' Tis the season to be jolly. And for governments to show their concern for the governed, not all of whom have granted their consent to be governed by the in-crowd.
Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, directed the head of his consumer protection commission to distribute 3.8 million toys to his nation's children. His commissioner, one William Contreras, not having been delivered quite that many from his friend in the North Pole, decided that toy companies were hoarding toys and planned to raise their prices, "A criminal act because it's a violation of the rights of children…. Our boys and girls are sacred, we will not let them be robbed of Christmas." So he seized the toy company inventories and turned them over to pro-government committees for distribution. Ho Ho Ho.
Not to be outdone, China's government is attending to its masses' health. It issued aptly named "red alerts" in 23 cities when pollution levels reached readings we would classify as "hazardous". No exercise; wear masks; stay home; shut factories—the latter edict more often than not ignored. That did not deter Liu Zhenmin, China's deputy foreign minister, and that nation's president, Xi Jinping, from giving the "U.S. a Lecture on Climate Change," approvingly reports the ever-so-green New York Times. China is the world's largest emitter of carbon emissions, accounting for 20 percent of the world's total, and will continue to increase its emissions until 2030, while we reduce ours, the different paths a result of President Obama's failure to re-read his dog-eared copy of The Art of the Deal. The pollutants bedeviling the Chinese people come from the same coal-burning that produces carbon emissions, you know, the ones that will continue to increase until 2030. Now if only they can hold their breaths until then …
Meanwhile, in Rio, Mayor-elect Marcelo Crivella wants his government to do more, as most politicians do. He is concerned that his city's inability to guarantee their safety is keeping tourists away. So he proposes to levy a new tax on visitors. Won't a new tax make tourism more expensive, scaring away more tourists? Certainly not. The money will be put in a fund to reimburse visitors who are mugged. Presumably, the ads announcing this new assurance of reimbursement after a mugging will add to the many attractions of a city that did not exactly benefit from all of the publicity coming out of the Olympic games. And Cariocas, the name for residents of Rio, will not ask for a cut of the reimbursement fee after meeting their muggers. But if tourists do come to Rio, they might be greeted by police demanding their back salaries and planted under banners reading "Welcome to Hell."