Posted on 05/30/2016 5:14:40 AM PDT by HomerBohn
We are witnessing someting unprecedented in our life time: An entire country, Venezuela, is shutting down before our eyes.
Here’s the latest on the increasingly desperate situation in Venezuela, from The New York Times, May 28, 2016:
(1) Electric blackouts: Electricity is being rationed. To save electricity: ◾Courts and other government offices operate for only two half-days a week, the equivalence of one full day. ◾Public schools are closed on Fridays.
(2) Water shortage: Water is also being rationed. As an example, water arrives just once a week, on Thursdays, to the neighborhood of San Antonio de los Altos. But the water is a brownish color and is making people sick. Many Venezuelans say they have gotten skin irritations from showering or from the inability to bathe and wash their sheets and towels.
(3) Food shortages: ◾Last week, protests turned violent in parts of the country where demonstrators demanded empty supermarkets be resupplied. ◾Coca-Cola Femsa, the Mexican company that bottles Coke in Venezuela, said it’s halting production of sugary soft drinks because it ran out of sugar.
(4) Many people cannot make international calls from their phones because of a dispute between the government and phone companies over currency regulations and rates.
(5) There is little traffic in the capital, Caracas, because so few people, either for lack of money or work, are going out. Buildings downtown, including government buildings, are empty.
6) Public health crisis: People are dying in hospitals, from electric blackouts, broken medical machines (X-ray, dialysis, scanning, incubators), and chronic shortages of medicine (antibiotics, intravenous solutions), bandages, soap, gloves, beds, water (doctors preparing for surgery at the University of the Andes Hospital in Mérida clean their hands with bottles of seltzer water), and even food. Whatever supplies there are are stolen by hospital staff to sell on the black market. The government can no longer afford to buy imported medicine. Patients are asked to bring their own blankets, sheets, pillows and toilet paper. The result: the rate of death among babies under a month old increased more than a hundredfold in public hospitals run by the Health Ministry, from 0.02% in 2012 to to over 2% in 2015; the rate of death among new mothers in those hospitals increased by almost five times in the same period.(Source)
Venezuela’s socialist government blames the problems on an “economic war” being waged by elites who are hoarding supplies, as well as the U.S. government’s efforts to destabilize the country.
President Nicolás Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chávez, rejected the political opposition’s call for accepting international aid and described the move as a bid to undermine him and privatize the hospital system. Instead, Maduro insisted that “I doubt that anywhere in the world, except in Cuba, there exists a better health system than this one.”
But most economists agree that Venezuela is suffering from years of economic mismanagement, including over-dependence on oil and price controls that led many businesses to stop making products. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, yet when oil prices were high, the government saved little money for hard times. Now, oil prices have collapsed — they are around a third what they were in 2014.
Meanwhile, Sean Penn, buddy of the late Hugo Chavez, is still no where to be seen in Venezuela. He’s in France, screening his new movie, The Last Face, at the Cannes Film Festival. The movie, directed by Penn, has been booed by audiences and savaged by critics.
Of course they only have to look at America's largest cities to see what socialism and catering to perverts has created.
What is so disconcerting is that our young people are taught in school that socialism is glorious, and an ideal to be sought after. They are never taught the perils and the eventual outcome of such thinking. I certainly agree–the Democrat party, and to a large degree the Republicans have been complicit in fostering socialistic ideals . . . much to the peril of upcoming generations of Americans (and Canadians.)
“Fairness and equality” do seem to produce shortages, rationing, and the government blaming everyone but themselves even though they demanded or forcibly took the means of production and distribution.
Socialism's collapse...the same system the old idiot Sanders wants to impose on the USA. Hope somebody saves us from this Loon!
Their reply would be that they are more educated and can make socialism work since those in power in Venezuela don’t know how to run it.
Venezuela’s underclass has grown enough that they cannot reduce their welfare state (price-controlled, subsidized goods for the poor) without the underclass erupting in riots.
I fear there is no solution which does not involve bloodshed. And, no, allowing their underclass to migrate here would just delay the bloodshed, and have it happen in OUR cities.
We will soon have a “Somalia” in this hemisphere.
In a cemetery in New York State, Ayn Rand is trying to suppress a smile.
Lufthansa announced yesterday it is discontinuing its three flights per week to VZ.
“If all Democrats, and particularly Bernie and Hitlery could only use their brains and see what happens when socialism and those idiots who espouse this stupidity would only pay attention to the plight of Venezuela. “
It’s all about politicians wanting power. There is a strong group that believes in socialism and they are used by politicians as a means of hitching a ride on the corruption gravy train. If, instead of socialism, this group believed in Satanism, or some other equally crazy notion, these same politicians would be the strongest advocate for whatever type of crazy got votes. It’s about the Clinton-sized corruption once you get the job. It has nothing to do with creating utopian society or whatever the crazies say they want.
The Castro brothers don’t have to worry now that the fruitcake has ‘normalized’ relations in order to boost their economy and avoid failure.
I wonder if there is any way to turn this around. The corruption seems to run so deep that even a Trump sort of candidate would have no chance there.
Much of their middle class has been arriving here for years; like Cuba 50+ years ago, they leave behind a darker-complexioned, poorer, less literate country...
He said something about supporting Bernie. I said, he’z a socialist...have you seen the condition of Venezuela?
He switched the conversation toward the, uh uh libertarian party. Who's that guy running for libertarian. I told him it was Gary Johnson. This fella wants to support Bernie, but was afraid to engage the conversation, knowing full well I was about to scramble his eggs.
It is already turned around
the problem is so great there can be no return to a prior condition.
the question what will emerge?
the only good news is that it probably won’t be communism
Ayn Rand was amazingly prophetic....this is right out of “Atlas Shrugged”.
Can’t imagine why the military hasn’t demanded that Maduro step down.
Venezuela is falling faster than Sean Penn’s career.
Their reply would be that they are more educated and can make socialism work since those in power in Venezuela don’t know how to run it.
Like the Swedes. We should follow the Swedish system.
Per Wikipedia:
Sweden has a progressive income tax, the rates for 2014 are as follows:
0% from 0 kr to 18,800 kr (~0 – 2,690 USD)
Circa 31% (ca. 7% county and 24% municipality tax): from 18,800 kr to 433,900 kr (~2,690 – 62,140 USD)
31% + 20%: from 433,900 kr to 615,700 kr (~62,140 – 88,180 USD)
31% + 25%: above 615,700 kr (88,180 USD and up)[4]
Plus 30% social security tax, plus 25% VAT tax. Everybody ready to sign up?
Oh and capital gains tax is 30%.
They do know that capitalism is needed to fuel a socialist system so corporate income tax is 15%.
Their reply would be that they are more educated and can make socialism work since those in power in Venezuela don’t know how to run it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.