A Socialist Nightmare in Venezuela

Politics and Economic has an inverse relationship. 

And there is no greater modern day or real time example of another experiment from socialist and extreme statist ideals going down in flames than the unfolding events in socialist Venezuela.

The government has even literally run out of money to print! 

From Bloomberg: (April 27, 2016) 

Venezuela’s epic shortages are nothing new at this point. No diapers or car parts or aspirin -- it’s all been well documented. But now the country is at risk of running out of money itself.

In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business. 

Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.

And they are so broke that one needs wheelbarrow to transport cash, similar to the Weimar Hyperinflation

Here is the crash of the Venezuela’s currency the bolivar which transmuted into hyperinflation (Cato Troubled Currencies Project) 

And they are so broke that society has literally been breaking down 

From the New York Times (June 19, 2016) 

With delivery trucks under constant attack, the nation’s food is now transported under armed guard. Soldiers stand watch over bakeries. The police fire rubber bullets at desperate mobs storming grocery stores, pharmacies and butcher shops. A 4-year-old girl was shot to death as street gangs fought over food. 

Venezuela is convulsing from hunger. 

Hundreds of people here in the city of Cumaná, home to one of the region’s independence heroes, marched on a supermarket in recent days, screaming for food. They forced open a large metal gate and poured inside. They snatched water, flour, cornmeal, salt, sugar, potatoes, anything they could find, leaving behind only broken freezers and overturned shelves. 

And they showed that even in a country with the largest oil reserves in the world, it is possible for people to riot because there is not enough food. 

In the last two weeks alone, more than 50 food riots, protests and mass looting have erupted around the country. Scores of businesses have been stripped bare or destroyed. At least five people have been killed. 

This is precisely the Venezuela its leaders vowed to prevent. 

Unfortunately, Venezuela’s leaders fail to recognize that it is them (and their socialist utopian policies) that has been the problem 

Hope is not a strategy