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Originally posted by George Smiley Before Chavez, Venezuela was ruled by the elite for the elite. They all got a kick back from letting foreign companies milk Venezuela dry while the poor got nothing whatsoever. That is why you hate Chavez, not because you hate poor people, but because Venezuela's elite have carried out a very successful international propaganda campaign (esp in America) to portray Chavez as a dictator and, which really gave you a hard on () - a "socialist"! As soon as you heard the magic word, all reason and logic flew out of the room and you refuse to listen to any FACTS or TRUTHS about Venezuela because you got sucked into the lies spread by Venezuela's rich who despised Venezuela's wealth being spent in the poor and needy...

Is this supposed to be a rationalization of what he's doing now? Because of where Venezuela came from means that confiscatory actions that consolidate more and more power under the hands of a single person are therefore OK? Can you give me any actual examples of how Chavez' various nationalizations have directly benefited the poor people that he claims to care so much about? How are they going to benefit from him taking over the country's gold output? Perhaps they will be paid a slave's labor to help build him a new palace made of gold! As far as I have read, the poverty situation in Venezuela has not improved, rather it continues to worsen.

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Chavez Ambitions in Venezuela May Fade With Oil Price (Update2) By Matthew Walter and Steven Bodzin Enlarge Image/Details Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The same tumbling oil prices that led OPEC to slash output last week threaten to send Venezuela's economy into a tailspin, and put an end to President Hugo Chavez's ambitions to expand his socialist revolution at home and abroad. To cope with plummeting oil revenue, the source of half the government's spending, Chavez may have to cut domestic handouts and foreign aid. The first items likely to go will be arms purchases from Russia, oil subsidies for Cuba, and job-creating local projects such as bridges and subways, economists say. ``You have a country with an oil boom, that doesn't know how to save, doesn't know how to set up productive industries that generate jobs, and goes into debt,'' said Elsa Cardozo, a professor of political science and international relations at the Universidad Central de Venezuela. ``Then oil prices fall and the party ends.'' Venezuela may be poised to repeat the economic collapse it suffered in the 1980s at the end of its last oil boom. Former President Carlos Andres Perez, employing policies similar to Chavez's, lavished petrodollars on public works projects, foreign aid and nationalizations in the late 1970s, setting the stage for a 1983 currency devaluation and spending cuts that sent millions of Venezuelans into poverty. 'Most Vulnerable' ``Venezuela is now more dependent than ever on oil,'' said Jose Toro Hardy, a former board member of state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA. ``Venezuela is the most vulnerable country in all of Latin America to a falling oil price.'' Chavez is already spending beyond his means, posting a $7 billion budget deficit in the first half of 2008, a period of unprecedented oil prices, on a $63.9 billion budget for the year. Economists' estimates of the minimum oil price Chavez needs to sustain his economic policies range from $120 a barrel to $65. Oil fell 93 cents, or 1.4 percent, to a 17-month low of $63.22 a barrel today on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Below $80 a barrel, it's likely that Chavez will devalue the bolivar for the first time since 2005, sparking a surge of inflation and a drop in real wages because of Venezuela's reliance on imports, said Gustavo Garcia, an economics and public finance professor at the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administracion, a Caracas business school. Oil Shock ``Depending on the intensity of the shock, it could be a situation without precedent in Venezuelan history,'' said Tamara Herrera, managing director at Caracas-based economic consulting company Sintesis Financiera. Venezuela's benchmark 9.25 bond due in 2027 fell 20.5 cents to 50.79 cents on the dollar from 79 cents a month earlier, pushing the yield to 18.83 percent, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The government, which has historically calculated its spending plans based on a conservative forecast for oil prices, is projecting a $60-a-barrel average for the 2009 budget, and output well above today's level. Oil options contracts to sell crude at $50 by December almost tripled Oct. 24. Venezuela, which pledged last week to trim 129,000 barrels a day from its production as part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' 1.5 million barrel-a-day cut, is the fourth-largest supplier of oil to the U.S. and the biggest petroleum exporter in the Americas. Aid, Arms Slashing foreign aid and arms purchases, while diminishing Chavez's influence in the region, will have the smallest political cost domestically, said Alejandro Grisanti, director of Latin American analysis at Barclays Capital Inc. Venezuela spent $4.4 billion on 12 contracts for Russian weapons, the Kremlin said. The agreements include deals to buy 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 50 military helicopters and 24 Su-30 fighter jets, according to a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report. Russia last month offered Venezuela a $1 billion line of credit to buy more weapons. The president has also used his oil-fed largesse to offer subsidized financing for poor countries in the Caribbean and Central America to buy Venezuelan oil products. As of July, the 18 countries in his Petrocaribe alliance were receiving up to 200,000 barrels of oil a day. Domestically, Chavez may have to end his drive to nationalize businesses in the so-called strategic sectors, Grisanti said. The government so far has swept up the country's biggest telephone, electricity and steel companies, among others, at an estimated cost of $11 billion, according to Ecoanalitica, a Caracas-based economic consultant. Tripled Spending Chavez probably won't cut spending on the social ``missions'' that have brought services such as health care and adult education into some of the country's most impoverished areas and which have been key to securing electoral victories. Chavez has more than tripled total government spending in the past five years. Chavez says he has enough resources between the central bank's $39 billion of international reserves and other off- budget assets to weather the global economic slowdown sapping demand for oil and dragging down prices. ``Some people are uniting behind falling oil prices thinking that now Chavez will fall,'' he said on state television on Oct. 24. ``I want to remind them that we arrived with $7 oil, and if it drops to $7 again this revolution won't fall, it will only get stronger.'' Reserves Even so, the government will probably have to burn through some of the assets it accumulated during the past three years as oil climbed toward a record $147.27 on July 11. Chavez's National Development Fund, an off-budget discretionary account that's soaked up $38 billion in PDVSA earnings and central bank reserves since 2005, will for now lose the benefit of a windfall tax that kicks in when Venezuelan crude rises above $70 a barrel. The government will probably tap the fund for operations instead of infrastructure projects, Sintesis Financiera's Herrera said. Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez has called for an ``austerity'' budget in 2009. Economists say the biggest concern is a currency devaluation, which would reduce Venezuelans' buying power, pushing many people who have joined the growing middle class into poverty. The government is expected to devalue the official exchange rate 26 percent to 2.7 bolivars per dollar sometime next year, according to the median forecast of nine economists in a Bloomberg survey. More Poverty ``Poverty will inevitably grow,'' said Pedro Benitez, a professor of economic history at Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. ``In the past, governments have preferred to devalue than to cut spending.'' That may hit Chavez's approval rating a time when high crime and inflation are already causing Venezuelans to question his policies, said Jose Antonio Gil Yepes, a director at Caracas-based pollster Datanalisis. The president's approval rating was 58 percent in September, down from 75.4 percent in May 2006, according to the monthly survey of 1,300 residents nationwide, he said. The poll has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points. ``If oil prices implode, the model he's trying to build implodes,'' Gil Yepes said. ``Everything he's built is based on subsidies, which are financed by oil.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?...sWs&refer=home#

