Tim Worstall, Fortune: Congratulations To Bolivarian Socialism: Venezuela Is Now The Country With No Beer
It seems that the economic management of Venezuela has just been able to chalk up another milestone. We might have to give them a prize of some kind for this one: in a week or so the country is going to run out of beer. This isn’t because no one wants beer, not at all. There’s been no mass outbreak of Islam or Mormonism to turn the population away from the locally highly popular drink. It’s not because people don’t have the money to buy it: Polar, the local manufacturer, can sell all it is able to make. It’s not because Polar can’t make money doing so either: the company makes a good profit making and selling beer. Nope, it’s purely and only because Maduro and the other Chavistas are entirely incompetent at the management of an economy. And they’re incompetent in a very specific and very stupid way too. They simply do not understand the role of prices in markets.
The news itself:
Venezuela’s largest brewer says it has shut down beer production at the last of its four factories due to a shortage of imported supplies.
Cerveceria Polar says in an email that its factory in Carabobo state closed Friday. It had warned earlier that it had enough supplies only to continue production through the end of April.
They’re rather more than just the largest. Depending upon who you believe they brew (perhaps “used to brew” is better) 70 – 80% of the country’s entire supply of the sudsy goodness.
Read more ....
WNU Editor: In theory .... communism/socialism/monetary policy/debt financing/government intervention .... all the ideas and thinking on how government should play a role in our society sound good on paper .... but in practice .... with human nature being what it is .... it becomes (with time) everyone's nightmare in way too many places. I have lived in a communist/socialist paradise .... and I know only too well its short-comings and horrors. My analysis on what is happening in Venezuela is simple .... they are complaining now, but it is going to get worse .... much worse. And as for no beer in Venezuela .... if I was living in Venezuela, I will be getting into the beer smuggling business.
My beer of choice.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.saintarnold.com/beers/lawnmower.html
Anybody else?
WNU Editor, socialism in today Venezuela is not the same of soviet.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_of_the_21st_century
The situation is also caused by the economic-political war started by Washington from the beginning against Chavez government.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27077.htm
And the country hit in the last years who are? Venezuela and Brasil, the nations who have stopped the neoliberist dollar dictatorship in Latin America.
The oil price war is also a part of the economic war the U.S. and other allies conduct against "enemy" country like Russia and Venezuela. They welcomed the coup of 2002 against the elected Chavez.
How call this? Democracy? Freedom? No, is Empire Mentality over all.
Phill .... Stella and Corona, and a Canadian brand called Sleemans.
ReplyDeleteSo what's the reason for the collapse of so many capitalist economies?
ReplyDeletePast that, most of the world is capitalist and most of the world is poor; or on its way there.
WNU
ReplyDeleteIll check my local importer for "Sleemans", thanks.