The glories of Communism and its precursor socialism.
North Korea suffers an extremely harvest
"About 40 percent of North Korea’s population is in urgent need of food aid after the country suffered its worst harvest in a decade, the United Nations said on Friday, even as its regime defied international sanctions in order to keep its nuclear weapons program.
The bad harvest left North Korea with a 1.36 million ton shortage of grain, forcing its government to reduce daily state rations to less than 11 ounces per person in January, compared with 380 grams a year earlier (380 grams equals 13.4 ounces, my note), the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organization said in their joint assessment. Rations may decline further between July and September, when they are typically lower, the agencies said."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/0...orth-korea-food.html
"The Cuban government announced Friday that it is launching widespread rationing of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other basic products in the face of a grave economic crisis.
Commerce Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez told the state-run Cuban News Agency that various forms of rationing would be employed in order to deal with shortages of staple foods. She blamed the hardening of the U.S. trade embargo by the Trump administration. Economists give equal or greater blame to a plunge in aid from Venezuela, where the collapse of the state-run oil company has led to a nearly two-thirds cut in shipments of subsidized fuel that Cuba used for power and to earn hard currency on the open market."
https://apnews.com/42b62f24be9b4e0d9f764f1a3fa9647a
Ten percent of Venezuela's population has left the country. Most of the rest barely survive on government handouts, funds sent back from family outside Venezuela and foraging for food in garbage, stealing and slaughtering zoo animals.
Czarist Russia was a major exporter of wheat. After Lenin ran the place, there was over 50 years of bad weather, that caused crop shortages (add planned famine to kill those who opposed the regime), according to the communist leadership.
Towards the end of the Soviet Union, there were annual food riots in the Rostov-on-Don area. The Soviet army refrained from interferring as it was a major negative moral factor. The KGM troops, usually used to put down internal disturbances, were too busy looking for food, themselves. Now, the area is a major food producer. They got rid of central planning and bought John Deere equipment.
Central planning of agriculture leads to starvation. Bernie, Crazy Eyes Cortez, and other Democrat presidential candidates wish the government to be the only planner for healthcare.