In this new podcast, Martin Di Caro talks with Phil Magness about economic nationalism.
Perhaps sensing his time is limited, [Venezuelan dictatorial brute Nicolas] Maduro has now turned to a Soviet-style playbook of violent repression as his strategy for remaining in office. In the eyes of the New York Times though, Venezuela’s problems come from a different source. The culprit is not the Marxist strongman who’s desperately clinging to power or even the socialist economic policies that have thrust Venezuela into hyperinflation, poverty, and a massive exodus of its population. To Times reporters Anatoly Kurmanaev, Frances Robles, and Julie Turkewitz, Venezuela’s troubles come from “brutal capitalism.”
This was the conclusion of the newspaper’s coverage of Venezuela’s turmoil on the day of the vote. These three reporters extolled how the Chavismo movement, named after Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, “initially promised to lift millions out of poverty.” “For a time it did,” they declare, “But in recent years, the socialist model has given way to brutal capitalism, economists say, with a small state-connected minority controlling much of the nation’s wealth.”
Note that Messrs. Kurmanaev, Robles, and Turkewitz do not name the “economists” who allegedly diagnosed Venezuela with “brutal capitalism.” Neither do they bother to explain what “brutal capitalism” entails. The Times reporters simply advance their interpretation by declamatory labels. To them, “capitalism” is somehow to blame for the unfolding humanitarian disaster of real-life socialism.
Lastly, I don’t expect, the NYTimes to keep up on the latest counter-factual estimation techniques so I won’t ding them too much, but it’s clear that the Chavismo regime never lifted millions out of poverty. At best, poverty fell during the good years at the rate one would have expected from looking at similar countries. It’s the later rise in poverty which is unprecedented, as the NYTimes previously acknowledged.
Pundits across the world are still trying to figure out why Green parties crashed so hard, which leads one to wonder if they were paying attention.
It wasn’t just crackdowns on farming. Facing an energy crisis, governments across Europe began to roll out regulations forcing Europeans to adopt, shall we say, more spartan lifestyles.
“Cold swimming pools, chillier offices, and shorter showers are the new normal for Europeans,” Business Insider reported, “as governments crack down on energy use ahead of winter to prevent shortages.”
In other words, instead of producing or purchasing more energy, governments began to crack down on energy consumption.
I know that there are quite a lot of people within our elite institutions who believe that treating people differently based on the color of their skin is fine if the right people are doing it for the right reasons. But the thing is: those people are wrong.
Outright court-packing—adding extra justices simply to dilute the current justices’ votes—has been an infamy since 1937, when Congress rejected President Franklin Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the court into obeisance. In 2005, then-Sen. Biden remarked that FDR’s war on the court exemplified the adage, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
But now, frustrated by several decisions from the court’s current justices, some want court-packing by another name: a new framework to strip current justices of their constitutional responsibilities and transfer those powers to successors, one justice at a time, beginning with Justice Clarence Thomas.
