Recently the NYT published two major articles on the crisis in Venezuela. Never once did the newspaper blame the crisis on socialism, but rather on “misguided policies.” Not mentioned as “misguided policies:” widespread nationalizations of industry, massive public housing schemes, heavily subsidized food and household products, “free” healthcare. Francis Menton in the Manhattan Contrarian explains […]
Venezuela Rich with the World’s Largest Oil Resources
At The American Conservative, Pat Buchanan makes clear that the Venezuelan crisis is not one the U.S. should be involved in militarily. The country has vast oil wealth, and its government poses no imminent threat to America or Americans. Pat writes (abridged): “The brutal repression of the Venezuelan people must end, and it must end […]
America Needs to Heed the Wonders of Socialism
How can it be? Venezuela, once the richest country in South America, is now famous for malnourished children, starving adults and spreading disease. As the world looks on with horror, warns Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the WSJ, the real problem is ideological. It’s a lesson Americans need to heed. Socialism in Venezuela whipped up envy […]
Venezuela: What Cato’s Ted Galen Carpenter Concludes
At The American Conservative, Cato Institute senior fellow, Ted Galen Carpenter, explains that “it is not the proper role of the United States to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela or Nicaragua. He rules out the idea of military intervention, but also says sanctions would be inappropriate. But Galen Carpenter doesn’t spare supporters of […]
Bernie Sanders Covering for Communists in Venezuela
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the presidential aspirant and cranky socialist from Vermont, refuses to call Venezuela’s President Nicolas Madura a dictator, despite the political repression in the country. Sanders maintains that there are “still democratic operations taking place in that country.” Instead, he chose to deflect. Fox News reports: “Why have you stopped short of calling […]
A Cyber-attack Didn’t Take Down Venezuela’s Power Grid, Socialism Did
Rolling blackouts have plagued Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, since February, and longer blackouts have been the norm more recently. The government and even Russia have blamed the blackouts on a cyber-attack by the United States, but the Wall Street Journal’s Ryan Dube reports that the problem has more to do with the brain drain happening at […]
The Brutal State of Venezuelan Socialism
The Venezuelan economy is in a shambles as it reaches the end-phase of its socialist “Bolivarian Revolution.” The socialist experiment in Venezuela has left it with some stats that are hard to look at. The Economist reports: Venezuela has the world’s worst-performing economy among countries not at war. GDP fell by more than a third […]
America Can’t Bomb Venezuela into Prosperity
Writing in The American Conservative, Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow takes aim at the dangerous idea that an American military intervention in Venezuela would somehow help the country prosper. He writes (abridged): War is the ultimate human calamity. Despite the fevered hopes and utopian promises of its advocates, loosing the dogs of war almost […]
Yes, that is Real Socialism in Venezuela
Coffee has been grown in Venezuela since the late 1800s, but today a minimum-wage employee in Venezuela can afford only 5 cups of coffee a month on their wages, with nothing left over. The trouble with Venezuelan socialism, just like all attempts at socialism, is that it misallocates resources. Now, after years of a fictional […]
Would You Trade Your Freedom for Survival?
In Venezuela, reports The Wall Street Journal, the socialist Maduro government is using the threat of food ration curtailment to force citizens to vote for the regime. Ryan Dube, Kejal Vyas and Anatoly Kurmanaev write: A 32-year-old teacher, she’s fed up with President Nicolás Maduro’s government. Her salary has fallen to the equivalent of $2 a month […]
