Public employees in Venezuela are being given long weekends in a bid to stave off a nationwide power crisis.
President Nicolas Maduro says late Wednesday he is signing a decree giving state workers a Friday furlough for the next two months. Together with other measures, he hopes to reduce electricity consumption by at least 20 percent.
Officials have been warning for weeks that the water level behind the nation’s largest dam has fallen to near its minimum operating level. Almost 70 percent of the South American country’s electricity comes from hydropower.
Maduro’s socialist administration blames the critical situation on a drought and repeated acts of sabotage by its opponents.
But experts say rationing could have been prevented had the government invested in maintenance and in the construction of thermoelectric plants.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
Venezuela is experiencing it problems thanks to the inability of government to run a power industry. Free enterprise will generally do a better job than government bureaucrats will. To connect the story with the headline, Venezuela’s socialist government has removed the incentives for excellence or achievement. Socialism always sounds good. Everyone likes the idea of equality, especially when they stand to gain from the efforts to equalize. Unfortunately we aren’t all equal. Some people are better at making excuses for their unproductivity than actually doing something. In a true socialist society most of the incentives for productivity are gone or greatly diminished. The Soviet Union did a great job enforcing socialism. Their system was probably the purest example of socialism in the world. For the average Soviet citizen they had to stand in line at stores which were generally filled with empty shelves. The few cars on the road had all the style of a utilitarian piece of factory equipment. The average Soviet citizen lived a bleak life. I guess they could take comfort in the fact they were equal, but I really don’t like the idea of being equally poor.
“Their system was probably the purest example of socialism in the world”
Grab a book and do some reading…it would be more beneficial than spouting falsehoods.
You are looking at one of the most inept governments in the world.
try Scandinavia and Europe as an example.
Their system is working quite well
Syck ? exactly !
Hell I worked down there for about a year on their power system. It’s a hell hole in the best of times.
I got stuck in the elevator when they shut the power off for about 3 hours
The entire country. Any building that can accommodate human occupancy is set up like a prison complex. Bars, high walls, razor wire, electric wire, spikes, guards at our “compound” which they said I lived where the wealthy lives. Which was small.
The Venezuelans we hired out of the University were great guys. Very smart and hard working. One of them said if he could get his hands on Chavez he’d kill him with his bare hands.
Another mechanical engineer (Venezuelan) said that he had started a business and down there it is much harder to get the tools and materials trucks and capital to start a business than it is here, in the US. After a while he finally started making a profit then, guess what? Yup, the almighty government swooped down and took the mans business.
I don’t care if socialism is precariously balanced somewhere and appears to be working!!!! Anyone who advocates socialism is either a lazy SOB or extremely stupid, or very uncultured.
The UNITED STATES invented almost all modern inventions and in the span of only about a couple hundred years. Not because we are smarter but because we were freer and our market was freer.
Socialism is slavery and it has psychological effects that I haven’t heard any socialist address.
Anyway I’m getting tired of typing
LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC
Another government is failing, and you can tell it is liberal/socialist because it is blaming anything wrong on all but the government. Sound familiar with our current leadership. Guess where we are headed if some common sense and leadership does not surface—-like campfires.
Hey,its what Communist do, don’t get upset, here is some good reading for all of you “Dumb A$$’s”
Moses Hess 14 letters, he is also one of Gods Chosen Children like Bernie Sanders.
You people are not very well informed.jmo of course.
“Puntin 2016” 🙂
Bernie and Hillary know that when rationing comes, they’ll be at the front of the line.