Venezuela crisis: I flew to U.S. to buy toilet paper

Yet another Socialist Utopia. They all seem to fail, and yet the excuse/explanation always focuses on faults in each specific implementation, or on malevolent external forces. It's never the overall idea that's questioned.

E.g. here's a headline:

   How Socialism Failed Venezuela[1]

but no, that can't be possible. So here's the alternative headline:

   US-Led Economic War, Not Socialism,
   Is Tearing Venezuela Apart[2]

In that article we learn that: millions of Venezuelans have seen their living conditions vastly improved through the Bolivarian process. The problems plaguing the Venezuelan economy are not due to some inherent fault in socialism, but to artificially low oil prices and sabotage by forces hostile to the revolution.

Yeah, it's those darned meddling Yankees who are to blame. I'm sure they are the ones who convinced Chavez to nationalize the cash-cow oil industry, leading to: Chávez’s policies damaged Venezuela's oil industry due to lack of investment, corruption and cash shortages.[3]

[1] http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2016-06-06/socialism-...

[2] http://www.mintpressnews.com/us-led-economic-war-not-sociali...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Venezuelan_oil_...

Confession: I hoarded 192 rolls of TP for Y2K.

Frankly, I don't like Chavez, but enough is enough. Time to get an aid concert going and get some TP to Venezuela!

Oops, spoke too soon -- http://fusion.net/story/308479/venezuela-blocks-humanitarian...

Venezuela's economy is so screwed up, it's amazing that there's a bare minimum of support to keep the chavista's in power.