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Socialism Stinks
I just spent a week in Panama. Stayed at a decent (i.e., everything you’d expect in the First World) hotel, including a great in-house gym. Multiple Oly 45-pound bars. Full plate racks. One couldn’t ask for more. Okay, one could: They didn’t have any kettlebells, but what’re you going to do?
My usual routine is to wake up at 0500, look at Drudge, and hit the gym. Hotel breakfast starts at 0600, and I wanted to be there when it opens, get my chow done, then have almost two hours to prep for the day before we launched around 0800 for our workday/conference.
I had the same waitress every morning. She was a badass. Beautiful. Attentive. Knew me by name after the first day and that I wanted a pitcher of ice water and a steel carafe of coffee (negro solo) at my table after I’d run the buffet line. Because no one else was at the breakfast buffet when it opened, I got to know her a little.
Oh, and did I mention she was beautiful? Not, “Wow, this chick’s hot for a waitress beautiful,” but “Wow, this chick should be in movies” beautiful. She was bright, articulate, had a mastery of English, and seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge about current affairs, as well as the history behind those affairs.
“What,” asks Mongo, “in the wide, wide world of sports are you doing schlepping grits in a hotel? You’re so smart–“
“Soy un abrogada. “
“Well, what’n hell are you doing here?”
She’s Venezuelan. An economic refugee, trying to pull enough of her family over to keep them fed and vaccinated, and trying to send enough money back to her extended family to let them buy rice and tortillas (don’t even talk about being able to provide protein).
“Yeah, but this job doesn’t pay squat, and you’re a lawyer, darlin’, there’s got to be something better you can do.”
“Mr. Mongo [pronounced Meester Mongo; broke my heart], you don’t unnerstan’. I’m just happy I have a job I can work in the day, not a job I have to work in the night, like so many others. Entiende?”
“Wull, wha…? Oh.”
Entiendo, baby.
I hate socialists.
Published in General
They got grits in Panama?
Yeah, Maduro’s a mental midget. Same economic nitwittery as Chavez with only a fraction of the charisma. I’m surprised they haven’t bounced him already.
Amen, brother. Of course, she would be a bit old for Cuba. Anything past twelve there, don’t you know?
Poignant story, Mongo. As Hollywood would say: Too real for 3D.
!Salsa impresionante!, Boss,..!Verdad! ?Socialismo?…Ni hablar.
This business in Panama — it didn’t involve flying low and fast at night, did it?
It’s one of the cognitive dissonance issues I’m having . We got all kind of heroes standing up against global warming, bleeding money for “renewable energy, income disparity.
Meanwhile, we got ladies happy that they’re slingin’ hash otherwise they’d be slingin’ ass.
Kinda makes me froth at the mouth a little bit.
Which is all creeping socialism in disguise.
Boss your routine is well military precision. The lady sounded great, her story a sad, unnecessary one and her country’s so called Prez a thug of the first order. I wonder did this lovely waitress-atorney acquaintance mention if she had seen any Sean Penn Films lately?
Your story needs to be Main Feed IMO. This is exactly the kind of gut-wrenching stuff that can and should get the attention of the dazed folks wandering through their days in the good ‘ol USA.
Just sayin’.
For decades, Venezuelan law firms have been at the top of the list for sending absurdly attractive female lawyers to international legal conferences.
Recently, Russia and Ukraine have raised the bar by sending women who would qualify to be the next Mrs. Trump. However the Venezuelans probably put more effort into it. It appears to be a Latin American thing, even with male lawyers. One sees an absurdly well dressed male lawyer from such a Latin American firm and thinks of Billy Crystal’s Fernando character saying “to look good is better than to feel good.”
Knew I should’ve gone into law…
You can watch the Venezuelan currency burn to the ground a little more with each passing month here. It’s a Spanish language website, but the Arabic numerals tell you the story about the exchange rate.
I don’t know that the Bolivar is officially classified as hyper-inflated at this point, but it’s quickly heading in that direction. Regardless, it’s not worth much. I’ve been interested in Venezuela since around the time I did my late in life MBA* a few years back. Venezuela was a great case study for my international finance and macroeconomics professors on a textbook example of how to drive an economy into the ground and almost certainly leave nothing behind by a smoking ruin.
They’ll recover some day, but it’s going to be really, really painful. There’s no painless way to fix an economy this screwed up and it hasn’t even hit rock bottom yet. What I’m curious about is whether they are going to do the full Zimbabwe and completely destroy their currency.
Greece (and the EU to a certainly extent in regards to monetary policy) was the other case study that was brought up quite a bit on how to screw up an economy. We also spent quite a bit of time on China since there is some serious macroeconomic risks there also.
*I decided to own it and get an MBA from a top 50 school. Nothing like sitting half-way through your MBA program in a finance class and have that epiphany about how profoundly you’re getting screwed by the federal student loan program because of how badly they have distorted the market and the interest rates for those loans.
This should be on the main feed. I mark my stuff as non-promotable as a general rule because my contributions Ricochet tend to be…crap. :) So I don’t want the nonsense I write hurting the brand. As that great philosopher Clint Eastwood once said, a man has got to know his limitations.
This, however, is why TPTB have a main feed so consider making this one promotable @bossmongo.
It’s overrated.
In addition to legal conferences, Miss Venezuela was typically in the top 10 finalists for Miss World/Universe and won many titles.
There are more billionaires in Venezuela than anywhere in the world Boss. The problem being a billion of Venezuelan money might not pay for your breakfast. Great post.
Sounds like a helluva lady.
I think Zimbabwe has that distinction, same reason, but they’ve been at it longer.
Story telling is the most powerful teaching tool ever invented, and you did it proud here, Boss. Short, powerful and ended with a knockout.
You left her a great tip, right? Please say yes. Venezuela is so heart-breaking.
Ma’am, I always tip the waitress. If the service or chow is sub-par, it’s 15%. If it’s outstanding, it’s as much as I can give without it impacting the kids’ college funds.
Only a pinko doesn’t tip. Heh. (Oh, non-CoC at the link).
The greatest tip you could leave her would be “Don’t let Socialists run your country.” A little late for that, though.
Worthy stuff dude.
Gracias, mi hermano.
If I just flagged a comment, I didn’t mean it! My fat finger hit “flag” by mistake. So sorry!
Almost happens to me often – “Flag ” and “Like” are too close together. Especially on iDevices.
FLAG no Quote, no Like. Yep know the routine Nanda.
Loved your story, very well done. Venezuelans are always interesting people. And yes, socialism is a rotten system. Always.
One quibble, abogada, no “r”.