Thank you, my foolish friends in the West

I just filled up at one of gas stations here in Arizona. He charges a fee to use crdit cards at the pump. Other than that I don't give a rat's behind what he does.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7917176.stm

Chavez sends army to rice plants

President Hugo Chavez has instituted sweeping reforms in 10 years in power
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has ordered the army to take control of all rice processing plants in the country.

Page last updated at 00:25 GMT, Sunday, 1 March 2009

...

"I will expropriate them, I have no problem with that, and I'll pay them with bonds. Don't count on me paying with hard cash," he said, without mentioning any companies by name.

The agriculture minister later confirmed that the military were in control of at least one major national producer, Primor, the BBC's Will Grant reports from Caracas.

Further interventions are expected in the next 48 hours.

In Venezuela, the government provides basic foodstuffs at low prices in state-run markets known as "mercales".

But many rice, wheat, meat and dairy producers complain that the price regulations leave them without a profit and that many are facing bankruptcy, our correspondent says.

The country's inflation levels are the highest in Latin America and, as a result, there are often shortages of items such as rice and coffee, leading to hoarding and sale on the black market.

With President Chavez recently granted the right to stand for a third term in office, he is keen to ensure the provision of cheap food to the poor is not put in jeopardy, Will Grant adds.

Originally posted by zeeblebot
[b]"The country's inflation levels are the highest in Latin America ..."[/b]

It makes me wonder, why does FMF and the other clowns choose to ignore all these links?

and then they say its all lies and propaganda spread by the "right".

I guess they don't want to face the truth.

Originally posted by generalissimo
It makes me wonder, why does FMF and the other clowns choose to ignore all these links?

What incorrect argument about inflation in Venuzuela is it that you think I've made?

Originally posted by FMF
What incorrect argument about inflation in Venuzuela is it that you think I've made?

I was referring to both posts.

Originally posted by generalissimo
I was referring to both posts.

OK. So take them one at a time. What incorrect argument about inflation in Venuzuela is it that you think I've made?

Originally posted by FMF
OK. So take them one at a time. What incorrect argument about inflation in Venuzuela is it that you think I've made?

Not anything specific, just the idea you present, that everything's alright in venezuela.

Originally posted by generalissimo
just the idea you present, that everything's alright in venezuela.

When have I ever claimed that "everything's alright in Venuzuela"? Don't be silly. Cut & patse just one instance when I have said such a thing.

Originally posted by FMF
In the duckspeak cut & pastes or in his rather lame personal insults?

In citing fact that contradict your uninformed opinions...

to which you've declined to respond and accepted defeat... again.

Originally posted by FMF
How was the nation's oil wealth being spent by the old ologarchy (as opposed to Chavez's new oligarchy)? By what ideological terms of reference was that pattern of priorities and spending not irresponsible? Do not drastic inequalities in wealth, insufficent health services for large swathes of the population, risible literacy rates qualify as "long-term" "compli ...[text shortened]... em to "sit through an explanation" of what was actually going on in their country?

Populist-speak.

The "old oligarchy" kept investing back into the oil production that Chavez has neglected to get elected.

The "old oligarchy" kept inflation down at levels acceptable to the masses.

The "old oligarchy" prevented the shortages of basic foodstuff that kept the masses fed.
NOW there are SHORTAGES.

The "old oligarchy" included not just the riches and most powerful, but also the middle classes who earned their way up and wanted stability, price stability, investment, growth, and a sustainable economic growth for their children's future. Chavez's failure to learn anything about economic history has condemned them to the already failed policies of North Korea and the 1960's USSR and People's Republic of China... policies that have been nearly universally rejected now.

What will Chavez do now that he has created shortages when there was plenty during high oil prcies... now that oil prices have plunged.

It took about 70 years for the Soviet Union to collapse, about 35 years for China to change course, Cuba is teetering at about 50, how long will Venezuela's own people put up with him even as he continues to make political moves to amass power?

Originally posted by generalissimo
good points.

Thanks, but as you know, proving FMF wrong is like shooting fish in a barrel.

Originally posted by eljefejesus
Thanks, but as you know, proving FMF wrong is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If I am supposed to support or condone military dictatorships or undemocratic avaricious oligarchies for 'ecomomics reasons', over social democracies and the championing of genuine human rights - warts and all, slower rates of growth and all, tycoons' regulations-tormented impatience and all - with programmes that strive for increased human decency and economic justice, then I suppose that makes me a 'fish' in your little idealogue's barrel. I can live with that.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203547904574280023928652200.html#mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

JULY 11, 2009, 9:08 P.M. ET.

The Cult of the Caudillo

By DAVID LUHNOW, JOSé DE CóRDOBA AND NICHOLAS CASEY
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

...

Caudillos come in all ideological stripes. Mr. Pinochet, whose famous photograph in sinister dark glasses was taken soon after his coup, became the iconic image of the right-wing Latin American military dictator. These days, most caudillos are leftist. Mr. Castro, el Comandante or el Caballo (the Horse), has the dubious distinction of being the longest-lived caudillo in Latin American history, owing his record-breaking stretch in power more to caudillismo than Marxismo. He’s passed on the torch to Hugo Chávez, the populist caudillo from Caracas, Venezuela.

