Those are connected. Just like Russia, VE lives and dies with oil. Put a price on it at $10/b and you will have poverty and extreme poverty all over again.

So you think that a goverment that had followed recomendations from the world bank would have had the same success Chavez have?? Do you think a neoliberal goverment would have tripled the money spent on education or healthcare?? Do you think that a neoliberal goverment would have reduced illiteracy like Chavez has done.

you seriously dont think that most of the extra money wouldnt have gone to the trasnationals and to the pockets of the venezuela elite instead of to the people that were marginalized for decades??

I don't know what would or wouldn't happen under different government but i do know that all his programs are financed by super oil dollars and basically nothing else. As an example of what to do with huge extra income from gas\oil sales please see Norway!!!

Could you please be more specific? What exactly that Norway does with its gas and oil income should Venezula do?

I guess he thinks Venezuela should have higher taxes and less inequality, but lol at comparing Venezuela to Norway, the political, social, economical and cultural situations are vastly different.
The hard part isnt the part where you figure out what economical program to carry the hard part is carrying out a more socialist economic program while fighting United States and the venezuelan elites and all its power.
Go and grab a history book and see what happens in latin america when the elites dont get their way, it isnt preety.

Very solid post. The fist paragraph is literally what I ereased beore submitting my reply.

I call bull**** on this.
Chavez is taking their economy down the toilet.
Oil production has fallen, cash is low, and he is trying to sell Citgo gas stations to raise cash.
This clown is an uber-loser.

English Translation: Borrow money from stupid bankers and don't pay them back.

If lower oil production is great then more "great" results like this and Venezuela collapses.

Oil is normally a fungible product but a case can be made that Venezuelan oil is not.
When it comes to oil their is sweet crude lesser degress of crap.
Venezeual has lots of oil. The problem is their oil is crap. If we were to rank the crappiest oil in the world then Venezuela would be the winner.
Only a few refineries can process their oil and there are in the USA.
Evertime Chavez threatens to shut down oil shipments to the USA I laugh because it is such an empty threat. Chavez needs the USA more than we need him.

Of course it had to be the CIA.
Stealing other people's property and giving it to his supporters had nothing to do with it.
And shutting down opposition press is totally congruent with freedom...yes?

Oh yes...
We all know that Venezuelan elections are clean.

Or could it be your claim that the poverty went down is complete crap.
No...it couldn't be that. Perhaps the CIA is behind this!

OMG...your economic ignorance is painful.

Goody goody goody!!
The US Air Force needs a little target practice.
Let us wait until the reactor is 99% complete and turn the location into a burning crator.
USA! USA! USA!

Another area of criticism of Chavez is his foreign policy, I think Chavez biggest achievement in this area is suggesting the idea that what is good for USA isnt necessarily good for South America, Ecuador and Bolivia have followed the steps of Chavez and naturally both had have to dealt with an angry elite. Also Chavez was an important actor in founding the UNASUR which a union of the southamerican countries.

So when Chavew started shutting down media it wasn't his fault it was his predessor.
Your grasp of logic is fascinating...

I've never heard this type of...logic before.

It is called divide and conquer.
If he pushes everything at once there will be another coup.
He keeps pushing but just short of starting another coup.

Hmmm...could it be because Chavez is a thug? No..it couldn't be that.

Anedoctal story:
One of my neighbors was in Venezeula during an attempt to nationalize the oil. Soldiers came with guns, pressed a pistol to his head, and told him he had 24 hours to leave the country or he would be dead. So he left. But those losers monkeys couldn't maintain the oil production so they came back hat-in-hand to the US oil companies they kicked out and ask them to come back... Such losers...

Felix tactic is believing fox news. If you lie about the facts I cant discuss things with you.
You are so brainwashed I feel sorry for you.
How can you say that poverty hasnt gone in Venezuela, ROFL. How can you say those elections werent clean?? Certainly more clean that the election USA had in 2000. Get a clue.

also can we do without this racism please. You dont get to call other people monkeys just because they live in a third world country.

If you are so concerned about facts, then provide the facts on how Venezeula's economy is doing so well. We can talk about their recession and their 30% inflation rate, etc...

So Venezueala economy contracts and they have 30% annual inflation and yet poverty is going down.
Let me guess who the source of these poverty statistics.
Could it be the Chavez government. You have no independent sources to support your assertion.

Originally in my rough draft post I made several insults toward Chavez and his supporters calling them Marxist Monkeys...
I changed my mind and deleted those references. It looks like I missed one.
Insulting marxists is not rascism. I'm am merely attacking their intellect...not their race.

You're not providing any evidence for some of your claims.
In fact poverty reduction is one of the things that has happened under Chavez - even credited so by his detractors.

http://cidh.org/countryrep/Venezuela...HAPVIIIENG.htm - from IACHR - which is biased against Chavez generally

http://www.cepr.net/documents/public..._fall_2008.pdf

http://www.eclac.org/publicaciones/x...p1-poverty.pdf

Please read the link I posted earlier ITT and generally more here - http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/economy - biased to the socialist movement admittedly

Feel free to make economic projections on Venezuela's future, or criticise other aspects of Chavez's authority, but most analyses of fact suggests that poverty has been reduced during his time.

The first 9 years were the ones were poverty were reduced, in the last 2 years Venezuela has increased it foreign debt to get by.


