This was predictable as rain. Marxist idiot nationalizes wide swaths of the economy, which then under-perform. The economy tanks, and he starts looking for a scapegoat:
So now business owners are ‘parasites’. Prices go up because of shortages, and Chavez blows a gasket and starts taking over food distribution and setting price caps. Shortages get worse, and the black market increases in size.
This doesn’t end well.
The question is, where does this end? Would anyone like to predict how the Hugo Chavez story ends?
Well, if Cuba, N. Korea and Rhodesia are any examples to go by, 3rd world planned economies tend to go very badly for a very long period of time. Does he have a son or brother that can succeed him?
We need to see if Chavez can lose an election first, something he, as far as I know, has yet to do. (I admit to being unaware if the elections Chavez has participated in have been ruled illegitimate by international, objective observers, so if anyone knows let me know) I don’t like Chavez at all but I understand that for whatever reason, he has the support of the poor masses of Venezuela.
In Mexico, during the reign of the PRI, the relatively left-wing party in power was corrupt and everyone knew it. Yet they kept winning, not just because of electoral shenanigans but also because of the perception that they were for the poor people, while the opposition PAN party were seen to be for the rich. The Mexicans had a saying that was roughly translated to, “if those who are for us are kicking us, the ones who are against us would really screw us.”
If this type of sentiment holds true for Chavez in Venezuela, he will be fine more or less no matter what he does. When the majority of people see a better alternative, they will go for that. What Chavez does when confronted with that is another story.
I should also add that, as the situation in Venezuela deteriorates, there will be a resultant drain of educated and wealthy people from the country, lowering the proportion of residents who would be opposed to this particular populist dictatorship.
He probably did lose the last one, or at least wouild have if anything like a fair election had taken place. The opposition party more or less said “screw it”, we can’t get a fair tally and simply didn’t run, since they knew Chavez would fake the results.
Sadly, good, independant sources of information don’t seem to exist anymore for Venezuela. However, reports of food prices skyrocketing have been confirmed, which makes the former report seem less than honest.
Like wmfellows says, this is a ludicrous comparison. It’s equivalent to pointing out that the US was going through flu season at the same time as the bubonic plague was hitting Timbuktu like somehow this showed that both places were just as bad to live in.
Hit a cord, did he? Seems clear enough to me…here:
You could also debate whether or not you think Venezuela is ‘Coming Apart at the Seams’, I suppose, since I know you are a big fan of Chavez and Venezuela.
I had not noticed that BG was a particular fan of Mr. Chavez. Frankly, I rather doubt it.
I might well be a fan of his, if he were who he pretends to be, or if he were who he thinks he is. Evidence strongly suggests that he is not, that he is an authoritarian who used socialist/populist trappings to obtain power. He might just as easily be a genuine populist operating under the delusion that he alone knows The Way. From here, either is equally plausible, and either is equally disastrous.
The notion that Mr Chavez demonstrates some eternal verity of political science is too silly to seriously rebut. There are no eternal verities of political science, there is only people, the struggle to create justice and equality varies entirely according to the situation of the people in question. Nothing he has done offers us any proof about “socialism”, whatever the hell that is.
Hit a cord, did he? Seems clear enough to me…here: