How Venezuela went from the richest economy in South America to the brink of financial ruin
Soaring crime, hyperinflation, food shortages... Established democracies are not supposed to implode like this. How did post-Chavez Venezuela go from the richest economy in South America to the brink of social and financial ruin?
Venezuela, by the numbers, resembles a country hit by civil war. Its economy, once Latin America’s richest, is estimated to have shrunk by 10 per cent last year – worse even than Syria’s. GDP shrank by 19 per cent. The South American country also has the world’s worst inflation at more than 700 per cent (nearly double that of second-ranked South Sudan), rendering its currency almost worthless. In a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, food has grown so scarce that three in four citizens report involuntary weight loss, averaging 19 pounds in a year.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-venezuela-went-from-the-richest-economy-in-south-america-to-the-brink-of-financial-ruin-a7740616.html
Colleges are turning young people socialist in a few ways
Who’s afraid of socialism? College students certainly aren’t. In fact, a new poll reveals 70% of millennials are likely to vote for a socialist candidate.
Socialism as an economic system, on the other hand, has a mixed reputation. Capitalism is more popular among older generations and half of Gen Z and millennial types still view capitalism favorably. But neither one of the dueling economic systems holds a majority on college campuses, and the rise in popularity of democratic socialists such as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among young voters is hardly reassuring.
This poll reveals a few things: Young adults are hesitant to support socialist policies, likely because they don’t know how they’d work or what they’d cost. But given the right candidate, they could easily be convinced to join the cause.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/colleges-are-turning-young-people-socialist-in-a-few-ways
Don’t be fooled by Bernie Sanders — he’s a diehard communist
But he’s not even a socialist. He’s a communist.
Mainstreaming Sanders requires whitewashing his radical pro-communist past. It won’t be easy to do.
If Sanders were vying for a Cabinet post, he’d never pass an FBI background check. There’d be too many subversive red flags popping up in his file. He was a communist collaborator during the height of the Cold War.
https://nypost.com/2016/01/16/dont-be-fooled-by-bernie-sanders-hes-a-diehard-communist/
History Has Shown That Socialism Isn't the Cure
Multiple forms of socialism, from hard Stalinism to European redistribution, continue to fail.
Russia and China are still struggling with the legacy of genocidal communism. Eastern Europe still suffers after decades of Soviet-imposed socialist chaos.
Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea and Venezuela are unfree, poor and failed states. Baathism -- a synonym for pan-Arabic socialism -- ruined the postwar Middle East.
The soft-socialist European Union countries are stagnant and mostly dependent on the U.S. military for their protection.
In contrast, current American deregulation, tax cuts and incentives, and record energy production have given the United States the strongest economy in the world.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/11/07/history_has_shown_that_socialism_isnt_the_cure_141677.html
