The Patriot Post® · Venezuela: A Country on the Brink

The near future doesn’t bode well for the socialist country of Venezuela. While the country has the largest known oil reserves in the world, the country itself didn’t plan for a day when the price of oil would dip and its revenue trickle to near nothing. At least some officials in U.S. intelligence believe current Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will be forced out before his term ends in 2018.

With unrest brewing because of blackouts and chronic shortages of basic goods, there are fears the whole country will experience an economic meltdown. A few weeks ago, the nation’s largest beer manufacturer ceased production because it didn’t have enough money to keep bottling the amber liquid. But far worse, look at the nation’s hospitals, where newborn infants die because rolling blackouts disable vital machines and doctors don’t even have enough supplies to perform their jobs.

Venezuela’s economic decay is a sobering lesson for Sanders supporters — “free stuff” not only isn’t free, it isn’t the best stuff. Indeed, as Investor’s Business Daily points out, socialism in all its variations have failed in such places as France, Argentina and Brazil. “A quick look at the world’s countries in direst economic shape reveals that many, if not most, have one thing in common: They rely on top-down socialist control, rather than free markets, to run their economies,” IBD writes. “The former, history amply shows, are doomed to fail. There are no long-term socialist success stories. None.”