Guest Post by Daniel DiMartino
While neither ‘Medicare for All’ nor a wealth tax will turn America into Venezuela overnight, all it would take is a series of catastrophic policies.
The first time I couldn’t buy food at the grocery store, I was 15 years old. It was 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela, and I had spent more than an hour in line waiting. When I got to the register, I noticed I had forgotten my ID that day. Without the ID, the government rationing system would not let the supermarket sell my family the full quota of food we needed. It was four days until the government allowed me to buy more.
This was fairly normal for me. All my life, I lived under socialism in Venezuela until I left and came to the United States as a student in 2016. Because the regime in charge imposed price controls and nationalized the most important private industries, production plummeted. No wonder I had to wait hours in lines to buy simple products such as toothpaste or flour.
And the shortages went far beyond the supermarket.
My family and I suffered from blackouts and lack of water. The regime nationalized electricity in 2007 in an effort to make electricity “free.” Unsurprisingly, this resulted in underinvestment in the electrical grid. By 2016, my home lost power roughly once a week.
Our water situation was even worse. Initially, my family didn’t have running water for only about one day per month, but as the years passed we sometimes went several weeks straight without it.
For all these problems, the regime has blamed an iguana, right-wing sabotage and even the weather.
A rich country, wasted resources
The excuses for these shortages were hollow: In reality, Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world to use for electricity, and three times more fresh water resources per person than the United States. The real reason my family went without water and electricity was the socialist economy instituted by dictators Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro.
The welfare programs, many minimum-wage hikes and nationalizations implemented by their regimes resulted in a colossal government deficit that the central bank covered by simply printing more money — leading to rampant inflation. Now, prices double every few weeks, and the standard of living continues to plummet.
I watched what was once one of the richest countries in Latin America gradually fall apart under the weight of big government.
I didn’t need to look at statistics to see this but rather at my own family. When Chavez took office in 1999, my parents were earning several thousand dollars a month between the two of them. By 2016, due to inflation, they earned less than $2 a day. If my parents hadn’t fled the country for Spain in 2017, they’d now be earning less than $1 a day, the international definition of extreme poverty. Even now, the inflation rate in Venezuela is expected to reach 10 million percent this year.
Venezuela has become a country where a woeful number of children suffer from malnutrition, and where working two full-time jobs will pay for only 6 pounds of chicken a month.
American liberals embrace same failed policies
Though so many of us Venezuelans fled to the USA to escape from the destructive consequences of socialism, liberal politicians like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. José Serrano, D-N.Y., have praised the same kind of policies that produced famine, mass exodus and soaring inflation in Venezuela.
Even worse, in recent weeks, Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar, Ro Khanna and Tulsi Gabbard have mischaracterized the protests against Maduro and condemned President Donald Trump’s widely supported moves to help end Maduro’s dictatorship.
Additionally, many congressional Democrats support Medicare for All and the Green New Deal, proposals that would nationalize the health insurance industry, guarantee everyone who wants it a job and massively raise taxes, increasing government intervention in the economy like few countries except Cuba and Venezuela have seen before. Proponents think that they can give all Americans quality health care, housing and everything for free and that somehow, politicians can do a better job at running a business than the business owners themselves.
These proposals would skyrocket the budget deficit and national debt, which just reached a record $22 trillion. If that is not enough, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorsed paying for the proposal by asking the Federal Reserve to print money. This is exactly what produced Venezuela’s nightmare.
Even so, liberal economist Paul Krugman recently argued in a column that “whenever you see someone invoking Venezuela as a reason not to consider progressive policy ideas, you know right away that the person in question is uninformed, dishonest, or both.”
I can assure Mr. Krugman that I’m neither uninformed nor dishonest. Of course, it’s true that neither Medicare for All nor a wealth tax alone would turn the United States into Venezuela overnight. No single radical proposal would do that. However, if all or most of these measures are implemented, they could have the same catastrophic consequences for the American people that they had for Venezuela.
In his recent State of the Union address, President Trump said: “America will never be a socialist country.” I sincerely hope that the president is right, and that every American can resist the lure of false promises — so this great country can always shine above the dark cloud of socialism, and avoid Venezuela’s fate.
