Castro, Chavez, and 'bad luck': Glenn Reynolds
Castro and his ilk showed us that under socialism, the powerful grow rich — and everyone else grows poor.
GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS  |  USA TODAY
Updated 11:03 a.m. CST Nov. 27, 2016



Robert Heinlein once wrote:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.em

This is known as “bad luck.”

I thought about this statement this weekend, reading two news stories. The first was about the tide of Venezuelans taking to boats to escape Venezuela’s economic collapse. As The New York Times reported, “Venezuela was once one of Latin America’s richest countries, flush with oil wealth that attracted immigrants from places as varied as Europe and the Middle East."

"But after President Hugo Chávez vowed to break the country’s economic elite and redistribute wealth to the poor, the rich and middle class fled to more welcoming countries in droves, creating what demographers describe as Venezuela’s first diaspora.”

Now, in their absence, things have gotten worse, and it’s poorer Venezuelans — the very ones that Chavez’s revolution was allegedly intended to help — who are starving. Many are even taking to boats, echoing, as the Times notes, “an image so symbolic of the perilous journeys to escape Cuba or Haiti — but not oil-rich Venezuela.”

WebsterMark wrote on 12/13/18 at 07:02:13:

Is this what's essentially happening in California?

It is my opinion that,
it is one of the things happening in Calf.

Just wondering why, the people who lost EVERYTHING in the fires,
(I personalty know someone from Paradise Calf)
Have a harder time getting help, food, water, shelter, healthcare.
than the Illegals sneaking across the border.

verslagen1 wrote on 12/13/18 at 08:58:37:

 Those people are rich land owners.  

"...14.1% of the population for whom poverty status is determined in Paradise, CA (3,636 out of 25,873 people) live below the poverty line, a number that is approximately the same as the national average of 14%....The median property value in Paradise, CA is $200,900  and the homeownership rate is 70.5..."

"...The median property value in Malibu, CA is $1.8M, and the homeownership rate is 70.6%...."

https://datausa.io/profile/geo/paradise-ca/