Señor Chavez has swept to power and compares himself to Fidel Castro.
Fidel faught for his power. I don't like what he did either, but here the comparison doesn't fit. Fidel got where he did with guns, not votes.
Señor Chavez is nationalizing much of his country's major industries. Oil is the main one. That is a good short term win, lots of cash still being generated by that Texas tea. Good luck keeping your pumps working when you will never get another outside company to invest one penny in upgrades and exploration. His move has effectively locked in its production at the current levels (they'll actually deminsh as equipment becomes harder and harder for them to repair.)
Señor Chavez has begun land reform. When has that EVER worked? Again, short run politics winning out as the underprivilaged underclass suddenly feels empowered. Oh yea, they also feel entitled. Good luck keeping that entitlement up.
Señor Chavez wants to move towards a national barter system. WHAT???!!! Barter ended in civilized society before we started keeping histories.
That clinches it. Señor Chavez wants to move Venezuela back into the dark ages and beyond.
The list of things he is doing is only missing the persecution of one group of citizens. I think he'll be able to bypass that ugly totalitarian characteristic by putting the country on the oil teat. Just look how well that has worked for Saudi Arabia, they have a HUGE and growing youth population and a very large unemployment rate (around 12 percent.) Both of which can be directly traced to government handouts associated with oil.
Good luck Señor Chavez.
A quick note. I got a comment from a Venezuelan student who has been opposed to Chavez from the beginning. Apparently there are more people opposing him than I originally gave credit to in this post. My prayers go out to these people.
She specifically noted that I had said, "Apparently no one in Venezuela is a student of history OR economics. " Julia, I hope you approve of my edits.
6 comments:
So, where do you find your topics??
Wall Str**t Journal?
I'm intrigued...I've always known you were a deep thinker, but you and I just don't talk about these things at home...
Kris,
What you are not seeing is that Pat writes on modern topics to garner comments from a wide array of readers. It is his version of comment whoring if you ask me. But hey, they do make for a lively debate.
Somewhat on this topic... Although South Africa is not a finacial giant and one could argue quite easily that their finacial wellbeing has slid since the '94 election of Mandela and they have done many things wrong, but they are one of the few African countries that have transitioned from colonial oversite to indingenous control without massive inflation and complete colapse of the government. This is because they had the wisdom to NOT nationalize industries (particularly mining) despite MANY calls to do so!
Apparently no one in Venezuela is a student of history OR economics".
Dont confuse our president with the rest of Venezuelans. Not all voted for them! and some of us are hardly working against his messures but it is a hard struggle. So please, have some respect with those people and dont generalize your comments about my country like every single venezuelan were a Chavez supporter.
PS: Excuses about the grammar and spelling mistakes you might find on this comment. Like Celia Cruz said once "my english is not very good looking"
Kris - I do get most of my information from the WSJ. My opinions are my own. I don't even listen to Rush anymore.
Perry - I'm not comment whoring. I'm writing about what interests me besides family stuff.
Julia - I've taken your comments to heart and made some edits on the main page. Please check back in when occassion permits. I'll be checking your blog for updates on life in Caracus.
By the way: your english isn't perfect, but for a second language you write very well.
I think that's what blogs are for, Perry. To vent about what one reads about or experiences. My blog, for example, though called Confessions of A Closet Republican, is about many different things. I can't vent with my colleagues, so I vent on my blog. :-) And thankfully, I have some great people, like PapaJ, who I can share it with.
AS for Chavez, no, not everyone voted for him, but more than enough did to get him re-elected.
And, I heard that they don't have the equipment etc. to transform the raw crude to useable fuel... so yeah, pretty stupid of him.
Why anyone would do business with a socialist country, in the future, is idiocy.
Okay, I openly apologize. As a twin brother I find it VERY difficult to not give my brother a hard time. I have always found his opinions interesting and most definatly take his opionion on matters before just about anyone else other than my wife (not that I take other's opinions all that often). Maybe I am just jealous of his diverse commentor base that I cannot garner based on my repeated posts about my own exercise and weight loss. I guess it was my way of saying that I should use my blog to discuss my political views and other interests as well. So, what you all failed to see was that my comment was intended as a complement in some strange way, not slander... And, its not like I didn't post what I thought was an insightful comparison...
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