Venezuela's public finances are unravelling, with oil prices at $40 a barrel, while the national budget is calculated at $60 a barrel. Inflation is running at over 30 per cent, yet with the new measures Mr Chavez is seeking to ensure that his core support, the poor, can still fill their shopping baskets with food.Unfortunately for the people of Venezuela, Chavez is in the position to hold power as long as he has a taste for it.
"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act," said Carlos Osorio, the national superintendent of silos and storage. "For the government, access to food is a matter of national security."
Production quotas and prices have now been set for cooking oil, white rice, sugar, coffee, flour, margarine, pasta, cheeses and tomato sauce.
I wouldn't hold my breath if you're waiting for him to give it up peacefully, Venezuela. Lo siento.
Update: Evidently, in addition to other economic difficulties, Venezuela is experiencing a shortage of salesmanship:
Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday called upon US President Barack Obama to follow the path to socialism, which he termed as the "only" way out of the global recession. "Come with us, align yourself, come with us on the road to socialism. This is the only path. Imagine a socialist revolution in the United States," Chavez told a group of workers in the southern Venezuelan state of Bolivar.Well, it's not quite as embarrassing as addressing the People having forgotten to zip up your fly, but it's uncomfortably close. When one's economy is suffering due to adherence to a failed economic model, it's understandable that others might be hesitant to explicitly apply that model to their own economic policy.
The controversial Venezuelan leader, who taunted the United States as a source of capitalistic evil under former president George W Bush, added that the United States needs a leader who can take it to a "higher" destiny and bring it out of "the sad role that it has been given, as a murderous, attacking power that is hated all around the world."
Marxists world-wide should look forward to an international comedy-tour headlining an Obama/Chavez ticket; they'll die laughing.
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4 comments:
"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act,"
What about when government runs roughshod over the consumers, eh? 'Cuz that's their problem
At this point, I have no sympathy for countries that are impoverished by socialism. We've been down that road too many times for people to have any excuse.
EW, when a government does it, it's for our own good. They are the Anointed, and we should be thankful for the opportunity.
Sarcasm aside, I can't take a Marxist seriously, especially when his name rhymes with "Yugo".
Mike, they obviously didn't get the memo, but there isn't much to do be done about it from here, except point and laugh, or point and sigh. Obama seems to be dragging us kicking and screaming towards that glorious Workers' Utopia, like it or not.
All the more reason to invest in domestic food-production, I say.
Venezuela is buying the votes of the poor by feeding them the seed corn. That's good for a year. Then they wil feed them to each other.
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