# Venezuela after Hugo Chavez? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 1, 2011, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506 "2011-07-01T13:59:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/41 "2011-07-06T03:07:20Z")
BTW, [Colombia’s civil war is heating up, on account of the gold rush there.](http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/faultlines/2011/07/2011757127575176.html) > [@](#): > > Turf wars are erupting between paramilitaries and leftist rebel groups who are fighting to take control of mining regions. It is fuelling an old ideological conflict that has displaced thousands of people. > > Helicopter raids by the Colombian army on small community mining collectives have become commonplace and the Colombian government is accused of targeting poor workers to protect big business interests and committing human rights violations with impunity. > > Thousands have fled their homes where land is violently contested and others live in fear that they will be removed from their land, arrested or killed. > > The multinationals are flooding in too. With gold now worth around $1,500 an ounce, everyone is getting in on the act, including North American mining companies. Colombia’s pro-business mentality has seen arbitrary concessions by the state sold to multinational companies, often on indigenous land. That’s another thing for which Uribe loses points IMO – having as solid a mandate/powerbase as he had, for as long as he had, I would’ve hoped he would’ve done something to make peace with the FARC and end it. Happened in El Salvador, happened in Nicaragua, why not Colombia? ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/42 "2011-07-06T17:24:36Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I agree, but, the important question is, what happens **after** SuperHugo? Has he built something larger than himself that can thrive without him or any charismatic replacement? Yes he has. Almost two decades of SuperHugo have built an economic system in Venezuela – electricity, mass education, healthcare and land and property rights for the masses, a system that although still corrupt is not as corrupt as previous elite rule and offers infinitely more opportunity to the average Venezuelan – that the Venezuelan people will demand at the very least a similar system in future. And SuperHugo’s political opponents know this. After the Super One was first elected He was so popular that his opponents knew they’d be crushed in any election, so they decided to subvert democracy by not running any candidates against Him and when he was elected unopposed called Him a dictator. In the last election however they put up a candidate (Manuel Rosales) to run aganist Him (who lost in a SuperHugo landslide by US standards) and, crucially, the only way Rosales could run against Him was to attack Him from His _left_ flank. Thus, Rosales’ main policy, _mi negra_ : [![](https://farm1.static.flickr.com/85/237642529_dfe4fb6eb6.jpg) ](https://farm1.static.flickr.com/85/237642529_dfe4fb6eb6.jpg) or _my crude_. Basically a payment card that guaranteed every venezuelan person/family a monthly chunk of Venezuela’s oil wealth. An actual cash bribe. Notice the smiling person they use in the advert isn’t exactly the sort of person who benefitted from the government when Rosales’ paymasters, Venezuela’s richest families, have perviously held power. And whatever happens in future this shows SuperHugo’s main achievement. He’s completely changed the face of Venezuelan politics from what it was to the woman on the election poster. There’ll be attempts tol turn it back to the way it was but the only way to really do that is to turn the country back into an actual dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2011, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/43 "2011-07-06T17:45:33Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Thus, Rosales’ main policy, _mi negra_ : > > [http://farm1.static.flickr.com/85/237642529\_dfe4fb6eb6.jpg](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/85/237642529_dfe4fb6eb6.jpg) > or _my crude_. Basically a payment card that guaranteed every venezuelan person/family a monthly chunk of Venezuela’s oil wealth. An actual cash bribe. :eek: Why, that’s un-Am- . . . un-Venez- . . . It’s Alaskan. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/44 "2011-07-07T17:05:41Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > :eek: Why, that’s un-Am- . . . un-Venez- . . . It’s Alaskan. It was sold as still giving Venezuela’s wealth to the people but giving it directly instead of via a big government bureaucratic machine. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/45 "2011-07-07T17:08:09Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > It was sold as still giving Venezuela’s wealth to the people but giving it directly instead of via a big government bureaucratic machine. Seriously. Wouldn’t. You’d still have the bureaucracy necessary to run the state oil industry, **plus** a new (much smaller) one to cut and mail the checks. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/46 "2011-07-07T17:10:01Z")