Daniel Di Martino is a Venezuelan expatriate and Young Voices contributor studying economics at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. Follow him on Twitter @DanielDiMartino.
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There’s more to that story. Venezuela didn’t and doesn’t have any refineries. Big mistake. That left them dependent on shipping the unrefined ( high sulfur) oil. The U S sanctions left them unable to generate any profits. We’re as guilty for the plight down there as Chavez or Maduro ever were.
“America will never be a socialist country.” Then a few days later I hear the administration was looking at a proposal for “paid family leave” aka baby leave for all, championed by Ivanka. So much for the never socialist thing.
https://www.weareiowa.com/news/local-news/lawmakers-meet-with-ivanka-trump-on-paid-family-leave/1780390477
Don’t forget the pumping rooms in all businesses, put a fucking fork in us, we’re done.
Carry on. …..
Very interesting writing, from someone with local knowledge. I love how the author destroys idiots like Krugman, a guy with an opinion on everything, and it is always the same bleeding heart support the poor and oppressed (as long as they don’t live in my gated community)
face it, the more our school system imprints idiocracy into students, the closer we are going to get to socialism. Socialism is just a fancy name for Communism which is a death cult.
The key to the long game being played…
“face it, the more our school system imprints idiocracy into students”
…is removing our children from their indoctrination centers.
$$$
Desperate Americans, dumbed down and angry – will vote for socialism. Old, middle-aged, young. All of ’em. When is the last time you saw reason rule the day in a state of chaos.
Another bogus “Socialism is the sole cause of Venezuela’s demise” article. Sanctions are not even mentioned. This propaganda is to drum up Americans support for another war, via manufactured consent for the stealing/control of their national wealth as is the case with all of the other oil rich nations. John Bolton even admitted it on national television. This is how the U.S. uses the military for the profits of U.S. corporations in a good cop vs. bad cop, capitalism vs. socialism lucrative sponsorship. It’s satanic.
Thank you Ned!
I didn’t have the energy to pick this article apart and playing the old “ism” game to scapegoat everything that is happening in Venezuela on Socialism.
Aspects of socialism have been indoctrinated into many generations of Americans thinking. This is undeniable! But at a basic fundamental level government, in general, has certain features regardless of the mode of production or set up of how their economies are designed or function.
Yes, nationalization is the antithesis to privatization and vice versa. The more important characteristic of any government is how centralized it is or isn’t. The power in both Venezuela and the United States resides, currently, in the central authority. This doesn’t mean private companies aren’t functioning within their boundaries….most people are taught in Public Schools that the true movers and shakers of the world and human evolution to this point has been because of the influence of countries like Great Britain, Germany, the United States and on and on…People are not taught that Corporatism (As Mussolini referred to Fascism as), the merger between Big Business (think East India Trading Company or Monsanto) and Big Government….corporations like the Big Banks are the true movers and shakers.
The Big Central Authority (FEDZILLA) continues to grow as more control is centralized and more of the middle class are thrust into the “social safety net”, caught by the Big Game Hunters at the levers of this machine. Their cronies ready to utilize the neoliberal tactics used in countries like Venezuela and most of South America to continue and pillage a zombified FEDZILLA (on life support since 2008) so their politician shills will sell off the remaining Fedzilla assets to the Big Game Hunters who started all this with pulling the levers!
The government will grow in other ways to expand that massive hunter’ net to ensnare desperate, disillusioned, and broken Americans who just want a Nanny to take care of them and tell them,
“We’re here from the government and we’re here to help!”
We need to focus on removing the criminals from our governments before they decide to support and promote other politicians in an overthrow of another government then run around saying “See, I told ya so, Socialism is to blame”
Disgraceful!
Yes, I say it’s high time America tend it’s own garden. Be capitalist and be proud , but don’t fuck with everyone who has a different preference, i.e. vote in a sovereign nation. Example, Maduro won with 70% of a vote, compared to 46% for Trump. Both are considered democracies but somehow the U.S. government considers Guaido the rightful president when he got 0% vote. The only vote he got was a vote for himself. Sickening!
