Venezuela has a bread shortage, something that is utterly predicable considering the mad cap, apocalyptic socialism that country is now being destroyed by. Also, just as predicable, has been the regime’s reaction, which is to seize bakeries and arrest pastry chefs.
The problem is that Venezuela, facing a shortage of cash thanks to the low price of oil, its sole export, on the world market, has cut back on imports, including wheat. Compounding the problem is the fact that most flour is subjected to price controls. Math tells us that when not enough wheat exists, not enough flour is milled, and hence not enough Bread is baked.
The government believes that the country’s bakers are plotting against the people by baking specialty pastries such as croissants with price controlled flour and not enough loaves of ordinary bread. The socialist regime has also prohibited standing in line for bread as well, the idea being that such lines do not look good on television or social media. The decree is likely impossible to enforce.
The government in Venezuela has instituted price controls, heavy spending, and regulations that seem designed to inhibit production of even the most basic goods. The policies have resulted in massive shortages of almost everything and Weimer style hyperinflation. The result is the inevitable end game of socialism.
Venezuela’s future is bleak, absent regime change to a government that understands economics and is not so bound to ideology. The choice seems to be between a road warrior style anarchy in which social order collapses entirely and starving hordes either rampage through the country in search of food or are pouring across the border to any country that might take them in and feed them or bloody revolution.
The latter choice is actually the preferred one, but it involves street battles ending with government officials dangling from lamp posts and the world community faced with a massive relief effort as a new regime struggles to put back together a broken nation.
American policy should be to facilitate regime change as quickly and as peacefully as possible. It may be too late for the peacefully part, however.
