On December 28, ABC ‘s evening world news ran a lengthy (by network news standards) description of the horrendous conditions in Venezuela that are causing near-starvation and extraordinary levels of poverty. The story included heart-wrenching scenes of children dying from lack of nutrition, once-proud and accomplished adults fleeing their homeland to find the basic necessities of life, and harsh attacks on the population by government forces.
There was one essential, underlying issue the report, like many other similar media examinations, failed to include: why Venezuela, a nation of good, intelligent, and hard-working people, a land blessed with vast natural wealth including a veritable ocean of oil, has been reduced to this condition. In 2017, Michael Shifter reported that “Just a decade ago, Venezuela was perhaps the most influential Latin American country in the Organization of American States (OAS), the world’s oldest regional cooperation group…On April 26, after a majority of OAS states called a special meeting to discuss Venezuela’s crisis, Caracas declared that it would leave the organization.”
Despite the extreme depths the Caracas government has already fallen to under socialist rule, the crisis continues to deepen. Nathaniel Parish Flannery, writing in Forbes reported earlier this year: “In 2018 Venezuela is struggling though the hemisphere’s worst economic problems. Inflation is rapidly spiraling towards crisis levels and everyday economic activity continues to be severely encumbered by a nonsensical system of currency controls. In 2018 Venezuela’s GDP is expected to contract by double digits for the third straight consecutive year. Economic output in Venezuela fell by 16% in 2016, 14% in 2017, and is expected to drop by 15% this year. Meanwhile, after jumping from 112% in 2015 to 2,400% last year, inflation in Venezuela is expected to hit five-digit levels in 2018. Venezuela’s slow-burning economic collapse is quickly becoming a regional humanitarian crisis as Venezuelans flee in ever larger numbers, looking for refuge in neighboring and nearby countries. More than 600,000 Venezuelans have already fled their country and sought asylum in Colombia.”
Patrick Gillespie, writing for Money last January, reported: “Venezuela has lost half of its economy since 2013… It’s getting worse. Unemployment will reach 30% and prices on all types of goods in the country will rise 13,000% this year, according to new figures published Thursday by the International Monetary Fund. This year will mark the third consecutive year of double-digit contractions in Venezuela’s gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity. The nation’s GDP declined 16% in 2016, 14% last year and it’s projected to fall 15% this year, according to the IMF. Venezuela is deep into an economic, political and humanitarian crisis, largely inflicted by the government’s own policies, economists say. Food and medical shortages are widespread. People are scavenging for food in dumpsters. Citizens are fleeing by the thousands.”
There are only lab tests to help with this determination, typically through conversation the doctor canadian levitra can determine the problem. She believes in collaborative approach of therapy where she helps you to discover the best solution to the cialis on line regencygrandenursing.com issue of baldness. Although Erectile Dysfunction is a problem for a long order levitra online time now. This magical YES mantra is one of the best ways to assess cialis without prescriptions mastercard https://regencygrandenursing.com/long-term-care/rehabilitation your glucose status. The reason, plain and straightforward, is that Venezuela has adopted socialism, the very same brand of socialism advocated by America’s Democratic Party and others on the left.
Two Venezuelans, Rafael Acevedo and Luis Cirocco, in an article for the Mises Institute explained: “…ultimately, the lesson we learned is that socialism never, ever works… It was very common during the years we suffered under Hugo Chávez to hear these pundits and economists on TV saying that this time, socialism is being done right. This time, the Venezuelans figured it out. They were, and are wrong.”
Despite the utter catastrophe wrought by socialism in nations as diverse as the old Soviet Union and today’s North Korea, despite over a century of complete failure in every type of country, devotees of this failed philosophy continue their devotion to it. Even the largest Communist nation of all, China, has adopted a capitalist-type system, meshing it within a totalitarian government.
The Report Concludes Tomorrow
Illustration: Karl Marx (Pixabay)