You have to stand in awe at the hypocrisy and double standards of our nation, no matter who is POTUS or congress. Worried about some Russians or other foreign adversary interfering or influencing our elections to the point of going to war with them if they think they did. And these corporate thieves have no problem doing the same or worse. Imagine Hillary declaring herself POTUS here, there would be a violent revolution the next day, yet these U.S. sheep MSM followers (which this article is based) will swallow the corporate sponsored propaganda like koolaid. But because Trump is doing it, they process it through some sort of righteous filter.
Once again Ned shows his stupidity. During the collapse of Venezuela, the entire world cut off credit to Venezuela, due to its actions. From his own links this: “By the time that sanctions were approved in August, Venezuela had all but lost access to international financial markets as a result of the combination of continued poor policies and the toxification of its finance.” The sanctions mentioned in the quote were the ones he mentions above.
So, Venezuela was toast before US sanctions hit. The entire world stopped giving Venezuela credit, largely voluntarily. The US sanctions were a non-event – the credit stopped before the sanction were in place.
Amazing what a little research uncovers, instead of buying in to socialist talking points. Ned is clearly a Socialist troll welfare parasite.
@ Llpoh
If you would have done some more research you would have discovered that Venezuela has been under subversive constant attacks via economic Hitmen and jackals by night.
Everything else is political theater and noise.
The late Hugo Chavez paid off the IMF in 2007 and withdrew from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank saying that he was “moving away from Washington-dominated institutions.
“Mr Chávez intends to set up a new lending institution run by Latin American countries called the Bank of the South.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/01/venezuela.imf
Do we forget that Maduro took over for Chavez after his death from a very aggressive cancer. Cancer that Chavez pondered publically on more than one occasion might have been triggered by aspects of the CIA.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/29/hugo-chavez-us-cancer-plot
Castro even warned Chavez not to eat or drink anything at the United Nations when he attended and spoke.
It seems that there are countless examples of what transpires to someone like Chavez who wants to shun U.S. hegemony faster than is planned….just look at Saddam and Gaddafi…same shit.
So don’t fucking tell Ned or me for that matter that we are socialist troll welfare parasites because we address the root of much of Venezuela’s problems.
Leave them the fuck alone!! Leave Assad the fuck alone! Shut these fucking programs down!! Instead of expanding them and targeting individuals who point these facts out!
Again, socialism is getting something for nothing. I am not a socialist. I am merely pointing out that the excuse of socialism in Venezuela is being used as part of a regime change agenda. The true welfare recipients if this regime change were to be successful will be U.S. corporations. It would be socialism in reverse. It would be socialism for U.S. corporations administered through the barrel of a gun via the U.S. military, as I have already schooled you on in the past. Try to keep up.
Ned – you self confess to being middle class. The middle class does not pay their way. The only ones that do would be say the top 20%. Everyone else – and I mean everyone else – gets more in return than they pay. Especially when the trillion a year deficit is included.
The “rich” you loathe so much pay the vast majority, and you do not understand that you are not pulling your own weight. Why should anyone subsidize you?
Ned – your fed tax share is $14k per every year if your life, which means you need to be paying double that now, or someone in your family needs to pay it for you. If a family has 4 people, that is almost $60 k per year. If you are not paying that, you are a parasite on the ass of someone.
Don’t forget your state and local taxes on top of that.
Seriously, wise the fuck up. You are fooling yourself thinking you are not on welfare.
I really don’t care what form of government Venezuela has. I just wish the u.s. could be a capitalist country.
And mind its own fucking business by protecting its borders. I pray for my children when the demographic goes upside down.
I cannot imagine what this young man has seen in his lifetime and am thankful mine has not had to face this…
Not yet, anyway.
There but for the Grace of God.
Why don’t they ever use Germany, Denmark, Sweden, etc as examples of socialism? Why don’t they use our allies in South America, Central America, etc as examples of capitalism. Hey! How about Haiti? We have been controlling that country for 150 years and is is the worst shit hole in the world. We kicked out the democratically elected President because he was threat to our corporate interests. Leave Venezuela alone to solve their own problems and quit selling weapons to 75% of all of the dictators in the world.
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