Venezuela's Evil Government

Hugo Chavez is a palpably evil thug, and he confirms this status with a new proposal to issue cards that almost certainly will be used to ration food. Left-wing despots claim that their policies put "people above profits," but they never can explain why people (especially the masses) have much higher living standards in countries where "capitalist greed" runs rampant.

Presented by President Hugo Chávez as an instrument to make shopping for groceries easier, the ``Good Life Card'' is making various segments of the population wary because they see it as a furtive attempt to introduce a rationing card similar to the one in Cuba. The measure could easily become a mechanism to control the population, according to civil society groups. ``We see that in short-term this could become a rationing card probably similar to the one used in Cuba,'' Roberto León Parilli, president of the National Association of Users and Consumers, told El Nuevo Herald. ``It would use more advanced technological means [than those used in Cuba], but when they tell you where to buy and what the limits of what you can buy are, they are conditioning your purchases.'' Chávez said Tuesday that the card could be used to buy groceries at the government chain of markets and supplies. ...In theory, the government could begin to favor the import of products to be sold through the government chains and have more control over the type of products purchased and the people buying them. Jaime Suchlicki, director of the University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies, said that Venezuela's current problems of scarce supplies are very similar to those Cuba faced when Fidel Castro introduced the rationing card. ``The card emerged when goods began to become scarce,'' Suchlicki said. ``The government had seized many companies that did not work because the government managed them poorly. Then they decided to distribute groceries through those cards.'' And although the cards were introduced as a mechanism to deal with scarcities, Suchlicki said, they later became an instrument of control.

A Totalitarian Future for Europe?

I don't often agree with the statist president of the European Commission, but Mr. Barroso may be right when he warns that some nations are at risk of descending back into dictatorship. But while he may be correct in his diagnosis, his proposed solution is more of the policies - redistribution, handounts, bailouts, and subsidies - that have caused nations to get in trouble in the first place. At best, this approach postpones the day of reckoning - but it also causes a much bigger collapse.

During my recent visits to Europe, I was surprised by the level of pessimism from all segments of the population. The general assessment is that Europe is heading downhill and that there is little hope of changing direction because too many people have been convinced by politicians that they are entitled to mooch. But, as Margaret Thatcher famously warned, the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money. That is what is happening in Europe. But rather than sober up, the Greeks and others are rioting in hopes of finding new victims to consume. Many people I talked to expressed concern that this attitude eventually would cause economic collapse and lead to some sort of anti-democratic rule. The optimists (if you can call them that) think the result may be some sort of soft despotism dictated by Brussels and enforced by bribes from (mostly) German taxpayers. Others are more dour and fear the rise of more malignant forms of dictatorship.

Here's a blurb from the U.K.-based Daily Mail:

Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned. In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money. The stark warning came as it emerged that EU chiefs have begun work on an emergency bailout package for Spain which is likely to run into hundreds of billions of pounds. ...Leaders are expected to thrash out a rescue package for Spain’s teetering economy. Spain is expected to ask for an initial guarantee of at least £100 billion, although this figure could rise sharply if the crisis deepens. News of the behind-the-scenes scramble in Brussels spells bad news for the British economy as many of our major banks have loaned Spain vast sums of money in recent years. Germany’s authoritative Frankfurter Allgemeine Newspaper reported that Spain is poised to ask for multi-billion pound credits. Mr Barroso and Jean-Claude Trichet of the European Central Bank are united on the need for a rescue plan. The looming bankruptcy of Spain, one of the foremost economies in Europe, poses far more of a threat to European unity and the euro project than Greece. Greece contributes 2.5 percent of GDP to Europe, Spain nearly 12 percent.