A little late to the party, the BBC wonders at the surreal and ongoing failure of the Venezuelan regime to provide its citizens with life’s basic amenities. Goods such as flour, sugar, cooking oil, shampoo and detergent, and the oft-mentioned toilet paper are now in such short supply that people are given time off work to queue in front of the stores. But in good socialist fashion, matters seem otherwise pretty “well organized”. Authorities are advising stores to allow customers to queue in underground parking lots so that they don’t get sunburnt, and have also instituted some measures to trim down the number of shoppers: people can “only buy scarce goods on certain days of the week depending on what number their ID card ends in”.
At this stage, further comments on the economics of what’s happening in Venezuela (which we wrote about in the past) are hardly necessary. It’s interesting to point out, however, that around the world these kind of ultimate failures of socialism not only originate from the same causes, but tend to manifest themselves in strikingly similar manner.
About 30 years ago on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, Romanians used to wait in line for hours in front of mostly empty shelves. But for them, the situation had long ceased to be a temporary crisis, as Venezuela’s problems are still portrayed. The Romanian communist regime, in place already for more than two decades, had rationalized most food shortages as...
California’s health insurance exchange, established under the Affordable Care Act, has been held out as a national model for Obamacare. In some ways—not all of them good—it is. Whether it’s falling far short of 2015 enrollment goals or sending out 100,000 inaccurate tax forms, Covered California is struggling with its share of challenges.
Now, several senior-level officials integral to the launch of Covered California—who enthusiastically support the Affordable Care Act—are speaking about what they view as gross incompetence and mismanagement involving some of the $1 billion federal tax dollars poured into the state effort.
‘Somebody Must Have Been Smoking Something’
Consultant Aiden Hill became a “foxhole convert” to Obamacare in July of 2010 when he lost his insurance, had a serious medical issue and couldn’t get a new policy.
“I lived through a health care nightmare. That’s one reason why I took a cut in my pay rate to work for Covered California.”
In March 2013, Hill was hired as project manager over Covered California’s massive $120 million call center effort. In just six short months, it would face an avalanche of customers seeking insurance mandated under the new law.
But five months on the job converted Hill from avid supporter to disenchanted whistleblower. He says the secretive and dysfunctional culture was...
As part of the Army’s mandatory Sexual Harassment and Assault
Prevention (SHARP) training, some units are requiring Soldiers to participate in a Walk a Mile In Her Shoes event, in order to bring awareness to rape and sexual assault, and “stop men’s sexualized violence against women.”
Sounds positive, right? Well there’s just one little detail that is causing quite the controversy, as these male Soldiers will all be forced to cross-dress, wearing red high heeled shoes during the 1.26 mile walk.
One cadet from Arizona ROTC said that any personnel who refused to participate in the event, would receive a negative counseling form from their leadership, which would state that the Soldier didn’t support their unit’s rape and sexual prevention program...
Poor management practices at the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) air program have
potentially cost taxpayers $41.1 million by allowing for detainees to be transferred on nearly empty flights, according to a new audit.
The Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) also found that the agency’s database for tracking the transfer of detainees is riddled with errors, leaving ICE unsure of a detainees’ criminal history, gang affiliation, or even gender.
ICE Air uses charter and commercial flights to transfer detainees to foreign countries or within the United States. In many instances, the audit found, the flights are less than half full.
“Although ICE Air met its mission by transporting 930,435 detainees over a 3-1/2 year period, it could have used its resources more effectively,” the audit said. “In fact, ICE Air may have missed opportunities to improve the program’s overall effectiveness even though it has identified some ways to reduce costs associated with detainee transportation.”
“The lack of reliable data limits the ability of management to make informed decisions regarding how many planes it needs to transport the current level of detainees, whether it should...
