Venezuela has shockingly not prospered under the lunacy-tinged idiocy that socialism already represents (tip to Instapundit):
Despite some of the largest oil reserves on the planet and freedom from a US embargo like the one that beset Cuba, it turns out that Venezuela is an equally sad example of what a socialist paradise looks like. Food, medicine, toilet paper, and dollars are either impossible to find or priced out of anyone’s ability to afford them. Growth in this year’s first quarter clocked in at less than a percentage point, with GDP expected to contract by one percent at year’s end. Year after year, a vicious cycle spawned by a labyrinth of price and currency controls cuts off the oxygen supply to Venezuela’s import-dependent economy and ends up making goods more scarce and inflation more severe.
Venezuela still ships to subsidized oil to us, so I still think the best thing we could do to undermine Venezuela's nutball rulers would be to publicly thank them for helping us out:
I think we should take out full page advertisements in Venezuela thanking Chavez for selling Americans cheap oil. Have pictures of smiling Americans standing in front of their homes (with a car in the garage and the air conditioning unit clearly visible) thanking the people of Venezuela.
I think Venezuelans would be happy to know that even if they suffer under Chavez's idiotic economic theories that Americans benefit. Socialism only works with other people's money and Americans are benefiting from Venezuelan money.
