Reader Jamie, via email; “The upside of socialism — it is now safe to land an airplane without crashing into a burro.“

You’ve got company: Mexicans appear to have elected their first left-wing leader in decades, as exit polls showed Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador winning Sunday’s presidential vote by a landslide over his business-friendly rivals.

For sure, it’s going to work this time.

Saving the planet, one failed socialist state at a time.

Thousands of workers are fleeing Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, abandoning once-coveted jobs made worthless by the worst inflation in the world. And now the hemorrhaging is threatening the nation’s chances of overcoming its long economic collapse, union leaders, oil executives and workers say.

 

Desperate oil workers and criminals are also stripping the oil company of vital equipment, vehicles, pumps and copper wiring, carrying off whatever they can to make money. The double drain — of people and hardware — is further crippling a company that has been teetering for years yet remains the country’s most important source of income.

 

The timing could not be worse for Venezuela’s increasingly authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, who was re-elected last month in a vote that has been widely condemned by leaders across the hemisphere. Prominent opposition politicians were either barred from competing in the election, imprisoned or in exile.

Sean Penn was unavailable for comment: Starving mob beat cattle to death with rocks in desperate search for food and four people are killed during looting in Venezuela as country’s economic collapse continues
(Disturbing images)

CNN;

Venezuela, a nation spiraling into a humanitarian crisis, has missed a debt payment. It could soon face grim consequences.
[…]
Venezuela has no other meaningful income other than the oil it sells abroad. The government, meanwhile, has failed for years to ship in enough food and medicine for its citizens. As a result, Venezuelans are waiting hours in line to buy food and dying in hospitals that lack basic resources.
If investors seize the country’s oil shipments, the food and medical shortages would worsen quickly.
“Then it’s pandemonium,” says Fernando Freijedo, an analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit, a research firm. “The humanitarian crisis is already pretty dire … it boggles the mind what could happen next.”

All is unfolding as predicted.