There's Nothing Quite Like Socialism ...

Tuesday, August 07, 2018

... to Make Beggars of the Elderly

Upon hearing of a recent protest by starving pensioners in Venezuela, the phrases "widows and orphans" and "throw them out into the streets" came to my mind from some time in my very early adulthood. I no longer recall the exact context, but someone bandied about such phrases in a show of horror after I'd expressed an admiration of Ayn Rand. I might have also admitted both my atheism and my admiration for capitalism. (I still am and still do to this day, only more so.)

There are many sad things to comment on about the following story, but I will limit myself to an excerpt and one short comment:

I fibbed: Socialism eventually throws everyone out on the streets. Hooray for equality! (Image via Wikipedia.)
Perched on plastic lawn chairs and leaning on canes, scores of retirees protested Wednesday to demand payment of their retirement benefits in crisis-hit Venezuela.

About 200 senior citizens blocked traffic on Urdaneta Avenue, a stone's throw from the presidential palace.

"They are not paying people's whole pension. We are just getting two million" bolivars, worth 60 US cents at black market rates, said Basilio Octo, 68.
There's nothing quite like socialism to throw the elderly out into the streets en masse. For starters: How many of these poor souls might have planned better for their later years absent the laughable guarantee of a government pension?

Well, okay. Here's another: The whole idea that conservatives can't muster a response to insinuations that more freedom (or even the same amount we have now) would result in similar problems here is troubling, to say the very least.

-- CAV

4 comments:

Dismuke said...

"For starters: How many of these poor souls might have planned better for their later years absent the laughable guarantee of a government pension?"

Well, under socialism in Venezuela the poor souls who planned better for their later years wouldn't be any better off given that, no matter how much they might have managed to save over the years, their savings have now been inflated away to the point they are pretty much worthless. So those who did plan better find themselves in the exact same position and circumstances as those who made no plans at all and just figured that the government would take care of them - completely dependent upon whatever scrap of food the bankrupt government can scratch together to throw at them.

And even if their minds and bodies are still strong and they are capable of being productive they would still be in the same boat - because economic activity has come to a crawl and getting worse day by day. Even people who have full time jobs are in the same circumstances - because the value of their wages has been inflated so as to be almost worthless, assuming their employer is even able to make payroll.

In other words, whether a person is frugal or a spendthrift, industrious or lazy, responsible or irresponsible - in Venezuela, they are all in the same state of desperate destitute poverty.

In other words, everybody is in the same boat. They are equal. A society of full equality where differences in the real world existence between the capable and the inept have been wiped out. Equality.

And people say socialism doesn't work!

Dismuke said...

""They are not paying people's whole pension. We are just getting two million" bolivars, worth 60 US cents at black market rates, said Basilio Octo, 68."

Yet another heroic achievement of socialism! Everybody in Venezuela is now a millionaire!!

Gus Van Horn said...

Dismuke,

Thanks for fleshing out the full meaning of my image caption!

Gus

Dismuke said...

Wow. I only now just noticed your image. I usually read through a feed that I guess omits images. But the image does show how socialism is good for the environment - the guy in the picture is recycling! Think of the landfill space people like him are saving.