Tag Archives: Business

News

Communist Venezuela introduces energy rationing in 2010

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Story here from Breitbart. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Oil-rich Venezuela ushered in 2010 with new measures rationing electricity use in malls, businesses and billboards, as Hugo Chavez’s government aimed to save power amid a crippling drought.

The new regulations came into effect January 1, with businesses required to comply with reduced consumption limits and authorities warning of forced power cuts and rate hikes if the measures are not followed.

[…]The power crunch is expected to have an impact on a wide variety of businesses, including cinemas, casinos and bingo halls.

Establishments failing to comply with the measures could face outages for a period of 24 hours, and up to 72-hour suspensions “in case of recidivism,” according to the decree.

The regulation also orders businesses to institute savings plans aimed at shedding consumption by at least 20 percent, a measure that will be evaluated monthly by the newly-created ministry of electricity.

Tariff surcharges of up to 20 percent could be imposed on violators.

Rationing is also to apply to lighted advertisements.

[…]In 2009 there were four nationwide blackouts, with daily failures common in several cities.

Communism produces economic decline by encouraging entrepreneurs to flee or to stop producing, since the state views what these producers produce as something to be seized and distributed to buy votes. If no one wants to start any businesses, then there won’t be any jobs for the people. People end up depending on the state for bread, with all that that entails. The left wants equality of life outcome regardless of choices, (except for themselves).

I don’t see any difference between the intelligence and policies of Hugo Chavez and Barack Obama. Hugo is just further along the road to serfdom, in my opinion. Obama just has more capitalism and Judeo-Christian morality to undo. After Obama passes government-controlled rationing of health care, he’ll probably move on to government-controlled rationing of energy. By then, Chavez should be rationing births, housing, food and water.

Podcasts

MUST-LISTEN: Michele Bachmann issues conservative call to action

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Listen to the interview here.

Other media formats with the same interview:

I highly recommend listening to this 30-minute podcast. Very moving. At one point she is almost in tears as she pleads with people to call Washington and tell them not to spend any more taxpayer money. Never heard anything like this before from a legislator in all my life.

Commentary

Charles Krauthammer on how global warming alarmism is socialism

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Editorial from the Washington Post. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

Excerpt:

[…]On the day Copenhagen opened, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed jurisdiction over the regulation of carbon emissions by declaring them an “endangerment” to human health.

Since we operate an overwhelmingly carbon-based economy, the EPA will be regulating practically everything. No institution that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 a year will fall outside EPA control. This means more than a million building complexes, hospitals, plants, schools, businesses and similar enterprises. (The EPA proposes regulating emissions only above 25,000 tons, but it has no such authority.) Not since the creation of the Internal Revenue Service has a federal agency been given more intrusive power over every aspect of economic life.

[…]Socialism having failed so spectacularly, the left was adrift until it struck upon a brilliant gambit: metamorphosis from red to green. The cultural elites went straight from the memorial service for socialism to the altar of the environment. The objective is the same: highly centralized power given to the best and the brightest, the new class of experts, managers and technocrats. This time, however, the alleged justification is not abolishing oppression and inequality but saving the planet.

The EPA decision basically passes control of the economy to Washington while bypassing the legislature. Krauthammer calls it a “coup d’etat”.