Leon Drolet shared Antony Davies's post.
Why wait for November's election? Those who want to "Feel the Bern" can move to Venezuela right now and feel the full burn of socialism.
When early astronomers had the Earth rather than the Sun at the center of the solar system, scientists had to keep tweaking their theories to get them to comport with what they observed.
Try as they might to insist that the Earth was the center of the solar system, reality refused to cooperate. When astronomers finally admitted that the Sun was the center, all the convoluted tweaking disappeared, and the motions of the planets finally made plain sense.
So too are socialists constantly tweaking their economic models in an attempt to explain why reality never delivers the nirvana they promise.
Reality is finally having the last word.
The key word there is "completely."
Both are well into their death throes.
Indeed, Venezuela's ruling party just lost congressional elections that gave the opposition a veto-proof majority, and it's hard to see that getting any better for them any time soon — or ever.
Incumbents, after all, don't tend to do too well when, according to the International Monetary Fund, their economy shrinks 10 percent one year, an additional 6 percent the next, and inflation explodes to 720 percent.
It's no wonder, then, that markets expect Venezuela to default on its debt in the very near future.
The country is basically bankrupt.
That's not an easy thing to do when you have the largest oil reserves in the world, but Venezuela has managed it.
How?
Well, a combination of bad luck and worse policies.
The first step was when Hugo Chávez's socialist government started spending more money on the poor, with everything from two-cent gasoline to free housing.
Now, there's nothing wrong with that — in fact, it's a good idea in general — but only as long as you actually, well, have the money to spend.
And by 2005 or so, Venezuela didn't."
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