Hugo Chavez, dead at age 58

[Mikeg]

Hugo Chavez has assumed room temperature in a Caracas military hospital room,

"And it smells of sulfur still today."

[Patrick]

Hugo Chavez has assumed room temperature in a Caracas military hospital room,

"And it smells of sulfur still today."

Strange days are ahead

[gazhekwe]

Walk in beauty, niijii.

[kenp]

Ask anyone their and the love him, ask anyone who left and its totally opposite.
That tells me a lot.

[gnome]

Whenever the world's second or third largest supplier of oil loses its leader you can be pretty sure the oil market will fluctuate. It is rare to see oil prices go down during times of crisis.

better get that Prius you've been eyeing.

[rb336]

Ask anyone their and the love him, ask anyone who left and its totally opposite.
That tells me a lot.

The real accomplishment of Chavez was that he took very poor oil contracts, and after being denied a renegotiation of the deals [[they were reworked by Perez, much to the oil giants' benefit, in return for a bunch of cash going straight into Perez' personal coffers - some estimate as much as $200 million), simply kicked out the oil barons. With the increased revenue from controlling the oil themselves, VZ tripled the number of water treatment systems, quadrupaled the number of schools, doubled the number of health centers, increased the standard of living of the majority of Venezuelans significantly

[gazhekwe]

He was a man of his people, completely oriented to strengthening his community. That is the Native way.

[oladub]

How to run your economy into the ground: a lesson from Venezuela

It probably doesn't matter too much because with emptier grocery shelves who needs money? The police state attempts to dominate the media and education were a nice touch too [[notes of deja vu [[note rhyme)). Some estimates, which I question, have $1-2B of oil money being funneled into Chavez family accounts. Animal farm redux with Chavez being the alpha pig; kind of like FDR on steroids. we will all be happier if we go down the tube together - look up Zimbabwe, USSR, whatever. Hugo Chavez' legacy includes how to make a oil rich country poor. Viva la revolution!

[Zacha341]

Or more coasting [[foot off the gas peddle as much as possible) with my V6 Toyota incarnation... A lead foot is not gonna do it in these times!

Whenever the world's second or third largest supplier of oil loses its leader you can be pretty sure the oil market will fluctuate. It is rare to see oil prices go down during times of crisis.

better get that Prius you've been eyeing.

[rb336]

Just out of curiosity, I looked at what Ola posted. Of course it was from a factually lacking blog by Walter Kurtz - a person who hides behind a pseudonym derived from Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.

The article he links to about the decline in the VZ economy [[from 2009) links it to one thing -- the 55% drop in global oil prices which created an over-valued bolivar. of course, he knows his audience won't bother to read the real article.

Does VZ have a great economy? no, it doesn't. it is far to dependent on one export - oil - and it was very expensive to give the country a modern infrastructure after that had been ignored except for the major cities.

Another area that the right has fed us a line of bullshit is that Chavez quashed criticism. this is given the lie by the fact that the majority of the criticisms about the VZ economy have come from academia and news sources in Venezuela. ​The only shred of truth in the right-wing BS machine is that he shut down a broadcaster owned by the opposition. What they don't tell you about that is that the broadcaster in question called for his assassination and the violent overthrow of the government

[coracle]

He was a man of his people, completely oriented to strengthening his community. That is the Native way.

And he made a cool $2 Billion for himself on the side while helping the poor using the Native way. [[maybe he didn't have time to redistribute it)
He was a thug!

[noise]

And he made a cool $2 Billion for himself on the side while helping the poor using the Native way. [[maybe he didn't have time to redistribute it)
He was a thug!

Does the quantity matter or can we look at every US politician ever with the same lens?

[gazhekwe]

[leapfrog]

Politics aside, I loved the way he would thumb his nose at the US every chance he got. Some of his antics were laugh out loud funny!

[oladub]

Just out of curiosity, I looked at what Ola posted. Of course it was from a factually lacking blog by Walter Kurtz - a person who hides behind a pseudonym derived from Brando's character in Apocalypse Now.

The article he links to about the decline in the VZ economy [[from 2009) links it to one thing -- the 55% drop in global oil prices which created an over-valued bolivar. of course, he knows his audience won't bother to read the real article.

Does VZ have a great economy? no, it doesn't. it is far to dependent on one export - oil - and it was very expensive to give the country a modern infrastructure after that had been ignored except for the major cities.

Another area that the right has fed us a line of bullshit is that Chavez quashed criticism. this is given the lie by the fact that the majority of the criticisms about the VZ economy have come from academia and news sources in Venezuela. ​The only shred of truth in the right-wing BS machine is that he shut down a broadcaster owned by the opposition. What they don't tell you about that is that the broadcaster in question called for his assassination and the violent overthrow of the government

Rb, Comrade, I empathize with your sense of loss but the article cites Bloomberg graphs; a series of them. Here is the first one:
http://soberlook.com/2009/09/how-to-...to-ground.html
if the graph is incorrect, how about proving it so?

