Socialism with cheap oil

Hugo Chávez embarks on a race against the impending impact of world recession

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Readers' comments



Under the previous regimes (A.D/Copei) Venezuela's state was run far below world class standard. Not that any country in region can claim otherwise though. That said, Venezuela had a world class national oil company: PDVSA.

Now under Chavez the state is more corrupt, more burocratic and crucially PDVSA is a sad shadow of what it used to be. With three times as many employees as 10 yrs ago output has been dramatically reduced.

Let's not go into the where the real tragedy lies for the venezuelan people; eroded freedom, criminality on the rise, etc. Good on ya Mr. Chavez!

Jeremiah, Thanks for the feedback


Don't get me wrong, but thirty years of Acción Democrática/Copei governance lead the country to a state of discontent with the prevailing ruling system that in turn trow Venezuelans into Chavez's arms.And that happen just because Chavismo maintains the same basic political and economic views of big government role in all sorts of human and divine affairs (populism) and caudillismo, the strange and sick believe that a strong will (pro-hombre) will protect people against social injustice and lead them to better times.Remember, corruption, dependence on oil exports, price caps on basic consumer products and services, currency exchange controls to avoid capital flights and a religion called Bolivar, is by no means a creation of Chavismo; but rather a grass-rooted atavism that prevent us to reach adulthood.


Every year i return to my homeland and i am further saddened at the decay of the Venezuelan state and nation. A once prosperous, united, and beautiful country that had a future is slowly dying. The level of mediocrity is truly disheartening. What saddens me as much is that here in the United States there are people who praise Chavez and his revolution, much like they praise the Che Guevara; out of idealism rather than reality. If only people could go down to Venezuela and see the tragedy of socialism at work. more people die violent deaths in venezuela than in Iraq. (~13,00 vs ~ 8,000). Yet that same people that demonize the US for causing so much death in Iraq, praise Chavez. The lack of intellectual thought in the world is frightening.


In 1948, Acción Democrática, then a hardline Marxist party, was overthrown by their own minister of defence, Pérez Jiménez, à la Pinochet, but softly. After this man started the country well on its path to a planned, no-nonsense prosperity the likes of Singapore, the Marxists came back, now with a somewhat reformed, pink socialist programme that until el Chavurro’s surge ahd been dedicated to turn the country, not into any type of Singapore, but rather a blurry Cuba. These cheap, populist politicians had squandered what in 1980, the country’s leading intellectual, Úslar Pietri, described as “a figure ten times that of the Marshall Plan” with nothing to show for it. I would add: “Never have so many done so little with so much.” Then el Chavurro came along and exploited the envy of a frustrated people who Bolívar himself had described as being “in dire need of morality and intelligence.” This Castro wannabe and puppet has taken al the blurriness out of the Cuban ideal and declared himself an outright Castro-Communist. No one else, in the history of the country, has squandered as much wealth as he, nor created more misery, hate and emigration of the intelligent and able as he, as Venezuelans will soon find out when they wake up to the disaster that has been festering under all the useless splurge. The real Venezuela died in 1958. R.I.P.


Lines from gibbbles confirm the first part of his comment. Chavez´ popularity levels are undisputed, albeit privately, even by hardliners in the opposition sectors.While the real question should be: how could this be possible after 10 years of a reckless administration? , I am afraid the answer is even more enlightening and painfully familiar.


The only thing that Hugo Chavez has inspired is hate and
division. Everything else, for which you give him credit fo
for has been bought and paid for with money of the
Venezuelan people and recklessly administrated by Hugo
Chavez and his cronies. What happened to responsible
journalism? Are you blind or simply detached from the
reality of the Hugo Chavez era in Venezuela.



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