Viewing Chaos Face-to-Face
Jeff Berwick, from The Dollar Vigilante, recently visited Venezuela chaos with the help of a young man who started the Von Mises Institute organization in the country.
Here are some of Jeff’s observations while visiting the country:
It has been less than two months since I visited Caracas, Venezuela. While things were already very bad when I was there, they are now worse.
Power shortages have deepened (and this in an oil rich country!); food is becoming scarce (some people have resorted to eating dogs and cats); people lie on concrete slabs in hospitals without medicine (if you thought medical care was bad, just wait until it’s free!); and riots and looting are growing worse.
In hindsight, it was shocking to see how few people in Venezuela understood what was going on. You’d think in this day and age, they’d just watch a few Youtube videos (like some of ours) and realize the reality: Almost all their problems are a direct result of government and central banking.
Bizarrely, large parts of Caracas still hang pictures of Hugo Chavez and still consider him to be a hero!
Leaving Chaos
One of the things that he asked the people to whom he talked was why they didn’t move to one of the countries nearby, like Columbia, where the economy was working much better. The typical response was that they “didn’t know anybody there.”
Very strange. Why choose to live in squalor and desperation just because the environment is familiar to you?
This is a mentality I often see in America. Elsewhere, too. Stressed, people have a tendency to live like serfs, never venturing far from their birthplace.
Conversations About Chaos
The video of Jeff’s interview with the young man, who was his guide in Caracas, at his home. Some of his responses are in Spanish, but there are English subtitles at those times.
The video is worth the watch. With the journey to embrace socialism on the rise in “western countries,” this ought to be a wake-up call. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will be. People in the “western world” will react much the same as the Venezuelans.
So sad!