If NYC Wants To Try “Real Socialism,” Move To Venezuela - Daniel Di Martino

0:01 There are videos of Chavis saying being rich is bad with a Rolex on his wrist. It's as if they're mocking you with what they're saying. But in every socialist dictatorship, the dictator has become a rich man, right? And you know, but people will tell you, you know, imagine, let's try to steal my argument. They will tell you that, well, it's because they did it wrong. If I was the socialist dictator, I would be a good dictator. or it would be a benevolent dictator as we say in economics when you have a benevolent central planner. Uh the reality is that even if you were even if you were a benevolent dictator and assuming that you will always have a benevolent dictator which obviously you can't guarantee this system still doesn't work because you don't have all the information to manage the economy that people individually do. If you manage where people go to school, where people eat, what they buy from the from the store, what people produce, you don't know people's preferences. That's why the Soviet Union always had these uh problems where they had too much of one thing, too little of another. Um >> persistent shortages.

1:08 >> Yes. They, for example, they made pants of uh the same amount of of pants of different colors. And they didn't think that people would like some colors more than others. And so they always run out of the popular uh blue jeans. and and so blue jeans became like a really scarce good in Eastern Europe. So so these kinds of things, right? They they don't think that because they are they're not profit maximizing. One of the things I remember seeing is there was an there was an image of an American, let's just call it slum.

1:38 That's what it would have been called. You know, a poor area. I think it might have even been in in here in New York City. And it was a picture of an apartment complex. And this was distributed in the Soviet Union as an attempt to see to tell the public, look at how terrible America is. Look at their desperate poverty and inequality. And what the propagandists didn't realize is that but the public saw very quickly was that when you looked inside the windows like most of the people had televisions, their lights were on and it caused a real problem because the actual Soviet citizens seeing this alleged poverty saw working poor living better than they were. M >> and it was it was not even and and I I almost think that the it's another example of of like elites being detached from their own people that that the propagandists didn't even realize how much worse their own people were living than this picture because they were living better than the picture.

2:41 >> You know, I'll tell you a story I learned. Um I'm a speaker for YAF Young America's Foundation and and they own the Ronald Reagan ranch. If you go to the ranch, you see that he has Reagan had like an Exxon pump of gas. And when he took Gorbachev to the ranch, Gorbachev was amazed that there was a gas pump in his house. And so he asked him, "Does every American have a gas pump in their house?" And Reagan just, you know, because he just wanted to mess with him, said, "Oh yeah, don't you in the Soviet Union?" And Gorbachev was totally shocked about it because they could believe it. They could believe it because they really didn't know how life was. even the leaders of the Soviet Union in a free country.

3:19 >> So, what are some of the most shocking things that an American high school student would find would would learn if they could be taken safely to Venezuela and spend spend a week living there like like an average Venezuelan citizen? >> Uh, it would be the utilities probably. That would be one of the first and most shocking things, right? No electricity at random times uh sometimes for a very long time, no water. Uh another thing that probably be very shocking and you know we're taking we're putting them in safety, right? So they're not suffering from the crime which is also a big issue in Venezuela which makes it worse than m perhaps many other socialist nations.

4:04 Venezuela has a very high crime problem. Cuba doesn't have like Venezuela this problem. Um another big thing would be that everything is so expensive and people really make very little money. So Madura recently actually released the price control. So there are no more shortages in Venezuela. You don't have to line up. You just have to pay international market prices for food, right? Which means several dollars of of of US dollars per gallon of milk, right? Uh but what an average person makes a month in Venezuela now is about $100. So how are you going to feed yourself? And that's assuming you have a house, right?

4:41 If you don't have a house, you're likely going to be on the street or you're likely going to have to collect trash or or steal or or eat really from the garbage to to survive, which is what many Venezuelans are. I think that the average high school kid in the US if they were dropped off in Venezuela, even regardless of the crime, the first thing they would try to do is save money or find a way to leave. That's what they would do, which is what Venezuelans are doing, right? uh they would have no teachers in school because teachers fled the country. Uh they would have uh you know this would happen to me very often in high school. The teacher would dismiss class because she found that there was chicken or toilet paper or any rice whatever that she needed in the grocery store where her friend works down the street. So that she was called or got a text in the middle of class.

