41 Replies to “How Deep, Señor Chavez?”

  1. If it was simply the heavy industries being taken over, it would only add to the lengthy wait lists for housing and a growing list of uncompleted civil works projects… but it’s the food industries as well…
    and anyone that has read of socialismo knows it’s all about the food supply, control the food, control the people.
    “Chavez claims that his regime’s ongoing expropriations of farms and cattle ranches, intermediate storage and transportation assets, and wholesale/retail assets like the Exito group (Makro, watch out!) will guarantee Bolivarian Venezuela’s “food sovereignty.”
    “But if that’s so, how to explain the fact that one-third of the food products tracked by Central Bank for its monthly inflation index were missing from retail store shelves in April? Where are the increasingly difficult to find staples like sugar, coffee, chicken, beef, milk, cheese, eggs, etc.?”
    from,
    http://caracasgringo.wordpress.com/2010/05/15/good-luck-gruma/

  2. So production dwindled after El Gordo announced his intent to steal the company, did it? Gosh, what a puzzler. Any interesting personnel transfers?

  3. As soon as Cuba throws off the Castros, their standard of living will start to improve, while Venezuela’s will continue to decline. How long will it be before Cuba is sending aid to Venezuela? 10 years?

  5. When I first brought the page up, I only saw the top half of the bulldozer. I half expected to see the scoop full of bodies.
    Ah, well. Give it five years…

  6. Nice ..a buisness model for the “0”. I wonder if the sluggish production had anything to do with chaves announcing he was going to nationalise it . What a dummy …socialism at it’s best as soon as the workers here that the gumint will be taking over they all break out the breast pumps and start milking ..or it could be in protest of the govornment taking over ..either or it is once again a perfect example of a failed socialist policiy .
    Screw you chavez
    Paul in calgary .

  8. Following up on the Dwain Lingenfourther thread, I read this (typically brilliant)Churchill quote at the NDP Watch blog, very apropos to Chavez and his ongoing destruction of Venezuela:
    “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

  9. Glen Reynolds at Instapundit the other day linked to a website that tracks those copuntries most likely to default on their debt. Venezuela was at the top of the list.
    Someone should ask Dawg how the Bolivarian Revolution is coming.

  12. Joe:
    You forget famine. Marc is right – the socialization of the food industry is the worst of all, because it will ultimately mean starvation.
    Two weeks ago Chavez put a bunch of butchers in jail for overcharging. In other words, they refused to be put out of business by Chavez’s price controls.
    Precisely how people are supposed to buy meat when its unprofitable to sell it Chavez did not say.
    Viva la revolucion bolivariana!

  14. RFC – he’s the same as all of the others responsible for supporting mass murders who mascarade under the banner of socialism. Always supporting – never responsible. Funny how that works.

  15. To think the NDP and many of the Liberals would like to emulate Chavez’s policies here. Chavez’s take over of all aspects of the economy is just following the step-by-step guide laid out by Lenin and Stalin.

  18. I wonder how the useful idiot Chavez voters feel about things now? And the meaning of useful idiot is???

  19. bill-tb:
    Never underestimate the ability of people to rationalize when it fits their political beliefs. The Venezuelan economy is spiraling out of control with high inflation, rising unemployment, plummeting currency and GDP, and shortages of all kinds. Yet the Chavez cheerleaders continue to shake their poms-poms.
    Fortunately, some people do learn…
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/15/hugo-chavez-broke-my-heart?plckFindCommentKey=CommentKey:ade9291c-5c96-4db1-9482-e437deb07cb5

  20. bill-tb, being a Useful-Idiot means never having the brains to admit you were wrong.
    That’s why you still see Obama ’08 stickers on cars in Arizona. Won’t look at the wall, can’t see the handwriting there.

  21. bill-tb
    Yeah Chavez power base is the bottom of the gene-pool…..
    Rob @ dailyrasp
    Such regimes survive because they make sure that their gun bearers are fed, housed and paid.
    An associate, X KGB…said…
    Socialism doesn’t work—but you will have to try it.
    Socialism is a “pretend economy”. They pretend to pay you and you pretend to work.

  22. And the difference between Chavez and 90% of university professors, union leaders and half their members, CBC staff, half of the civil service including teachers and nurses, much of the NPD and Greens, IS?……. (Answer: they can preach it and yearn for it but unfortunately for the rest of us, they don’t have to live it.)
    The U-Blade on that dozer will come in handy for disposing of the human toll (“justifiable cost”) of socialism. Most likely, being a socialist venture, it will breakdown or run out of fuel resulting in a landscape reminiscent of Cambodia circa 1975 to 1979. When that happens, the MSM will be more interested in some new intoxicated celebrity’s private parts.