That post automatically posted itself. Weird. It’s worth noting that the massive cash bribe by Cjhavez’ opponents wasn’t actually reported in the western press during the election. there was no US headline that said “SuperHugo still wins despite massive cash bribe by opponents.” If His opponents do try the dictatorship route in the future to regain control of the oil money it’ll be interesting to see how much coverage the liberal media gives it. I wonder if the future dictator will be as well-known to Americans as the name of the Venezuelan leader who started making US oil companies pay a fair price for their oil. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/47 "2011-07-07T17:11:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Wouldn’t. You’d still have the bureaucracy necessary to run the state oil industry, **plus** a new (much smaller) one to cut and mail the checks. Yeas, but that’s how the policy was sold during the election. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/48 "2011-07-08T03:55:36Z")
[Insiders claim Chavez has colon cancer.](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304793504576432362146144694.html?mod=googlenews_wsj) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/49 "2011-07-08T12:59:04Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > “The Stalinism had to come first” > It did? Look at Taiwan, it industrialised and now has a greater GDP per capita than China yet never went through Stalinism. Hong Kong did not use dirigisme either. The Stalinism didn’t have to come first. Hong Kong had rather a head start on capitalism, compared to the rest of China. British trade entrepot of the Far East for decades, it was. > [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > "“That’s why China is for now) well ahead of China” > You say heavy dirigisme is why China is well ahead of India. You are therefore saying that India did not use a form of heavy dirigisme. > Please read this section: [Economy of India - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_India#Pre-liberalisation_period_.281947.E2.80.931991.29) Rather weak tea compared to a Stalinist approach, and the difference shows in the results. > [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > "“The Interstate Highway System sure was one hell of an economic stimulus package” > You are confusing the public provision of otherwise privately-undersupplied goods with policies which increase aggregate demand to avoid liquidity traps. They can sometimes both be found in the same projects but are distinct. The continuing benefit is not from any demand stimulus effect but from the provision-of-otherwise-privately-undersupplied-goods effect. Eh? **Of course** infrastructure like the interstate highways has a **demand-stimulus** effect. Every gas station and fast-food place off every exit is an instance, and only a trivial one compared with the real ones. Command economies **work,** all right, like rats a-fighting – for a limited range of purposes, such as heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and – by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but **effective** – by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. **No way** could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.) Also, if the government carrying out the planning is an unaccountable one, then in its hubris it is capable of astonishing economic blunders of which even sympathizers the whole world over can only ask, "What were you **thinking?!"** Such as Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture or China’s Great Leap Forward. Or, worse, the current intractable status quo in North Korea. From [_Economics Explained,_](http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Explained-Everything-About-Economy/dp/0684846411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182793941&sr=8-1) by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow: > [@](#): > > The reason it [the Soviet system] did last [as long as it did] is that in the beginning the system very much resembled a military operation. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, Lenin confronted an almost totally disorganized society, and tried at first to build a “socialism” that was partly capitalist – private farming and private small enterprise – and partly socialist, in the form of state-owned banks and large centers of production. Russia staggered along under this mixed system for a few years, without either great success or great failure, but after Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin took command and rapidly instituted the highly centralized system we have sketched in. > > Stalin’s methods were ferocious and bloody, but they were successful in bringing about an immense accumulation of wealth, much as did the ruthless ways of the ancient pharoahs of Egypt and emperors of Rome or China. The difference was that whereas the latter built palaces and cities, Stalin built factories, steel mills, hydroelectric plants, and railway systems – the ingredients of an industrial economy. The fact that Stalin’s Russia was strong enough to resist Hitler’s armies – and efficient enough, after its reconstruction following World War II, to impress the world with its industrial and military capabilities – shows that Soviet central planning was by no means a failure in its initial years. That is why “military socialism” may yet be a model for development efforts in the future. China is today a semi-military socialism which appears to be successfully negotiating the early stages of industrialization, much aided by a carefully supervised free market sector attached to the planned core. **Hence the collapse of the Soviet system should not lead us to the snap judgment that centralized socialism is no longer on the agenda of the coming century. That is indeed likely to be the case with the North, but it is not a foregone conclusion in the troubled countries of the South.** > > THE COLLAPSE > > But we are ahead of ourselves. After so successful a beginning, why did Soviet socialism finally break down? The answer is that **it is a great deal easier to design and build the skeleton of a mighty economy than to run it.