Attention Bernie Bros, This Could Happen Here

As hunger mounts, Venezuelans turn to trash for food

Until recently, Julio Noguera worked at a bakery. Now he spends his evenings searching through the garbage for food.

"I come here looking for food because if I didn't, I'd starve to death," Noguera said as he sorted through a pile of moldy potatoes. "With things like they are, no one helps anyone and no one gives away meals."

Across town, unemployed people converge every dusk at a trash heap on a downtown Caracas sidewalk to pick through rotten fruit and vegetables tossed out by nearby shops. They are frequently joined by small business owners, college students and pensioners — people who consider themselves middle class even though their living standards have long ago been pulverized by triple-digit inflation, food shortages and a collapsing currency.

Venezuela's poverty had eased during the administration of the late President Hugo Chavez. But a study by three leading Caracas universities found that 76 percent of Venezuelans are now under the poverty line, compared with 52 percent in 2014.

Socialism seems to work OK for while, until the people doing all the work, and not being rewarded for it, so that their hard work (because that's what the money represents) is redistributed to those who don't.

Nearly half of Venezuelans say they can no longer afford to eat three meals a day, according to a recent poll by the local firm Venebarometro. The poll surveyed 1,200 adults at their homes the first week in April and had a margin of error of plus or minus of about 2 percentage points.

The government blames the political opposition, accusing it of waging an "economic war" to stir unrest and oust President Nicolas Maduro from power. The administration has launched an aggressive program to build urban farms in an effort to address food shortages.

Of course. The only reason socialism never works, according to socialists, is that people don't adopt it thoroughly enough.

Why aren't the farms in the countryside able to supply the cities? Well, they can, of course, they just won't if they are not rewarded for their efforts. The socialists governments price controls prevented that.



Wombat-socho has the grand "Rule 5 Sunday: Hit The Beach (Club)!" ready at The Other McCain.