Mutt Lounge

The future dictator of Venezuela continues to show his true colors.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise farms, in an effort to tackle food shortages.
Government controls keep food prices low in shops to help even the poorest Venezuelans feed themselves.
But some farmers prefer to sell their produce in neighbouring countries where prices are higher, leading to shortages of bread, milk, eggs and meat.

Prices are kept artificially low in an effort to “feed the poor”. If farms sell at that level they will soon be part of the poor. Even I see a whole slew of alternated methods to achieve the same result.

• Allow the prices to elevate a little and apply an export tax on the food staples. All of the proceeds from the tax could then go to the poor so they could afford the slight increase. This would allow capitalism to work hand in hand with socialism agendas.
• Simply require a percentage must be sold locally.
• Tax breaks or other incentives to those who sell locally.

Maybe I can’t see the whole picture but taking away property only makes more people depended on the government and creates a larger class of poor. It is a downward spiral that sunk the USSR ship. Because socialism is unattainable without complete buy-in the entire exercise is doomed to fail eventually. The structure needed to enforce the “sharing” or “all are equal” creates inequality and overburden that can never be balanced against available resources.