Well let's not take Venezuela out of the context of the wider economic crisis the world is going through (thanks mainly to the capitalist policies of America and those countries that follow that ideology like my country). I don't know this for a fact, and please feel free to correct me, but I would say poverty has got worse the world over since the credit crunch began to take effect. Let's not also forget the propaganda drive that has been so successful in brainwashing people like you all over America and further afield, often just by using the term "socialist". For example, you made the claim earlier that Chavez has nationalised "every industry under the sun". That's quite clearly not true and there is no way you will ever be able to back that statement up (and in your next post you will admit as such). But that demonstrates what effect the propaganda has had around the world - what message does that send to any businesses looking for foreign investment? Stay away from Venezuela. And that will also have an effect on employment, and therefore poverty as well.

But you asked for specific benefits Venezuelans have received as a result of Chavez' policies, well here is a summary of the "Bolivarian Missions":

- 1.5m illiterate poor Venezuelans taught to read, write and do maths
- 60,000 high school drop outs taught grammar, geography and second language
- 1000s of clinics to provide universal health service to poor communities
- 1000s of new housing units planned for the poor
- Restoration of communal land titles and human rights to indigenous communities
- Land reform giving access to poor people (130 of whom were assassinated by the American supported opposition)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Venezuela is perfect, because it quite clearly isn't, and would I want to live there? Would I fuck! But you can't say Chavez is merely a power mad dictator hiding behind a fa�ade of social populism. He genuinely wants to reform Venezuela to make it a fair society for those not born into money (like the American supported opposition) and he's trying his best to achieve that and it's never gonna be an easy task when you have a rich and powerful opposition controlling the vast majority of information in and out of the country, and they have the backing of America who supported the undemocratic coup of 2002 - just like they did with practically every other democracy in Latin America that wanted to fight for social change - America made sure the wish of the people was denied and instead helped to install a right wing fascist dictator...is that what you also want for Venezuela? Because that's what Bush has been striving for for the last 6 years, let's hope Obama brings more ethical and less hypocritical foreign policy to the White House...

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Originally posted by George Smiley For example, you made the claim earlier that Chavez has nationalised "every industry under the sun". That's quite clearly not true and there is no way you will ever be able to back that statement up (and in your next post you will admit as such).

Certainly even you are familiar with sarcasm and hyperbole.

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But you asked for specific benefits Venezuelans have received as a result of Chavez' policies, well here is a summary of the "Bolivarian Missions": - 1.5m illiterate poor Venezuelans taught to read, write and do maths - 60,000 high school drop outs taught grammar, geography and second language - 1000s of clinics to provide universal health service to poor communities - 1000s of new housing units planned for the poor - Restoration of communal land titles and human rights to indigenous communities - Land reform giving access to poor people (130 of whom were assassinated by the American supported opposition)

I asked how his nationalizations have directly helped the poor. Not simply his policies in general. For example, how does his taking over the gold industry provide direct benefits to the poor? Is he going to distribute gold nuggets to the populace?

