That article is fair and balanced .
Anyway Im curious as to what is a real democracy, please enlighten me.

Also its curious that the worse part of Chavez goverment usually gets ignored by the media.

my favorite comment so far from the economist readers.

I don't really see the Economist as being and unreliable source of news. If you want to go ahead and point out the parts of the article that are erroneous and misleading I'm all ears.

One where an elected official doesn't maintain power by changing all the rules once in power in order to silence all opposing views. If the article can be relied upon as factual then it seems pretty clear that he is taking anti-democratic measures to suppress political opposition and turn his country into more of a single-party authoritarian state.

The Economist is a joke. in Chile we have the same gerrymandering but they have never ever said anything against it.At least the gerrymandering venezuela has was done by people elected democraticly. I agree this is not fair play but I would like some consistency from The Economist.
Btw gerrymandering doesnt work all the time, it backfired for Chavez twice.

Anyway you think a source of news that denounces gerrymandering when the left does it but shuts up when the right does it is reliable then whatever, the international media manipulates what is going in southamerica.
When Indians get killed in Peru to make way for a trade agreement with USA, nobody cares.
Nobody cares about the human rights violations Colombia is doing either, why would they care? Colombia is USA biggest bitch, they even allow 7 american bases to be build there, but chavez buys weapons for Russia and zomg arms race!!
A common pit with 2000 dead bodies was found in Colombia near an army base but hey Chavez is gerrymandering, GTFO.
Also the way The Economist portrays the opposition is ridicoulous, peaceful?? ROFL. The opposition has been anything but peaceful, they kidnapped Chavez for 48 hours FFS! Also why doesnt The Economist mention the people that are in favor of the expropiations? If pointing out the people that are against Chavez and ignoring the ones in favor of him isnt biased then I dont know what isnt biased.

Now returning to the Chavez issue, the university laws are debatable, cliff notes of the pro Chavez side argument:
- Universities are controled by rich people, they should be controlled by everybody.
- Rich students get chosen over poor students.
- Universities are using tax breaks in a non ethical way and as loopholes to not pay tax on other stuff.

I actually like the law in theory but the problem is what will happen in practice. For instance should a university that is receiving public funding or tax breaks be allowed to teach only neoliberal economy ( like it happens in Chile) I dont think it should.

The other stuff has been touched before.

I just visited Venezuela for 3 weeks and most everyone I talked to that was involved in any sort of business told me that the place has been deteriorating steadily over the past 8 years. They were telling me stories about how there were plenty of tourists, flourishing bars/restaurants, tons of middle class outlets etc that don't exist anymore. Anyone in the black market money changing business/the extreme poor that live in shacks and do nothing all day had positive things to say however.

Explanation from a guy who has traveled for 3.5 straight years and examined economies of many societies firsthand: Middle classes are built through capital investment. Capital investment builds wealth and elicits more investment which creates jobs and provides proper incentive structure for safer, more well-balanced societies.

Factors that will scare/prevent capital investment (in order from weakest to strongest):

1) High regulation
2) High taxes
3) General civil unrest (on Argentina's level let's say)
4) Cultural aversion to hard work
5) Out of control inflation
6) Nationalization crazy dictators a la Chavez/Castro
7) Civil War

You'll notice the first few are first worldish problems and the last few are third worldish problems, yet all are tied to capital investment. The more prevalent the latter factors, in general, the greater disparity in wealth there will be. There are plenty of absurdly rich people in Venezuela, most all of them are tied to Chavez at this point or have taken drastic steps to protect their wealth from him.

So the lazy poor are living thanks to the hard working businessman?? It was better when poor people didnt have access to the dentists and couldnt read ldo.

High capital investment is overated imo, its neoliberal propaganda, it isnt much use if all the money goes abroad or goes to the economic elites.
That doesnt mean that Venezuela has made mistakes in the last years with regard to this, the problem is that their economic policies have been kinda random instead of a well done economic plan. Also Venezuela is quite unstable because society has been polarized, when some of us warn about the bad effects of inequality this is what we are talking about.
OTOH Ecuador is a project that looks intresting to me but its still too early to judge.

Would you and Hugo Chavez please get a room...

Cutting insight. So glad you post.

Grunching a bit, so sorry if this has already been brought up.

Valenzuela, you're from Chile right? Why does Chile have a much lower percentage of it's population living in poverty than Venezuela according to wikipedia?

Daca the main reason is that the link is horribly outdated, Venezuela poverty rate is in the 20s nowadays.

aight, do you have any better data on South American poverty?

I dont have any better data because its quite inexact tbh. Also the link isnt that wrong, they just did horrible math, they might be 11 million poor venezuelans but Venezuela has 30 million people( btw this data is still outdated imo).
The official number is 23% without including better education and better healthcare but we cant know for sure how exact the numbers are.

