Over the Line

Venezuelan socialism

The fruits of central planning in Venezuela include malnutrition, food truck hijackings, vigilante lynchings of petty thieves, hospitals without electricity, and the starvation of zoo animals. The oil-rich country once had one of South America's most prosperous economies, but Bolivarian socialism has reduced it to an international basket case. The government's response? It's taking on the real enemy: "anxiety."

Rather than admit that the regime's entire philosophy is based on magical thinking, the PanAm Post reports, the National Superintendency of Fair Prices will begin fining bakeries that have lines stretching out their doors. William Contreras, head of the department, claims that the queues are a manufactured political "strategy of generating anxiety" and that no legitimate shortage of bread exists.

Contreras' claim is based on the fact that many of the raw materials are still available. He appears not to understand that bakeries just do the baking—they don't process the different kinds of wheat used to make the flour that then goes into the final product.