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But you can't say Chavez is merely a power mad dictator hiding behind a fa�ade of social populism. He genuinely wants to reform Venezuela to make it a fair society for those not born into money...

Can't I? Just as much as you can say he genuinely cares about the people, I can say he genuinely stands to benefit immensely on a personal level by pursuing his massive power grab.

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(like the American supported opposition) and he's trying his best to achieve that and it's never gonna be an easy task when you have a rich and powerful opposition controlling the vast majority of information in and out of the country, and they have the backing of America who supported the undemocratic coup of 2002 - just like they did with practically every other democracy in Latin America that wanted to fight for social change - America made sure the wish of the people was denied and instead helped to install a right wing fascist dictator...is that what you also want for Venezuela? Because that's what Bush has been striving for for the last 6 years, let's hope Obama brings more ethical and less hypocritical foreign policy to the White House...

Yes. Everything is Amerikka's and Bush's fault. Don't worry, Obama's gonna fix it up real good like.

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Originally posted by Shakka Certainly even you are familiar with sarcasm and hyperbole.

It may have been tongue in cheek, but your ideas of exactly how much Chavez has nationalised is way out of proportion, and that is directly because of the propaganda drive that your government so actively supports

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I asked how his nationalizations have directly helped the poor. Not simply his policies in general. For example, how does his taking over the gold industry provide direct benefits to the poor? Is he going to distribute gold nuggets to the populace?

Well how do you reckon they paid for all that?! That was the whole point of nationalising the industries that have been!

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Can't I? Just as much as you can say he genuinely cares about the people, I can say he genuinely stands to benefit immensely on a personal level by pursuing his massive power grab.

Of course, you can ay what you want, but I can back up what I say

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Yes. Everything is Amerikka's and Bush's fault. Don't worry, Obama's gonna fix it up real good like.

They're not making life easy for Venezuela are they?

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Originally posted by George Smiley It may have been tongue in cheek, but your ideas of exactly how much Chavez has nationalised is way out of proportion, and that is directly because of the propaganda drive that your government so actively supports

Oil, Cement, Steel, Power, Telecom, Gold to name a few. And in relatively short order I would add.

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Well how do you reckon they paid for all that?! That was the whole point of nationalising the industries that have been!

Paid for by the government forcibly confiscating wealth from private hands of those that took the risks to develop those industries. Though I'm still not sure the government has funded its initiatives with gains from these nationalizations so much as it has been a huge beneficiary of the huge spike in oil prices (some of which can probably be attributed to those American fuckwads) which has now come back down to earth and is leaving them on much weaker footing.

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Of course, you can ay what you want, but I can back up what I say

Then please do.

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[They're not making life easy for Venezuela are they?

I know, everything is America's fault. We derive joy by fucking over the rest of the world.

What do we care?

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Originally posted by Shakka Oil, Cement, Steel, Power, Telecom, Gold to name a few. And in relatively short order I would add.

So six out of, how many industries?

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Paid for by the government forcibly confiscating wealth from private hands of those that took the risks to develop those industries

Yet those industries were nationalised, owned by the citizens, until an elitist government sold them to your private hands. So not only were they already developed, they belonged to the people and were "forcibly confiscated" by the government and given to their elitist chums at the top of society...

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Then please do.

I do

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I know, everything is America's fault. We derive joy by fucking over the rest of the world.

Not everything is America's fault...

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Originally posted by George Smiley So six out of, how many industries?

I wouldn't say it's just the number, George, but also which specific industries. Infrastructure, Energy, Communications, and now wealth(gold). I think that says a lot.

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Originally posted by Shakka I wouldn't say it's just the number, George, but also which specific industries. Infrastructure, Energy, Communications, and now wealth(gold). I think that says a lot.

You mean natural resources and natural monopolies?

The most obvious industries to nationalise?

You know my country follows the American economic model, but there is a huge wave of support for the (re)nationalisation of the exact same industries that Chavez has (re)nationalised...

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Originally posted by George Smiley Yet those industries were nationalised, owned by the citizens, until an elitist government sold them to your private hands. So not only were they already developed, they belonged to the people and were "forcibly confiscated" by the government and given to their elitist chums at the top of society...

didn't Venezuela confiscate oil production facilities of a few American and European companies? the Venezuelan people didn't own the properties that were confiscated. By nationalizing certain industries (especially oil and telecom) Chavez has limited the country's ability to attract foreign investment, which brings with it foreign innovations.

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Originally posted by jerZ07002 didn't Venezuela confiscate oil production facilities of a few American and European companies? the Venezuelan people didn't own the properties that were confiscated. By nationalizing certain industries (especially oil and telecom) Chavez has limited the country's ability to attract foreign investment, which brings with it foreign innovations.

And profits which go to foreign companies.

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