This isnt true, United Nations acknowledge Venezuela was the first country to achieve the poverty goals. The serious grown ups are discussing whether the poverty decrease has been thanks to Chavez policies or just because he runned good with the oil barrel prices.

fair enough.

The burden of proof is not on me. I need not prove anything.
In any freshman Logic 101 class, they teach nice things like who has the burden of proof and the falacy of trying to prove a negative.
He made the claim that poverty has gone down and I think using Venezeuala as a source is bull****.

Any third party source, even the crappy UN, would be a 100 times more credible then a Chavez government source.

Felix, Felix, Felix... Where do I begin.

No.

VE's oil sector shows growth significant growth for both quarters of 2010 (5.3% and 12.5% respectively). That production is down is irrelevant.

Non-oil sector aggregates show 4.6% growth in Q2 2010.

VE Reserves are currently $28 billion. VE is running a surplus amounting to 6.3% of GDP. There is no cash crisis.


No.

Translation: **** you IMF, we don't want your money or your ridiculous lending terms. Please leave our country.


Lower production could easily be a policy move. You equate lower production with 'running out of oil' or 'losing ability to produce oil', which is not correct.

If you understood how supply & demand relate to price levels, you would realize that this is not black & white.

Sounds like you're more interested in waving your nationalistic dick around than in actually knowing something about the global economy.

People are buying Venezuela's oil. The rest is irrelevant.

Uh? It wasn't the CIA because Chavez stole other people's property? Or are you trying to justify the US's attempt to take over Venezuela?

Chavez was democratically elected, and by a very large margin. That's all you need to know.

Re: press. No country is entirely free. Witness the Wikileaks censorship going on in the US right now. Censorship is not right and I don't think anyone in this thread has advocated it, or said that Chavez is a saint in this area.

They aren't?

No, but your unbelievable ignorance is behind me embarrassing you right now.

Chavez took office in 2000. In 2000, 48.3% of the VE population was 'poor', and 19.5% were 'extremely poor'. In 2009, 31.7% of the VE population was 'poor', while 8.9% was 'extremely poor'.

Explain to me how this is not a decline in poverty.

Your grasp of reading is fascinating, considering that OP was criticizing Chavez's handling of some media issues.

Read this report on the VE economy if you care about overcoming your crippling inability to see reality.

Besides, I've never heard that term used toward a hispanic.
But I decided to delete the term because of our hyper-sensitive PC climate and just felt it would be a distraction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela
In 2009 their economy shrank 2.9%

Looks like I was too nice. It is 35% inflation.

Felix posts are either lies or stuff that I have already acknowledged.

Mostly lies.

What is your point? You know this thing called the global recession? Yeah--it's a global recession. Case and point:

Source: Gov't data relayed via bloomberg.

Does this mean that the US economy is in worse shape than the VE economy? By your logic, yes.

lol its not a global recession its a recession in those countries that have ******ed socialist policies including US. try comparing economic growth with colombia, peru, argentina, brazil ,costa rica, panama. you may find an interesting pattern.the only country with negative growth neighbouring venezuela i could find was Colombia which had -0.1% growth 2009 according to wiki and they have 1/4 of the oil venezuala has..

My bad, I took it too far.

Well, the USA foolishly elected a Keynsian advocate as president, elected a Dem house, and worst of all elected 60 Dems in the senate. So the USA economy is in the crapper. But in ther last election we elected more adults so hopefully the US economy will not erode further. In 2012 we will get rid of Obama and then things should get much better.

As to your question, why do you compare a 12 month annual number to an 18 month number?
That is like comparing apples to brocoli...
When you annualize the US number it is better than the Venz number.
So my logic is just fine...though yours could use a little fine tuning with regard to making fair comparisons...

OK. In 2009, the US economy shrank 2.6%. So the US economy shrank 0.3% less than the VE economy over the same period.

Do you still want to denounce VE as a failing economy despite these figures? Or that Chavez is responsible for the country's downfall?

Can you please respond to the rest of my counterpoints, as well?

No, your logic isn't fine. Your first post was a dick-waving rant about how Chavez has ruined VE. There was no logic involved. Given the evidence I've presented you with now, please let me know whether or not you've changed your position.

lol

I came here expecting a serious discussion. Then I read this and realized the OP's disgusting air of superiority.

And all of this coming from a Chilean, surprising.

Chavez is a lying like piece of ****. My dislike for the greedy little **** comes from the fact that he's nationalized private industries for his own benefit (getting rich off state oil through corruption), shut down most of the opposition media, and secretly funded the FARC, among other things.

so you just posted in this thread to insult me? nice.

Might wanna read my post again.

Could also tell me I'm wrong about Chavez and that I'm also being brainwashed by Faux News.

LOL...This is too juicy!
Well 2.9% contraction is worse than a 2.6% contraction So thanks for making my point.
And that nitwit Chavez has given his people a 35% inflation rate.
So I will go on a limb and say "yep, Chavez made the Venz economy worse" than Obama made the US economy. But in Obama's defense he has had only two years to screw up the US economy.


And which counterpoints would that be?


You seem to like talking about dicks.


Let's see.
Contracting economy and 35% inflation rate...
Hmmm...this is a tough decision. I think I will choose:
A. Chavez is a dumbass marxist who is driving his company into the dirt.
and that is my final answer.