This is a tad more boring than the posts of late, no 'sexting' sorry, but this makes me happy.
A quick background...
I've been following the raise and falls of Hugo for a few years. At times I'm horrified, at times I'm shocked and sometimes I laugh.
If you haven't followed Hugo let me begin by saying that he was democratically elected and then systematically suppressed political opposition, then took over the media, then cracked down on free speech, then made it illegal to criticize the government, then locked up political rivals and outspoken critics, many of whom are 'missing', then he nationalized the banks and major industries. Since most industry was now nationalized he funneled "profits" to his neo-socialized dream.
He was able to do all of this because Venezuela was flush with oil money. He mortgaged the future of his country on high oil prices. It gave him the ability to court and bribe foreign neighbors and cozy up to Russia and Iran. He also was able to give away so many petro-dollars in socialized programs and he was buying political support throughout the country. Because he had tons of money and zero opposition he was a dictator with almost unlimited power. But that power relied on continued profits from high oil prices.
In particular, when he took over the oil companies he booted out all foreign firms and nationalized them with his men. Their main purpose was to strip profits from the oil companies and redistribute them to the "people". However, by doing this these companies weren't able to reinvest in future growth. "Profits" were still artificially high, but these companies were becoming so poorly managed and even a horrible run company that is sitting on top of rivers of oil is going to make money when oil is $145 a barrel.
Everyone should read this article. I hope it clearly shows why socialism doesn't work and why I was so against all of these bailouts.
I really doubt Chavez has any true personal ideology that involves socialism. He's just another dictator who used the promise of socialism to gain support of a largely poor nation. And then he uses that support to, as you've noted in your excellent summary, tighten the noose. He's an opportunist, nothing more.
ReplyDeleteI think western oil should make him sweat, and even demand that Chavez be ousted before they even set foot in the country.
But let's face it, he has awesome fashion sense, that Che t-shirt is hot!
ReplyDeleteWhy isn't Obama on the shirt too?
ReplyDelete