Think of it as a fluffy Stalinist omlet
In a move that will no doubt help further the Venezuelan government’s aim of establishing a socialist utopian republic, President Nicolas Maduro announced this week that grocery stores will soon begin the mandatory fingerprinting of customers. The peculiar initiative, which could be implemented by the end of the year, is meant to help combat the hoarding and smuggling of government-subsidized goods.
Venezuela exerts stringent currency and price controls on many products in an attempt to keep them affordable for its poorest citizens. Unfortunately, a staggering quantity of this merchandise ends up being secreted out of the country and re-sold at a profit in neighboring Colombia.
The oil-rich nation has been experiencing a chronic shortage of food supplies for a long while. Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, accused the political opposition last year of engineering the country’s shortages with the help of the CIA in order to undermine his government. […]
Faced with empty store shelves due to the combination of price controls, currency restrictions, and smuggling, Venezuelans are having a hard time finding the basics they need to live. The crisis has spurred the development of an app called Abasteceme (“Supply Me”), which allows shoppers to document and share where they have managed to find products.
The fingerprinting proposal, which critics decried as an invasion of privacy
Privacy? PRIVACY??!!?? What an out-dated, bourgeoisie, imperialistic, patriarchal notion! Honest people have no need for privacy!
Harruuummmmph.
and an attempt to institute a Cuban-style rationing program, would be similar to an anti-fraud system Venezuela currently employs during elections,
Voter id is only valid in Progressive socialist nations to keep enemies-of-the-people from reactionary crimes. Those of you in countries that have not repented of your oppressive capitalistic crimes must never, ever use ID of any kind when it comes to voting.
in which voting machines require the validation of a registered fingerprint. The mandatory fingerprinting is intended to prevent shoppers from buying too much of any one item and then reselling inventory bought below cost on a robust black market, or smuggling it out of the country.
Father Hugo, if he could be reached for comment, would approve!
meanwhile, back in the real world, oil prices seem to be trending lower
which will of course prompt the brain trust in venezuela to ramp up production
wee!
hmm this is a job for Sheryl Crow’s view on toilet paper: one sheet a visit
Sheryl saved the erf!
Thank you, Sheryl.
You’re a peach even if you don’t smell like one.
speaking of socialist utopias, Burger King is fleeing our one
not content to wallow in ObamaHolder’s fascist oppression, they’re on their way to canada don’t try and stop them
it’s a desperate bid for freedom will they make it?
they’ll make it or die trying i guess
their classic chicken sammich is still a guilty pleasure of mine in airports, but it keeps getting smaller and smaller
anyway like the von trapp family I hope they get over those mountains ok
“Father Hugo” sounds like a vintage windup sex toy, or that hurricane from years past when we used to have extra-large hurricanes. Al Gore (Fleece Be Underwriting Him) warmed them off.
Oh, and forget you ever heard of Sheryl Crow. To help you forget..
i love her musics I added her new cd to my cloud
Closer to home, dear old Barky slips farther and farther into surreality. This is becoming most embarrassing..
the Russian Foreign Minister guy pretty much nails it
America is the fixed-income crazy cat lady in world affairs anymore
and the neighbors are obviously concerned
>“More and more questions are being raised about the ability of the current US administration to participate in the development of realistic and pragmatic approaches to:”< 5 iron or 6 at 200 yards
Out: “1776”
In: “5150”
i need sumthing positive Pharrell Williams – Happy
Reason #6550 why price controls are always a bad idea: truckloads of unintended consequences.
Instead of helping the poor get rich, Chávez and his control-freak cronies just have to be the ones to grant low prices to their children.
This is how awful people get elected and re-elected (assuming fair elections) in Latinoamérica: promises of free stuff.
How very alien, right?
the basics they need to live
Necessities.
What on earth would politics have to do with necessities? How about we ask Machiavelli, since we’re all — not Epicureans — but Machiavellians now? It’s his world and we’re merely living in it.
And so, just as with the snide (and pointed) question regarding HopeAndChange, we might want to query Machiavelli “And how’s that going for us, say?”
Burger King needs to be more patriotic, stay in the US and change their name to “Burger President”.
(I thought Tim Hortons was already owned by Wendy’s )
Oh, just looked it up. Hortons regained its independence in 2009.
What on earth would politics have to do with necessities?
He who supplies the Necessities is the Rightful Ruler. Amor y paz.
Burger King needs to be more patriotic, stay in the US and change their name to “Burger President”.
I think the majority owner of BK is Brazilian or something like that, so maybe Burger Commandante.
Either way, if it gets more Tim’s down here in the civilized states and closer than Tampa, I’m all for it. One of the greatest marvels was the Canadians getting a Tim Horten’s in Kandahar – the Canadians’ hockey rink was a bit surreal, but Tim’s was a thing of wonder.
He’ll even come off the golf course if it will help us keep up with the EU.
Who loves ya baby?
Aristotlelis Savalas, that’s who. Have a lollipop.
What what you
eattweet boy!i no tweet or facestate
Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution [Chapter 4]:
For intellectuals of this kind, the criterion of truth was not life: they created their own reality, or rather, sur-reality, subject to verification only with reference to opinions of which they approved. Contradictory evidence was ignored: anyone inclined to heed such evidence was ruthlessly cast out.
This kind of thinking led to a progressive estrangement from life….
…Live reality was treated as a perversion or caricature of “genuine” reality, believed to lurk invisible behind appearances and waiting to be set free by the Revolution. This attitude would enable the intelligentsia to accept as true propositions at total variance with demonstrable fact as well as common sense…. To understand the behavior of the intelligentsia it is imperative to keep in mind at all times its deliberate detachment from reality: for while the revolutionaries can be ruthlessly pragmatic in exploiting, for tactical purposes, the people’s grievances, their notion of what the people desire is the product of sheer abstraction. Not surprisingly, when they come to power, revolutionary intellectuals immediately seize control of the means of information and institute a tight censorship: for it is only by suppressing free speech that they can impose their “sur-reality” on ordinary people bogged down in the quagmire of facts.
You might enjoy this Bob, it is in the same vein.
Man. They gonna love me!
Thanks, Geoff. I will read it soon now that my brain is recovering from the fever and sore throat I had.