A.M. Mora y Leon is back from Venezuela, and writing about the shortages which are developing in Hugo Chavez's socialist paradise. Despite abundant petrodollar wealth, the price controls and other statist interventions are producing shortages in a time of wealth.

I agree that the coffee in Venezuela is the best in the world, nevermind claims for Jamaican Blue Mountain (which is delicious and absurdly expensive) and Brazilian and Columbian coffees. I still remember with pleasure the intense small cups of coffee one could buy all over Caracas. I have never had any to match it anywhere.

Apparently, no more. Mora y Leon was able to buy some on the way out of the county at the airport. No such luck for ordinary Venezuelans, of course. But that is far from the biggest problem they have as the country slides toward Communist dictatorship andthe clutches of the Islamofascists.

Thomas Lifson 12 27 05