Hugo to the Promised Land

Looks like Hugo Chavez is continuing on his drive to totally destroy Venezuela's economy.

President Hugo Chavez's government is pushing ahead with a programme of land seizures which he describes as a drive towards socialism - taking over parts of huge privately-owned estates and handing them to the poor.

But the scheme is angering both the big landowners and those promised new property.

The key element of any thriving, growing economy is the right to own and accumulate private property. When you destroy that, you destroy the incentive to achieve, to work, and to build a better tomorrow for you and yours. Imagine, if you will, a 100% tax of income and property. Everything you make or build will be taken from you and given to others. What possible motivation would you then have to take a risk in opening a business or even go to work for somebody else? Absolutely none, you just sit back and wait for the government to hand you stuff. But then everyone does that, nobody produces and so the economy crashes and the government has to start just printing money and taking stuff from people at the point of a gun.

If you want to see how socialism bordering on communism works, just look at how thing are going in Zimbabwe right now. Inflation there is 1400% a year and growing.

It is not a matter of if Venezuela's economy will crash and burn, but when.