It has little to nothing to do with oil. It has to do with Chavez printing so much money that the Bolivar, under Chavez, even declined against the dollar. I realize that Paul Krugman would approve but it is even tough on the middle class when when a leader prints money to buy votes. A mattress full of Bolivars or even dollars will no longer buy as much. It's quite a feat to transform one of the oil richest countries in the world into one with empty grocery shelves. Chavez made Obama look like Adam Smith but don't give up hope. Chavez didn't have to deal with obstructionist Republicans. There is always 2014.

It's a little more than one source that "has fed us a line of bullshit is that Chavez quashed criticism".

Or are the Washington Post and wikipedia now part of "the right-wing BS machine?"

Venezuela has a history of press censorship and intimidation. As recently as January,

Human Rights Watch slammed

the Chavez government for building “a legal regime that allows it to censor and punish its critics, in clear violation of international norms.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...g-hugo-chavez/

Censorship in Venezuela was ranked 117th out of 179 countries in the Press Freedom Index 2011-2012 from Reporters Without Borders.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Venezuela

[Gistok]

Well whatever source... Chavez became anti-American due to the 2 day coup that failed in 2002 [[?)... and he was of course a champion of the poor.... BUT... as Oladub said... the shelves are empty... so that's a 2 edged sword... a lot of money likely was being looted from the VZ treasury...

Here's hoping that Capriles tries again and wins this time... I sure hope the pity vote doesn't come out in droves...

[gazhekwe]

A thoughtful analysis of Chavez' government:

http://www.thenation.com/blog/173223...vez-1954-2013#

[rb336]

Well whatever source... Chavez became anti-American due to the 2 day coup that failed in 2002 [[?)... and he was of course a champion of the poor.... BUT... as Oladub said... the shelves are empty... so that's a 2 edged sword... a lot of money likely was being looted from the VZ treasury...

Here's hoping that Capriles tries again and wins this time... I sure hope the pity vote doesn't come out in droves...

Capriles wouldn't be bad. but think about this - although he is labeled as "center right", his policies are still far to the left of Obama's and he favors further wealth redistribution like his idol [[and Chavez supporter) former Brazilian president da Silva

[Mikeg]

The Ghost of Chavez: Venezuela Getting Sicker


Venezuela may soon be forced to add hyperinflation to its list of socialist disasters. The FT reports that price rises last month hit an all time high while the economy careens into recession:

Prices rose 6.1 per cent in May, compared with 1.6 per cent in the same period last year, bringing accumulated inflation for the first five months of 2013 to 19.4 per cent, almost as high as the annual figure for 2012 of 20.1 per cent. The sudden jump in prices, with the 4.3 per cent rise in April already sounding alarms, has triggered fears at Goldman Sachs that Venezuela could be on the brink of hyperinflation.....

Despite some of the largest oil reserves on the planet and freedom from a US embargo like the one that beset Cuba, it turns out that Venezuela is an equally sad example of what a socialist paradise looks like. Food, medicine, toilet paper, and dollars are either impossible to find or priced out of anyone’s ability to afford them. Growth in this year’s first quarter clocked in at less than a percentage point, with GDP expected to contract by one percent at year’s end. Year after year, a vicious cycle spawned by a labyrinth of price and currency controls cuts off the oxygen supply to Venezuela’s import-dependent economy and ends up making goods more scarce and inflation more severe.

[Click here to read the entire article]

[JBMcB]

This is a pretty good show about Chavez:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/

He adopted the Stalinist method of governorship, but without as much of the killing. Food prices are high because the minister of agriculture isn't doing his job. Gas prices are high because the minister of oil isn't doing his job. Crime is high because the minister of justice isn't doing his job. He'd go through a dozen appointments a year. Apparently nothing was ever his fault or the fault of his policies. He just couldn't hire the right people, dangit.

[Danny]

Looks like Venezuela's pre Canadian like culture is over.

[oladub]

Capriles wouldn't be bad. but think about this - although he is labeled as "center right", his policies are still far to the left of Obama's and he favors further wealth redistribution like his idol [[and Chavez supporter) former Brazilian president da Silva

No disagreement with your point but da Silva managed to both help the poor and substantially improve Brazil's economy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luiz_Inácio_Lula_da_Silva

[Papasito]

Plane tickets were available to Venezuela. If Chavez was so great, nothing was stopping his socialist fan club to move down there and live under his wonderful regime.

Ahhhhhh yes .. UTOPIA

[JBMcB]

Ahhhhhh yes .. UTOPIA

Here's an Android app that helps you find which stores are stocking toilet paper at the moment:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...=search_result

Price controls == scarcity. You'd think someone would have sprung $70 for an econ 101 book over there.

[Mikeg]

The ‘Cubanization’ of Venezuela - Domination by the Castros has accelerated since Chavez’s death
by Jose. R. Cardenas

One of the greatest ironies of the late strongman Hugo Chavez’s rule was that even as he attempted to personify Venezuelan nationalism, he was quietly outsourcing more and more of the country’s sovereignty to the Castro brothers in Cuba. Today, with conditions in the country spiraling after April’s tainted election to guarantee the continuation of Chavismo, Cuba’s flagrant interference in Venezuelan affairs has become downright obscene.

As Venezuela’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Diego Arria, put it recently: “Venezuela is an occupied country. The Venezuelan regime is a puppet controlled by the Cubans. It is no longer Cuban tutelage; it is control.”

[[read the rest)