snout into the business of Venezuelan coffee.

President Chávez, who maintains price controls on basic foodstuffs, raised the price of coffee beans by 100% last month after weeks of protests by coffee farmers.

But most of the country’s coffee producers, who buy, roast and grind the beans, refused to sell on the coffee yesterday, claiming their margins had been cut, and began hoarding thousands of sacks of unprocessed beans.


And then Chavez took a page from Stalin.

I’ve instructed the National Guard to look for the missing coffee and to find every single kilogram of it. The army has the permission to seize the coffee with the power of attorneys and judges. We will sell the cof...

snout into the business of Venezuelan coffee.

President Chávez, who maintains price controls on basic foodstuffs, raised the price of coffee beans by 100% last month after weeks of protests by coffee farmers.

But most of the country’s coffee producers, who buy, roast and grind the beans, refused to sell on the coffee yesterday, claiming their margins had been cut, and began hoarding thousands of sacks of unprocessed beans.


And then Chavez took a page from Stalin.

I’ve instructed the National Guard to look for the missing coffee and to find every single kilogram of it. The army has the permission to seize the coffee with the power of attorneys and judges. We will sell the coffee at prices set by us.


This is how socialists arrange things—create a crisis from a government caused shortage, then claim that government needs to step in to restore economic stability. The results are bigger government and less liberty. Again we see echoes of the Obama Way. In Rahm Emmanuel’s words, “Never let a crisis go to waste.”

Socialism always brings shortages, sometimes in odd ways. Five years ago I was backpacking around the Nicaraguan island of Ometepe. Oddly, I found that

Water is very scarce everywhere on the island, in all hotels and restaurants and homes. It simply quits, sometimes for the entire day. And the island sits in a huge freshwater lake! Granada, the third city of the republic, also suffers from water problems, and it is on the shores of Lake Nicaragua.

While the Americans look for water on Mars, the Nicaraguans cannot seem to find it in their own backyard. It baffles.

The place was awash with water yet Nicaraguans could not figure out how to get it to their homes. I remain baffled....

Socialism always brings shortages, sometimes in odd ways. Five years ago I was backpacking around the Nicaraguan island of Ometepe. Oddly, I found that

Water is very scarce everywhere on the island, in all hotels and restaurants and homes. It simply quits, sometimes for the entire day. And the island sits in a huge freshwater lake! Granada, the third city of the republic, also suffers from water problems, and it is on the shores of Lake Nicaragua.

While the Americans look for water on Mars, the Nicaraguans cannot seem to find it in their own backyard. It baffles.

The place was awash with water yet Nicaraguans could not figure out how to get it to their homes. I remain baffled.


Socialist Nicaragua runs out of water. Socialist Cuba runs out of sugar. Socialist Venezuela runs out of coffee. Believe it or not, once socialist Argentina ran out of beef. This happened in a nation that has the finest steakhouses in the world, just as the US has the finest medical care in the world. Even America hating dictators come here when they need surgery. If Obama Care ever becomes law, we can expect both rationing and shortages. The laws of economics are hard and unforgiving. Not for nothing has that discipline been called “the dismal science.”

If Obama has his way, Americans will be forced to deal with a black market in medical care in the same way that Venezuelans are forced to deal with a black market in coffee. This will be just another sign of American becoming a run-of-the-mill 3rd world nation, like Venezuela.

Come to think of it, Obama admires Chavez. Perhaps he seeks to emulate him.

Hat tip: Babalu Blog