<p class="MsoNormal">They say that first rate men hire first rate people, and second rate men hire third rate people ;&ndash; and third rate is exactly what Venezuelan President Nicolá;s Maduro is doing. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">As I wrote earlier this month, Maduro has placed Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino squarely in charge of food supply and distribution. ;He has also issued a decree that may require Venezuelan citizens to work on farms &ndash; a rule that will be far easier to enforce with the military in charge. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">More recently, Maduro has fired former economic adviser Miguel Perez and replaced him with a new one, the so-called &ldquo;Jesus Christ of Economics,&rdquo; a Marxist Spaniard by the name of Alfredo Serrano. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Maduro considers Serrano a savior of sorts, despite the fact that the Spanish economist holds a worldview which has ruined or further ruined once-decent economies with authoritarian dictates for a century, leading to tens of millions of deaths,&rdquo; writes <em>NewsBusters&#8217; ;</em>Tom Blumer.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">PB has explained time and time again why Socialism does not and can not work, ;and now it seems that Maduro is throwing a hefty dose of Marxism into the mix. ;Party officials say that Serrano&rsquo;s call for more state controls has shaped Maduro&rsquo;s response to Venezuela&rsquo;s economic crisis.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The Spaniard&rsquo;s rise to economic czar has come at the expense of former advisers who have urged Maduro to use more conventional ideas in addressing Venezuela&#8217;s failed economy. ;&ldquo;All the attempts to reform, to coordinate with the private sector, have been blocked by him [Serrano],&rdquo; complained a senior lawmaker of the United Socialist Party.  ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Maduro praised Serrano as a &ldquo;very intelligent, very qualified man who&rsquo;s building new concepts for a new economy of the 21st century,&rdquo; as he admired Serrano&rsquo;s 2014 book <em>The Economic Thought of Hugo Chá;vez. ;</em>In terms of his &#8220;qualifications,&#8221; Serrano claims he is listed as a professor at eight universities; in reality, he has delivered lectures at five of these institutions as a &#8220;visiting professor;&#8221; the other three schools have no record of him. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The false professor&rsquo;s book on Chá;vez is filled with ideas that &ndash; if implemented &ndash; may lead to &ldquo;the worst Marxist-led bloodbath in 40 years,&rdquo; writes Blumer. ;His book, which hails Chá;vez as a &ldquo;virtuoso planner&rdquo; is the only reason Serrano was selected for the position of economic czar, complains a ruling-party official. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Serrano is full of bad ideas, like replacing government bureaucracy with revolutionary communes that would control everything from food production to healthcare. He also believes inflation is caused by class struggle. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Serrano blames Venezuela&rsquo;s current crisis on an &ldquo;inefficient distribution system in the hands of speculative capitalism,&rdquo; which he says enables companies to hoard goods. He also believes local and foreign reactionary forces are waging war on Venezuela. ;</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">&ldquo;Serrano&rsquo;s appointment virtually cements the notion that a one-party, top-down, totally controlled communist state is what Nicolá;s ;Maduro wants, regardless of human cost,&rdquo; writes Blumer.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Venezuela is teetering on the edge of communist serfdom. If the South American nation recreates Stalin&rsquo;s attempt to control food production in the Ukraine in the 1930s &ndash; and this is what Serrano wants &ndash; the death toll could easily reach the hundreds of thousands. ; ;</p>