** Building a steel plant requires good industrial draftsmanship, but running a steel plant requires good industrial management. Management, in turn, depends on the ability to adapt flows of production to ever-changing conditions – the unforeseen contingencies, mistakes, mismatches, shortages, and overruns that are inescapable in any complex undertaking. > > In a market system, these mistakes are repaired and remedied as soon as possible because they cost the factory or store money. Hence suppliers are told to hurry up, or to hold back on shipments, unprofitable items are canceled and profitable ones run overtime, the Yellow Pages are searched for last-minute necessities. None of this can happen in a society planned from top to bottom. When mistakes are made, they bring about a kind of gridlock in the flow of production, so that the pace of Soviet economic production was a never-ending sequence of feast or famine, too much or too little, with no way of remedying the errors other than recasting next year’s plan or seeking the semi-illegal channels of “tolkachi” – fixers. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/50 "2011-07-08T14:10:04Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hong Kong had rather a head start on capitalism, compared to the rest of China. British trade entrepot of the Far East for decades, it was. > > Rather weak tea compared to a Stalinist approach, and the difference shows in the results. > > Eh? **Of course** infrastructure like the interstate highways has a **demand-stimulus** effect. Every gas station and fast-food place off every exit is an instance, and only a trivial one compared with the real ones. > > Command economies **work,** all right, like rats a-fighting – for a limited range of purposes, such as heavy capital formation. In 1924 Stalin took control of a backward, agrarian country, marginally industrialized by the onset of WWI and that little industry devastated by that war and the Russian Civil War, and – by methods which were bloody, brutal, repressive, wasteful, but **effective** – by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany; and Germany had always been at the leading edge of the Industrial Revolution. **No way** could that have happened, if Russia had had a free-market system during that period. > > OTOH, central economic planning, lacking the constant corrective feedback of competitive market performance, is spectacularly inept at any kind of fine-tuning. Moreover, it does not encourage innovation very well. No state planner would ever have thought of something like the Sony Walkman, or the Pet Rock, or fabric softener. (Whether that is an argument for or against Stalinism is open to debate.) > > Also, if the government carrying out the planning is an unaccountable one, then in its hubris it is capable of astonishing economic blunders of which even sympathizers the whole world over can only ask, "What were you **thinking?!"** Such as Stalin’s collectivization of agriculture or China’s Great Leap Forward. Or, worse, the current intractable status quo in North Korea. > > From [_Economics Explained,_](http://www.amazon.com/Economics-Explained-Everything-About-Economy/dp/0684846411/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0323301-0796122?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1182793941&sr=8-1) by Robert Heilbroner and Lester Thurow: If the hardcore Stalinist approach is what matters, why is North Korea poor and not industrialised? You seem to understand how prices send signals of relative scarcity. I know you realise the utility of that when it comes to consumption goods and raw resources\*. Yet that also applies to capital goods. Why is a free market more efficient when it comes to allocating consumption goods but not capital goods? If it’s more efficient at allocating capital goods, why state intervention? I also see that you didn’t address Taiwan. Demand-stimulus of gas stations and fast-food places: In order to establish that an intervention has a demand-stimulus effect, you have to show that there is more aggregate demand than there would otherwise be without the intervention. If it weren’t for the interstate highway, people would still drive from state to state using non-highway roads and would need gas stations and fast-food places. More generally, do you think the State should stimulate aggregate demand even when there is no chance of a liquidity trap? If so, when do you think the State should stop stimulating aggregate demand, if ever? What is the purpose of aggregate demand stimulation, exactly? - I am speaking generally, there are well known exceptions such as when the private marginal cost/gain is different from the social marginal cost/gain where the State should intervene. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/51 "2011-07-08T15:30:16Z")
Sorry for the double post. “by 1939 had turned it into an industrial power capable of going head-to-head with Hitler’s Germany” Just wanted to add that this is quite true but not evidence that Stalinism is any good at industrialisation generally. It is evidence that national defense is a public good (non-excludable, non-rival) which is undersupplied by the private sector and where there should be gov’t intervention. But this does not show that for non-public goods, Stalinism (more generally, central planning) is superior to the free market. Even Milton Friedman could agree with State intervention to develop industrial capacity for national defense. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/52 "2011-07-15T02:39:47Z")
