the supermarket in Venezuela like this?'” says Chang, a Venezuelan restaurant owner of Chinese descent.
There actually is an answer to that question, but, while CNN’s story refers to a “deep economic recession,” “severe food and medical shortages,” and how “badly the country is being managed,” CNN never mentions the words “socialism” or “socialist.” So Bernie Sanders fans, and Democrats generally, presumably can read about Venezuela and be none the wiser.
Venezuela’s socialist government has resorted to printing money, as failing despots generally do, with the result that everyone’s savings have been wiped out. At the same time, violent crime is out of control. (To be fair, some of it is perpetrated by the Maduro regime.)
[T]he value of their income has been decimated by Venezuela’s skyrocketing inflation. This year alone, the IMF forecasts inflation will rise over 700% in Venezuela. The country’s government doesn’t provide reliable data. No matter how much salaries go up, prices go up faster.
Mendoza once dreamed she would be retired by this point in her life. But having had her home robbed twice and savings depleted, she must keep working. …
In her free time, Mendoza often accompanies her 25-year old son, protesting in the streets against the government and dodging tear gas bombs police fire at her.
“There isn’t any place in Caracas where you feel safe,” she says.
What will she miss most about New York when she returns to Venezuela this week? “I will miss walking in the streets because you can’t do it there,” Mendoza says.
Comprehensive societal collapse: it is the end point of socialism, wherever it is tried.
Praise from John Hinderaker at Powerline *UPDATE*
Oct. 6, 2016 -John Hinderaker and the good folks at Powerline have been reporting on the travesty that is Venezuela. Today, John published this:
"We have written often about Venezuela’s long decline into poverty and chaos, here, here and elsewhere. Among the country’s many humiliations is the fact that its socialist economy can neither produce nor buy toilet paper. It is, I think, a fitting image of the last days of socialism.
Michael Ramirez has, I think, been reading Power Line, and he has created this marvelous image of the fruits of socialism. [see toilet paper roll image below]
Many reporters cover the calamities in Venezuela with a air of puzzlement, seemingly having no clue has to why that once-rich country has plunged into poverty. One clueless New York Times reporter even suggested that Venezuela’s poverty is a function of the government not having enough money to run its printing presses fast enough to keep up with inflation! Ramirez is under no such illusions. He places blame squarely where it belongs, on Bernie Sanders-style socialism."
*All of us here at Michael P. Ramirez read Powerline every day for some of the very best opinion and news.
"We have written often about Venezuela’s long decline into poverty and chaos, here, here and elsewhere. Among the country’s many humiliations is the fact that its socialist economy can neither produce nor buy toilet paper. It is, I think, a fitting image of the last days of socialism.
Michael Ramirez has, I think, been reading Power Line, and he has created this marvelous image of the fruits of socialism. [see toilet paper roll image below]
Many reporters cover the calamities in Venezuela with a air of puzzlement, seemingly having no clue has to why that once-rich country has plunged into poverty. One clueless New York Times reporter even suggested that Venezuela’s poverty is a function of the government not having enough money to run its printing presses fast enough to keep up with inflation! Ramirez is under no such illusions. He places blame squarely where it belongs, on Bernie Sanders-style socialism."
*All of us here at Michael P. Ramirez read Powerline every day for some of the very best opinion and news.
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