Hugo’s revolution is now a first-rate humanitarian crisis

The economic horror in Venezuela continues to unfold — the Bolivarian socialists have achieved the entirely remarkable feat of making Cubans flee the country in search of a better life. Seriously, 

Cubans, from a poverty stricken socialist dictatorship are now leaving an oil rich nation in search of a better life. It takes a serious level of economic mismanagement to achieve that. That serious level being exactly the one thing that Venezuela has lots of, of course. 

 

So much so that Nicolas Maduro has just appealed to the United Nations to come and organise the supply of medicines for the country. This being something that normal places can manage on their own and usually rather well too.

The cause of all of this is that Maduro, and his predecessor Chavez, decided that the way to run an economy was to do everything that the textbooks say you shouldn’t do to an economy:

Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro has asked for help from the United Nations to boost supplies of medicine.

Mr Maduro said the UN had the expertise to normalise the supply and distribution of drugs in the country.

Venezuela’s Medical Federation said recently that hospitals had less than 5% of the medicines they needed.

The president blames the problems on an economic war against his government and the sharp fall in oil prices.

There is indeed an economic war going on here. And it’s one being waged by the Bolivarian socialists against the Venezuelan population. The tactic is simply to destroy the price system and thus the market. Given that non-market economies do not work this ensures the destruction of Venezuela’s economy.