Socialism is on its last legs except for college faculty lounges. Venezuela is now seizing private companies’ facilities.
“There is an economic war here and this company, Polar, is at the heart of it. They hide products from the population, and inflate their prices!”
The government had first notified the landlord of plans to expropriate the industrial park in 2013, Nestle spokesman Andres Alegrett said by telephone from Caracas on Thursday. Nestle used the facility to dispatch about 10 percent of its products in the country, supplying sweets and drinks to the western side of Greater Caracas, he said.
Nestle is no stranger to Socialism. Jonah Golberg noted Nestle’s connection years ago.
About ten years ago I went on a junket to Switzerland and attended a talk with the CEO of Nestlé. Listening to him, it became very clear to me that he had little to no interest in free markets or capitalism properly understood. He saw his corporation as a “partner” with governments, NGOs, the U.N., and other massive multinationals. The profit motive was good for efficiency and rewarding talent, but beyond that, he wanted order and predictability and as much planning as he could get. I think that mindset informs the entire class of transnational progressives, the shock troops of what H. G. Wells hoped would lead to his liberal-fascist “world brain.”
Yes, Nestle has a history of cooperation with various do-gooder initiatives although it has kept its eye on profits.
If you look at how most liberals think about economics, they want big corporations and big government working in tandem with labor, universities (think industrial policy), and progressive organizations to come up with “inclusive” policies set at the national or international level. That’s not necessarily socialism — it’s corporatism. When you listen to how Obama is making economic policy with “everyone at the table,” he’s describing corporatism, the economic philosophy of fascism.
Oh yes. Profits and fascism are not contradictory as one might think so listening to Hillary or Bernie. However, the Socialists of the militant variety, as in Venezuela, want profits only for the ruling class. Even leftist professors say Venezuela is heading toward default.
Harvard University Professor Ricardo Hausmann last year questioned why Venezuela kept paying bondholders as the country’s economic crisis imposed hardship on its people. He suggested it stop honoring the debt altogether.
Now, Hausmann is saying Venezuela will have no choice but to default next year.
The nation’s turmoil has only intensified since he raised the specter in September by saying he found “no moral grounds” for the nation to pay debt amid shortages of things like basic medicine and toilet paper.
Yes, “moral grounds” are selective.
“The markets have been right in saying this is a completely unsustainable situation,” Hausmann, director of Harvard’s Center for International Development, said by phone from Madrid. “It’s not that the government will plan to default. I think they will just stumble into one. They may get over the October payments but nobody’s thinking they’ll get over the 2016 payments.”
When Chavez destroyed the oil industry, the path was set.
Venezuela is among the world’s top five producers, and OPEC has said it has the largest proven oil and gas reserves. But to call PDVSA beleaguered is an understatement.
The company is the chief piece of collateral damage in Venezuela’s political drama. Its revenues were directed by the late President Hugo Chavez to fund a series of social “missions,” populist health and education programs that saw the oil company take on production of everything from subsidized chicken meat to elementary schools.
At the same time, PDVSA sends oil to Cuba and has a preferential payment agreement with 16 other countries in the region under agreements made by Mr. Chavez, which accounts for a total of 500,000 of each day’s production. Another 200,000 are used to pay down the firm’s $80 billion in debt (including hefty loans from China).
Socialism and sanity are mutually exclusive. More Jonah Goldberg on his book (which I have).
I’d say what disappointed me the most was the Left’s reaction to it. With very, very, few exceptions, the Left decided that it was vital to destroy the book, unread and unexamined. It’s almost a constant theme of the liberal and left-wing reviews of Liberal Fascism: Do Not Read This Book. I wish a few serious people on the Left showed some interest in actually coming to grips with the book’s arguments rather than going in like lawyers and spin-doctors representing their client — “liberalism” — and using any weapon near to hand. Michael Tomasky’s review was particularly disappointing, because I would have hoped The New Republic would have tried to engage the book in a serious way. Instead, it was a hackish and intellectually childish hissy-fit.
Now, as we near the end, it is even more import to hide the truth.
#10 A major red flag that a recession in the United States is fast approaching is the fact that Exxon Mobile just announced their worst earnings for a single quarter since 2009. Compared to the same time period one year ago, Exxon Mobile’s earnings were down 51 percent.
#11 Chevron is another oil giant that has seen earnings plunge. In the second quarter of this year, Chevron’s earnings were down an eye-popping 90 percent from a year ago.
And in this list I didn’t even mention the economic chaos that is happening down in South America. For full coverage of that, please see my previous article entitled “The South American Financial Crisis Of 2015“.
Oh well, if I wasn’t a pessimist I’d have nothing to worry about. Exxon-Mobil is an oil producer and oil is down but how about coal ?
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the biggest American producer of coking coal, Alpha Natural Resources, could file for bankruptcy as soon as Monday.
Competitor Walter Energy filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, and several others have done the same this year.
Oh that’s just defending against global warming/climate change. Nothing to see here.
To a certain extent, I can understand why most Americans are not alarmed about the months ahead. The relative stability of the past several years has lulled most of us into a false sense of security, and the mainstream media is assuring everyone that everything is going to be just fine and that brighter days are ahead. At this point, many believe that it is patently absurd to suggest that we could see an economic collapse in 2015. But of course even though the signs were glaringly apparent, very few of us anticipated the financial crisis of 2008 either.
Now what ?
(I’m about a quarter of the way into your book, and it’s fascinating in parts. Thanks for mentioning it last week or whenever it was, at Althouse.)