Want the 40-second version of what socialism does to a country?

Issues & Insight's John Merline has found a beaut in the research of economist Mark Perry, who brilliantly placed his findings from International Monetary Fund data on an animated video on YouTube. Get a load:

In 1982, Venezuela ranked number one among all South (Perry mistakenly uses the term "Latin") American nations and notes that this country was always in the top tier before Hugo Chávez came along in 1998. Today, Venezuela has skidded to the unhappy bottom of the barrel, well below perpetual laggards such as Suriname and Bolivia.

Merline writes:

Of course, Venezuela is just the latest example of socialism’s failure. Despite the lure of "fairness" and "economic security" and "taking on the rich" — sound familiar? — every socialist country ends up in the same desperate ditch.

He notes that this chart is important, given all the ignorance out there among Democrats who at this late date still think socalism is just dandy. It's a terrific warning of what can happen when the Bernie Sanders plan of action is actually activated.

Venezuelans are still trying to get the word out that socialism = hellhole.

Here's just one example in today's U.K. Express, titled "Why I fled Corbyn’s favourite foreign country — a Christmas horror story from Venezuela":

Venezuela has become a country with month-long power cuts, lack of food and medicine, a gangster government presiding over massive violent crime, a state without law, safety, or justice which is not for sale. And where the only way to make money is to be in the governing, crooked elite. In the last months I have worried myself sleepless as it looked possible the UK might elect a Prime Minister, Labour's Jeremy Corbyn, who regards Venezuela as some kind of workers' paradise.

If personal accounts make no mark on the left, maybe the charts of action can serve that need for some. Unfortunately, the left never learns.

Image credit: Mark Perry, YouTube screen shot.