5:35 Hey, Maria, chicken is going to arrive. Uh, better hurry up before people line up. And you know, Maria would dismiss class because she's there for her family. A totally reasonable thing to do. But what are the consequences for education of kids, right? You have no biology teacher suddenly for a whole a full semester. Um, kids are becoming illiterate in Venezuela. I saw it myself in New York City when a kid came to my church with his dad seeking to be baptized from Venezuela as part of the of the border crisis and the kid didn't know how to read or write in Spanish at nine.

6:10 >> Never. >> One of the things um what's the current state of malnutrition? Because one of the numbers I've seen is that and it's like it's hard to argue with this. This is like the most basic human thriving question is that um people have shrunk. They're they're they're they're starving. So what what's that? What what how do you understand what's happening to like basic like calories available for Venezuelan people? >> You know how Venezuelans call that the the thinning of the population? The Majura diet.

6:44 >> And it's funny because Majora has only gotten fatter. Um >> it's like a visual. There was even a time where he was on national TV where he didn't know that the camera turned on and he was literally getting an empanada out of his desk and eating it on TV. You know, these are the kinds of incident these are the kinds of incidents that that happened in our TV. It really kept us entertained at least. Uh he could also show up on on your TV whenever he wanted. By the way, uh that that was part of the telecommunications law. Uh, >> wait, wait. So, you're in your living room with periodic power. Yeah. And could he turn the TVs on?

7:19 >> No. No. No. Okay. Yeah. We didn't have that. >> We're not that that technologically advanced. But yeah, if you were watching something, he would appear >> in your TV onational eating eating an empanada. >> Yeah. Great. >> And sometimes, one time at least that I remember, there was a blackout in the middle of the of the TV uh streaming in the place where he was streaming from. No, not in our house. So the the streaming suddenly ended and he was so mad about that you know because they couldn't even keep the lights on for themselves. But you know you you me asked about malnutrition.

7:52 So yes they call it the Maduro diet and uh I can tell you my aunt was a preschool teacher in Venezuela until she left and she would have kids that would faint in class in the middle of class because they hadn't had dinner or breakfast. They only ate once a day and she would try to bring as much food as she could to help some of the kids. It was extremely sad. >> Argentina has gone through something similar though not as extreme it seems right with the peronists.

8:24 So this is a a slightly less full communism more like fascistic populism as I understand. Yeah, I I I would understand it in the same way. >> Sort of cult of personality, populist, fascism, crooked cronies that ripped off the country and destroyed it. Um, you now have Javier Malay who's the most radically free market president I think in the history of planet Earth. >> I would say so. Yes. I mean, he calls himself on the na international stage and a narco capitalist, which is like on the spectrum from Stalin.

9:03 If you're going to be opposite Stalin, it's like he's on the other end. >> It's like Murray Rothbart. I think he might have a dog that he named Murray. >> He he has several dogs which were cloned by the way, which is also insane. >> Yeah. So, um, how do you understand what he's trying to do and what's happening there? Uh, I'm very happy about it. Um, you know, you're right. The Peronis didn't quite destroy Argentina like Venezuela, but they were on their way. And that's why Christina Fernandez, who has been finally declared guilty and sentenced to six years in prison, by the way, the former president uh for her corruption. She um was a very good friend of Hugo Chavez, uh extremely close friends. And uh Argentina was an ally in the international stage.

9:48 Argentina also incredibly destroy its economy with and and the big reason was that they spent all this money. They used the central bank to print money to to pay for it. So that creates inflation, right? Yeah. >> So when Javier Mle assumed office as president, inflation was at about 200% annualized and it was scheduled to go up to thousands, right? >> Uh if it kept up and so he did what many people thought was impossible politically, which was balance the budget immediately in one month. I didn't honestly expect him to be that successful.

10:20 >> And is it sustaining? Because my first thought when I saw that was did he kick the can and like and like when the final year is assessed it was like kind of like a dip and then an explosion or is it sustained? >> That's what many people thought. But no, you know, people thought he wasn't going to be able to politically sustain it. Not that he legally couldn't. He legally could. Um because the Argentinian president has much more budgetary power than say an American president.

