Compadre, Can You Spare a Bolivar?

You know, I think we've been too harsh with our various institutions of higher education when they offer courses and majors in things like “Marxist Studies”. In fact, I think those programs should be supported and promoted by the government (I nominate HUD, they've got nothing better to do) – with one provision, namely that anyone taking a course in Marxist studies be required to spend the entire semester in Venezuela. Here is a country that is, truly, standing athwart history and shouting, “Let's give it (communism) one more chance.” And as it melts down – economically and socially – with each new, but purely Marxist, initiative by Hugo Chavez, it can provide a vivid case study or “lab session” for all of our aspiring Marxists up here on the chilly side of the Rio Grande. For example, the shout “Buy, buy, the world is going to die” recently echoed through the streets of Caracas when Chavez announced a devaluation of the currency. Can you imagine anything like that happening here? (Actually, I can – and I get a feeling it will.) As we all know, currency devaluation is one of the premier weapons any establishment can wield against a nation's wealth – mainly the wealth of people who are holding on to currency, which means the middle class (since the lower classes are broke and the upper classes have, um, “diversified”). And we also know that something very similar – qualitatively if not in terms of velocity – is happening here, and in fact has been for decades. And it's easy enough to say, well, it's not the currency that's important, but the standard of living – i.e. what said currency will buy. True enough – but what has the Caracasinos (is that right?) in a dither is the knowledge that much of what they buy is imported – from places that are not devaluing their currency. So while the price of mangoes might not skyrocket, the price of shoes from Malaysia very well might. And thus, in their prescient way, they pronounce that the world is going to die – which it is, in the sense that the world's finances have been taken over by the descendants of Attila the Hun.