Comments on: Food Shortages In Venezuela

By: Fernando

Fernando — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 23:21:04 +0000

Jon “The fact that this guy boils people alive and is a leading arms recipient from the US”.

Read well!!

The Fact is that Russia is the leading supplier to Venezuela.
Then to counter the threat from Venezuela, England sold a nuclear submarine to Brazil.

By the way jon; Your group made the case for “Peacefull Nuclear Power” for the World.

Could you tell this rather ignorant Republican What is The Meaning of “Peacefull Nuclear Power” really means?

Since each country HAS it’s own definition as to what Peacefull Nuclear Power means to them.

Simple enough question.

By: Jon

Jon — Thu, 24 May 2012 15:02:21 +0000

99% of economists prefer capitalism? Where do you get that figure?

Not that this has anything to do with what I said, but I’m curious.

By: HispanicPundit

HispanicPundit — Thu, 24 May 2012 06:04:33 +0000

Capitalism itself Jon, the economic system agreed upon by 99% of economists world wide also gets wide support. Even this you blame on investor climate.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 23 May 2012 19:44:00 +0000

HP, Megan is quoting a guy that looks to be a a high profile critic that was formerly part of the Chavez administration. He seems to be on bit of a mission to discredit Chavez. Like Richard Clarke, Scott McClellan. Maybe Joe Wilson. His argument is that while some things have gotten better, Chavez doesn’t deserve the credit because oil prices rose. Also he cites some isolated statistics that suggest things have gotten worse (% of underweight babies, % of expenditures on health services). These sound kind of isolated to me, but I’m not an expert on that and don’t pretend to know who is in the right.

But I just think it’s worth noticing the way different leaders are treated. Chavez is democratically elected and pretty popular. His failures get loud play. His successes are attributed to other causes. Contrast with say Uzbekistan where the investor climate is much more friendly. Just do any Google search. Here’s a recent article:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-05/D9UPJ8SG0.htm

Pretty antiseptic. Hey, they’re pursuing a privatization drive. Great. Doing well with exports, though unfortunately this deprives the people of natural gas. Oh well (investors are doing fine). The fact that this guy boils people alive and is a leading arms recipient from the US, which he uses to crush his own people? Not interesting. Whatever success he might have you can bet will not be attributed to rising oil prices. The vote is just like the votes were in Iraq. One person on the ballot. Yes or no. He gets elected with like 98% support. It’s pretty rare to hear criticism. But Chavez is a dictator.

What’s the difference between the two? Investor climate.

By: Fernando

Fernando — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:02:03 +0000

Nothing new about Venezeula. The consensus being that Hugo can destroy his own country, and jon only in your dreams.

By: Dom

Dom — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:39:03 +0000

Hmmm … is it “falling” or “rising”?

From the article linked to in the first comment:
“The [Gini] index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999.”

From the article linked to in the second comment:
“… the Gini coefficient … increasing from 0.44 to 0.48 between 2000 and 2005.”

Assuming the first article simply multiplies the Gini by 100, then the two quotes show that it is either (a) jumping around a lot, or (b) an unreliable measure calculated by the government.

By: Dom

Dom — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:20:58 +0000

It’s interesting to compare the fall of communism in the Soviet Union and in East Germany. In the latter case it was mostly successful from the start, minus a few hickups. I know that some are calling for a return to statism, but that seems to be a minority.

I think the difference is that the East Germans still had the West Germans to see how capitalism works. In the SU, the population knew only to wait until the government takes care of you.

By: HispanicPundit

HispanicPundit — Tue, 08 May 2012 22:01:48 +0000

Not gotten better if you consider it from the poors perspective, see here. In addition to the above food shortages.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 08 May 2012 01:46:42 +0000

But when the Soviet Union collapsed, privatization was implemented, and price controls were removed, millions of people died. Go to Gapminder and track Russia. Watch life expectancy and GDP through the fall. You’d be hard pressed to find a catastrophic downturn like that absent a war.

Meanwhile in Venezuela, problems still exist, but things overall have gotten much better. Imagine what the apologists for neoliberalism would say if Venezuela went through anything like what Russia went through.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/indicators