...

While democracy has spread throughout Latin America, caudillos never vanish, they just adapt to changing times. Gone is the old-fashioned military coup, replaced with a new strategy for power that could be called “coup by stealth,” or “coup by democratic means.”

The primary architect of this new blueprint is Mr. Chávez, a strongman with one foot grounded in the past and the other firmly placed in the future of caudillismo. In 1992, Mr. Chávez, then a lieutenant colonel with a mish-mash of leftist, nationalist and fascist ideas, led an old-fashioned coup in an attempt to overthrow the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. It failed, and Mr. Chávez was jailed.

...

Upon release, he was persuaded to forgo the bullet for the ballot box. In 1998, he was elected president, riding a wave of popular disgust against the deep corruption of the country’s existing political parties and institutions. In a nation where institutions never developed because of caudillos, another “man on horseback” had come to save the country. Once in power, he moved to insure he would never leave.

Using the tools of democracy—referendums and elections—Mr. Chávez has subverted democracy and become a new, modern caudillo. He has won referendums over the years that have allowed him to rewrite the constitution, twice, to his specifications, including ending constitutional restrictions on term limits, thus allowing him to run for re-election indefinitely. He has gutted the courts, shut down and gagged the media and purged the army; he exercises total control over the congress. Venezuela still holds elections, but it is far from a full democracy.

...

Mr. Chávez shares with old caudillos a military background, a populist bent and a cult of personality. He is a mixture of messianic preacher, traditional authoritarian Latin American military man and utopian dreamer with notions of “21st-Century Socialism.” Even after a decade in power marked by rampant spending, corruption and crime, Mr. Chávez maintains a strong, almost mystical bond with many of Venezuela’s poor, who see in him a reflection of themselves.

Mr. Chavez has publicly said he plans to stay in power until 2019, 2021 or 2030.

The Chávez blueprint for power is now being imitated by other caudillos in the making. Bolivian President Evo Morales, a former leader of a militant coca leaf growers’ union who led street riots that helped topple two Bolivian leaders, also won a referendum that allowed him to rewrite the constitution. One change: overturning a ban on re-election. Ecuador’s Rafael Correa has used a constitutional rewrite to get term limits lifted, too. Both men used populism and disappointment with existing political parties to cast themselves as their nation’s saviors.

...

When democracy took root in Latin America in the 1980s and ’90s, nearly every country opted to bar re-election as a way to ensure caudillos would never return. These restrictions have been chipped away, by right-wing leaders, too. In Colombia, conservative president Álvaro Uribe has already changed the constitution once to get re-elected and is mulling a third term now.

Honduras, weary of a parade of generals who overstayed their welcome, was among the Latin nations that barred re-election when it ended military dictatorships and became a democracy in 1981. Since then, nearly every sitting president has toyed with the idea of re-election. None has pushed the idea more openly than Mr. Zelaya.

...

While the provisional president, Mr. Micheletti, has taken power in an undemocratic fashion, few Hondurans worry that he will want to stay on. Mr. Micheletti has vowed to hold already-scheduled elections in November, hand over power in January and limit his own presidential aspirations to six months in power.

Angel Nuñez, a 30-year-old Tegucigalpa taxi driver, thinks Mr. Micheletti did the right thing. “Zelaya wanted this place to be Cuba, he wanted absolute power in this country,” he says. Pushing the ex-president aside was the only way to stop “a man who got to thinking he was above the law.”

Domingo Díaz, a 63-year-old social worker, says he’s lived through so many Central American takeovers he’s lost both his count and his interest in them. “No one respected the law,” he said on a recent rainy day. “History will repeat itself,” he says, “but this time I don’t fear it.”

Originally posted by zeeblebot
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203547904574280023928652200.html#mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular

JULY 11, 2009, 9:08 P.M. ET.

The Cult of the Caudillo

By DAVID LUHNOW, JOSé DE CóRDOBA AND NICHOLAS CASEY
Tegucigalpa, Honduras

...

Caudillos come in all ideological stripes. Mr. Pinochet, whose famous photograph in sinister ...[text shortened]... on a recent rainy day. “History will repeat itself,” he says, “but this time I don’t fear it.”

You got any more on what Angel Nuñez, the 30-year-old Tegucigalpa taxi driver, thinks? I imagine the journalist was on his or her way from the airport to a drinks party at the American Club in the embassy compound.

I wonder if the Wall Street Journal journalist actually spoke to anyone who has misgivings about the "undemocratic fashion" in which Zeleya's political opponent took power? I wonder if the Wall Street Journal journalist bumped into The Economist's correspondent at the American Club?

Also I like this bit:

"Honduras, weary of a parade of generals who overstayed their welcome, was among the Latin nations that barred re-election when it ended military dictatorships and became a democracy in 1981."

The military dictatorship wrote a constitution that barred re-election of its civilian successors and made aspiring to constitutional reform a crime of treason before, at least on the face of things, transferring power to them.