10:45 >> Okay. Uh that's really the reason that you couldn't do that in the US. >> Yeah. >> Um >> social security and Medicare which constitutes half the budget. >> Yeah. He literally lowered pensions uh in real terms. So pensioners are receiving less pensions adjusted for inflation >> and they haven't strung them up in the streets. >> That's that's what's impressive, right? that he has kept not only has have they not overthrown him but like he still has over 50% popularity in the polls because I think Argentinians he was able to persuade them that you needed this radical change remember his state of the not his state his inauguration speech began or or ended with there is no money and he just cut government spending no transfers to the provinces no more infrastructure spending reduce pensions and elimination of subsidies, balancing the budget. Now, inflation has fallen radically. Uh he's begun deregulating uh reducing taxes as well, especially on on imports and exports. Uh Argentina is one of the few countries in the world that taxes its exports. Uh it's actually its main source of revenue.

11:51 >> Interesting. >> Uh taxes on agricultural exports, uh soybeans especially. Now, those taxes have been reduced with the goal of encouraging more exports. I think that the next step now is to eliminate fully the currency and and capital controls uh and eventually dollars. >> And he I saw him explain um he was recently on the Lex Freedman podcast and he was talking about that he took some heat from classical liberal people weirdly shockingly to me that he wasn't that he was actually maintaining certain controls. I think it might have been capital controls.

12:26 >> Yes. Yes. >> So how do you understand what happened there? because there were things he couldn't do right away. >> That's right. Because the it had to do with a really weird financial instrument that the central bank had issued that would have led to massive inflation if he had done it in the for for a few months. And he thought it was too politically risky. And I and I agree and you know it doesn't matter anymore because it's it's over. Yeah. Uh the black market exchange rate is now essentially the same as the official exchange rate. So I I think at any point in in the future he will release capital controls like in a surprise announcement.

13:00 >> Is is MLE the most exciting thing happening in South America? How do you understand what he is he aberration? Is he a sign of we have had enough oppression and socialist communist fascist rule and we are ready to accept the transition to something that actually works. >> I I would say so and and in part it was because Argentina didn't become a dictatorship outright, right? There were still free uh elections even if they weren't really fair, but they were free.

13:36 People could vote and there wasn't cheating. They count they they were able to count their votes faster than California. >> Oh, absolutely. >> Which is like what do we do? >> On paper, you know, uh and there there's no mail. Uh you know, everything's better. There's ID, you know, it's it's much more secure actually. Uh but it's true that people do get bribed to vote in Argentina by the welfare programs and by people who manage them. So that is a big problem. Yeah. In many Latin American countries and around the world really. Uh I think a lot of people I I would say yes, Milai is the most exciting thing happening in Latin America overall. Uh I think a lot of people uh incorrectly praise Boule as a really exciting thing in El Salvador. Uh I think it's a mistake because even though he has obviously been very successful at reducing crime, there's a lot of other problems that Buch brings that MLE doesn't. Among them, you know, he's not really a free market person. He was a member of the Socialist Party. Um not only that, but you know, his family has a lot of corruption, deals with the Venezuelan government. he has like a shadow cabinet of Venezuelan advisors.

14:35 >> Um, which is always very weird, right, as a Salvadorian president. Um, and then the other big issue is that he essentially illegally reelected himself, right? He packed the Supreme Court of El Salvador when they disagreed with him and then even though the Constitution didn't allow for immediate reelection of the president, he managed to get the Supreme Court to reread the Constitution what it said in plain Spanish. and then he ran for reelection. Uh, and so as much as I would say he's been successful, I think if you are so popular, right, as he was, why wouldn't you go through the process of amending the constitution to allow for re-election if that's what you want, right? If he supposedly has 90% popular support, why can't you amend the constitution to reflect that? I think that, you know, when you start destroying the institutions of a democracy, that's when, you know, you really lose me. If you like this clip, you should check out the full video and all the other great content we've got at Dad Saves America. So, be sure to hit the like button, subscribe, and ring that bell so you won't miss our new stuff as it drops each week.