  23. Heh. What’s this about “Bolivarian Venezuela” and the “Bolivarian revolution”?
    Is this a reference to Guevara, who met his end in Bolivia?
    I’d bet that if Simon Bolivar were to return and he saw what Chavez is doing, he’d kick his ass so hard you’d see it whenever he opened his mouth.

  24. Keep up the good fight Chavez. Having visited Venezuela several times I applaud the measures the government has taken there.

  29. It is amusing to read the comments on Chavez here and observe how you are still not doing anything about him. Canadians don’t deserve even those bits of freedom they are still afforded courtesy of your government.

  30. The NDP in the 1970’s did the exact same take over of business here in Saskatchewan. They took over potash mines, pulp mills and oil wells. Dwain Lingenfourth has hinted that he wants to do it again.

  33. What “measures” are you talking about T? The ones that caused the brown outs or the water shortages? LOL!

  35. Socialists perceive economics the way politicians and lawyers perceive the law. If you see something you don’t like you simply pass a law to make it go away, or equally, if you want something you simply pass a law to make it appear or occur. It’s what Thomas Sowell refers to as “stage one thinking”, i.e. a belief that dealing with the immediate “problem” is all that’s required. There’s no effort to think about what may have caused the problem to arise in the first place or to consider what the follow on consequences of the proposed “solution” might be. The classic example is rent controls. In short, it’s an infantile way of thinking.
    Economics is not philosophy. It’s the study of behavior including regulation, incentives and their consequences. There are certain economic laws which simply cannot be avoided. Chavez is simply mentally incapable of conceiving of the fact that butchers for instance had to raise their prices because the cost of their inputs went up. He believes that by nationalizing (stealing) an industry he can magically cause it to output more goods or services while ignoring the cost of the inputs, or by ignoring the effect the disproportionate allocation of resources input into that industry by government fiat has on all the remaining parts of the economy. Venezuela is doomed.

  37. It is amusing to read the comments on Chavez here and observe how you are still not doing anything about him. Canadians don’t deserve even those bits of freedom they are still afforded courtesy of your government.
    Posted by: Aaron
    That’s not so, Aaron. In solidarity, many thousands of Canadians are taking advantage of cheap tropical vacations (in tourist-only hotel complexes, of course)in the imprisoned island of Cuba, as well as at the Cuba-in-production of Venezuela’s beach resorts. That way, those Canadians are giving their hard currency to help prop up those Socialist police states and maintain the misery of the Cuban AND now, the Venezuelan people.
    Now, let’s count to 10 as we wait for some troll to start off with “but they have free healthcare!”

  38. well stated Dr.D
    Chavez has signed into law, the criminalization of not using the government to conduct foreign exchange, outlawing the somewhat tolerated black market of dollars / euros… and Quico wades into it,
    “Chavismo’s plan right now seems to be to do everything in their power to avoid making spending cuts. Their plan, in terms of dealing with the inflation this will generate, is to throw “speculators” in jail. The current policy direction is tilted pretty far in the direction of scarcity, with considerable inflation as well.”
    http://www.caracaschronicles.com/node/2523

  39. DrD, I agree with marc, you comment was well stated. How long before reports of the disappearance of those who oppose Chavez.
    Many Canadians vacationing in Cuba do not believe it when told how Cubans live. The rest do not care and just want a cheap vacation. In 2006 when the Coral Princess cruise ship we were on was returning to Ft. Lauderdale from a cruise to the Panama and at a point between Cuba and Florida, the ship altered course to pass a wreck of a small coastal freighter full of people making for Florida. I suspect the Coral’s captain wanted to see what was up and then contacted the US Coast Guard. We wondered why people would risk their lives in a decrepit ship to leave the socialist paradise.
    Al the thawing fish, hopefully it is soon.

  40. Dave in Pa— “In solidarity, many thousands of Canadians are taking advantage of cheap tropical vacations (in tourist-only hotel complexes, of course)in the imprisoned island of Cuba,”.— You are wielding a double-edged sword.Yes,our tourist dollars are supporting the regime.OTOH,our dollars are supporting many families,and as another benefit, our presence is opening eyes and showing many that there is a better way. I have been to Cuba once,I stayed in the city of Matanza,not a resort,not by any stretch of the imagination.I call it Castro’s Cuba. The people were wonderful,but poor .I think that by being there I affected a little change…If there was not tourist money would change be quicker?Possibly,but I strongly believe it would be very bloody… BTW,go habs go.

  41. Socialists doing their bit for a greener Earth.
    Its tradition don’t you know among the Infallible left.
    Its interesting you can pick up battlefields from even 4000 years ago. From Satellite pictures.
    These areas are usually unusual by being so fertile out of place.
    Blood you see, has a lot of Iron in its substance.
    JMO

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