If you want to join and make it a menages a trois then go for it...
The constant apologizing and praise for a despicable man like Chavez is making me want to puke.

Plus one.

Capital formation is necessary for economic growth.

Free(er) markets and rule-of-law is fertilizer for prosperity.
The further you get away from these two the worse your economy will be and that is why Venezeuala is crap hole of a country...

Again, I don't see anyone explicitly apologizing for or praising Hugo Chavez. This thread has gone like this thus far:

1. Post offering facts or data pertinent to Venezuela's history under Chavez.
2. Post saying "omg omg Chavez is a dictator it's all bad"
3. Post laying out more facts re: VE
4. Post ignoring facts, again, and denouncing Chavez as all bad

Pointing out that VE has seen economic growth under Chavez as compared to an era pre-Chavez is not apologizing for Chavez. It's pointing out that VE has seen economic growth under Chavez. Facts aren't statement of praise.

Some posters have chimed in with secondary sources that illustrate Chavez's wrongdoings. That's good--that's a conversation. But refusing to consider facts about VE because they disagree with a held opinion about its leader is not productive or useful in the context of a debate. Those posters who offer facts that we must interpret as flaws in the Chavez leadership are arguing in good faith. Those saying we can't consider Chavez on any other terms than "bad leader" because of {1, 2, 3, ... n} bad things Chavez has done are not arguing in good faith.

There are both good and bad aspects of any political system, nation, or leader. You don't get to discount the good because the bad exists, or vice-versa. If you could, we wouldn't be able to discuss any nation or leader without denouncing it/him, because frankly--as I think you know, Felix--every existing political entity offends liberty and freedom in its own way.

What's that country that causes mass famine in Africa through it's 'free' grain markets and has more people in jail per 100 than any other country in history, has a capital punishment per 100 rate only surpassed by China and a few tin pot dictatorships, as well as one of the most racist, sexist, unequal and unfair criminal justice systems in the world called again?

I think it also had one of the world's most extensive track record in propping up murderous dictators (frequently at the expense of democratically elected governments) throughout Africa, the Middle East and Asia, and of course, is the worlds largest arms dealer.

Would probably be pretty easy thinking it was a 'nice' (lets just forget the very low general measures of happiness and health they have compared to nearly all other countries for a second) place to live when it is at the expense of millions of disposessed, starving, kidnapped, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered people all over the world.

Give it up, man, Americans will never, under any circumstances, ever link our prosperity to any heavy handed, under handed, selfish, greedy, thieving, violent, terrorist tactics.

You can shout it all day, point to all the hard evidence you want, use logic, reason, and facts until you're so tired you can't even speak anymore, and they will not listen and comprehend, much less admit to any of it.

Well, except for me, but I want the hell out of this country, so I don't count.

Okay. Still it seems Chile have far less people living in poverty no matter where you get your data from. What are they doing better than the rest of South America iyo?

Hyperbole can be entertaining when it is done cleverly.
But when it is not, it is so dull and preachy.
This is one post you should take a mulligan on.

Dismissive hand-waving without any "refutiation" is also most entertaining.

Luckily this is all well established fact so I don't have to.

Political stabilty, financial responsibility, a much much smaller corruption culture, economic growth and social programs.
Also we have our copper that has helped, of course posters will keep ignoring that even though Codelco owns only 28% of the chilean copper its still produces more money for the state than what foreing copper companies give in taxes.

Im curious as to why you want to only compare us to other south american countries and not the asian countries though.

Are these really things that Chavez is bringing to Venezuela then? My perception of him is probably coloured by only getting my news through western medias, but, outside of the social programs, non of those are things I associate with him.

It's much easier to compare countries that are part of the same region, especially if you like me have a very limited knowledge of either place. But if you want to compare either Chile or Venezuela with relatively successful Asian countries I would certainly like to read it.

The main problem Venezuela are the corruption culture and political unstability, you cant possibly only blame Chavez for that, in fact if you go through the history of Venezuela its quite obvious that the ones who ****ed Venezuela with corruption and political unstability are Chavez opposition. Chavez is no saint either of course but the main responsibles of Venezuelas problems is their elite imo.

The economic policies have been far from ideal so you can blame Chavez for that, but you should probably read this thread first because we already discussed the economic policies.

Anyway Chavez has improved education rates a lot, he got rid of analfabetism, he is doing very good in this regard but that gets ignored by the western media.

Surely the increased levels of education in Venezuela are going to have a positive effect in the long run.

Almost of the stuff Ive read its in spanish so I cant help you out here. But basically the chilean neoliberal model is better than corrupt regimes, and many southamerican countries have has very corrupt or incompetent goverments in the past.
However our model has failed compared to many asian countries that went for more protectionist models, they have added value to their exports nowadays and we dont.