Hugo Chavez’s government is based on personalism. His charisma, his image, and his popularity among the poor and lower middle-class keeps his government in (elected) power. He has not built a strong party apparatus that may survive him. Is there any Venezuelan politician that has any constituency within Chavismo other than Chavez. He doesn’t have a partner, a Raul Castro or Evita Peron that can carry his banner. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/53 "2011-07-15T02:43:25Z")
> [@syncrolecyne](#): > > Hugo Chavez’s government is based on personalism. His charisma, his image, and his popularity among the poor and lower middle-class keeps his government in (elected) power. He has not built a strong party apparatus that may survive him. What about the [United Socialist Party?](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Socialist_Party_of_Venezuela) It was formed by merger of 11 existing parties, presumably it has a lot of people in it who were fighting the good fight long before Chavez took office. Why should they stop when he goes? ---
**Author:** ![Commissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c68b51/32.png) [@Commissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Commissar)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/54 "2011-07-15T02:57:24Z")
> [@syncrolecyne](#): > > Hugo Chavez’s government is based on personalism. His charisma, his image, and his popularity among the poor and lower middle-class keeps his government in (elected) power. He has not built a strong party apparatus that may survive him. Is there any Venezuelan politician that has any constituency within Chavismo other than Chavez. He doesn’t have a partner, a Raul Castro or Evita Peron that can carry his banner. That’s rather missing the point. When you have an immensely effective, wildly popular leader such as Chavez, large political networks and clear lines of succession become wholly irrelevant. Once again, I believe that Putin provides a perfect comparison here. I remember when he was about to time out as the Russian President, and many people were leveling the same criticisms against him. What happened? Nothing. He picked a hitherto-unknown Medvedev as his successor, Medvedev ran on a platform that consisted entirely of promising to continue “Putin’s plan,” and the people elected him in a landslide. Done and done. I have little doubt that the same will happen here. Once comrade Chavez determines that it is prudent to do so, he will tell his people whom to vote for, and vote they will. I have no worries on this front. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/55 "2011-07-15T03:03:15Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > That’s rather missing the point. When you have an immensely effective, wildly popular leader such as Chavez, large political networks and clear lines of succession become wholly irrelevant. Wildly popular, huh? [Chavez fails to regain lost popularity](http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/06/06/venezuelas-chavez-fails-to-regain-lost-popularity.shtml) > [@](#): > > According to Venezuela’s pollster Datanálisis, 49 percent of Venezuelans have a positive view about Hugo Chávez’s administration, while 46 percent have a negative perception of the Venezuelan president’s performance. > > Luis Vicente León, the director of Datanálisis, said that the approval of Chávez’s administration (49 percent of respondents) is “circumstantial,” and it circumstantially stood at 55 percent some weeks ago. > > According to Datanálisis, 61 percent of Venezuelans think that Chávez’s presidential mandate should end in 2012. So only 39% of Venezuelans want him back in office next year, and that to you is ‘wild popularity’? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/56 "2011-07-15T03:09:02Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Wildly popular, huh? > > [Chavez fails to regain lost popularity](http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/06/06/venezuelas-chavez-fails-to-regain-lost-popularity.shtml) > > So only 39% of Venezuelans want him back in office next year, and that to you is ‘wild popularity’? It is by U.S. standards. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2011, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/57 "2011-07-15T03:12:51Z")
> [@Commissar](#): > > I have little doubt that the same will happen here. Once comrade Chavez determines that it is prudent to do so, he will tell his people whom to vote for, and vote they will. I have no worries on this front. :dubious: Succession by _dedazo_ is a most shameful Mexican tradition, and I was in hopes that after they killed and buried it, it should not be copied abroad. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/58 "2012-02-21T23:06:58Z")
Bumping this thread because [they found another tumor.](http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2012/02/2012221203020526613.html) (And Hugo’s still getting all his tests and stuff done in Havana – aren’t Venezuelan oncologists good enough? Serious question, anybody know?) ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/59 "2012-02-21T23:44:56Z")
Damned running dog capitalist are most likely to blame. -XT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2012, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506/60 "2012-02-21T23:53:04Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Damned running dog capitalist are most likely to blame. > > -XT Don’t knock 'em, the Capitalist Running Dog is considered a glamorous breed at Westminster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/venezuela-after-hugo-chavez/587506.md?page=4)