Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

"No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it." Ayn Rand

"Observe that the 'haves' are those who have freedom, and that it is freedom that the 'have-nots' have not." Ayn Rand

"The virtue involved in helping those one loves is not 'selflessness' or 'sacrifice', but integrity." Ayn Rand

For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

21 June 2010

Chavez's Socialist Venezuela Sees Food Rot in Government Warehouses

Food prices have risen by 41% in Venezuela during the last 12 months, despite the recession.  Venezuela imports about 70% of its food.  The socialist government of Hugo Chavez has taken over between 20 and 30% of the distribution of staple foods.  Chavez is now threatening to take over Polar, the nation's largest private food processor, brewer, and miller.  Government supermarkets offer discounts of up to 40%, but still the rise in food prices has generally continued.  Chavez blames this on the black market and now has army soldiers raiding private groceries and confiscating food.  This was brought on by the revelation that 80,000 tons of food, including meat and powdered milk, have rotted in government warehouses.  Chavez is embarrassed, so he is making a show of blaming private sector businessmen for the food shortages and replacing the rotted food with stolen food.

Despite a huge oil income, socialist Venezuela is following the long string of socialist countries which cannot feed its people.  The equality promised the poor will result in the mass starvation of the poor, and perhaps some of the wealthy also.  There are widespread problems in most of Latin America, but socialism is not the path to their correction.  One would think that lesson would have been learned by now.  Ignorance and foolishness reign in socialist Venezuela.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steal­ing is steal­ing — Chavez the Expro­pri­a­tor
— see another arti­cle in Mar­ket­Watch today:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/beware-of-rabid-dog-2010–06-28

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. said...

Government stealing is particularly bad. It makes it much harder for a good, productive person to defend himself from the thief.

Your link did not work when I tried it.