Venezuela, Socialism and Inflation Rate of 808%

Meanwhile, not too far away, El Salvador is experiencing unprecedented murder rates, like 800 this year, through August, 65 in August alone. Wonder what the inflation rate is there?

imp
 

Falcon said:
What else with a dictator?
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I don't think during Hugo Chavez's rule they 808% inflation. He was a dictator though. Kim or Putin lite.

"Meanwhile, not too far away, El Salvador is experiencing unprecedented murder rates, like 800 this year, through August, 65 in August alone. Wonder what the inflation rate is there?"

Sounds like anarchy. Highest murder rate since the revolution or rebellion in the 1980s. Getting ready to post on that soon. I think I saw 152 murders in one month.
 
Article mentioned drug gangs. Criminals killing criminals, hopefully. Stay out of their way, while they "clean house". imp
 
Since the price of oil dropped, nations like Venezuela...and even Russia....have taken a huge financial hit. Oil is about their Only export, and accounts for most of their revenues. South and Central America is a mess with their high crime rates, and drug gangs vying for power. Then, we now have things like this Zika virus popping up down there....I wonder how that will affect this years Olympics in Brazil. Personally, I have NO Desire to go south of our border on a vacation, etc.
 
WhatInThe said:
I don't think during Hugo Chavez's rule they 808% inflation. He was a dictator though. Kim or Putin lite.

"Meanwhile, not too far away, El Salvador is experiencing unprecedented murder rates, like 800 this year, through August, 65 in August alone. Wonder what the inflation rate is there?"

Sounds like anarchy. Highest murder rate since the revolution or rebellion in the 1980s. Getting ready to post on that soon. I think I saw 152 murders in one month.
Click to expand...



Chavez may have been a 'dictator' in the view of some, but he was elected president four times with over 60% of the vote. You also have to wonder at 'who' it was that labelled him a dictator and what they had to gain or lose by him being in power. From what I've read so far, we would all like to have a President who cared so much about the average guy.

From Wikipedia: '...Following the adoption of a new constitution in 1999, Chávez focused on enacting social reforms as part of the Bolivarian Revolution, which is a type of socialist revolution. Using record-high oil revenues of the 2000s, his government nationalized key industries, created participatory democratic Communal Councils, and implemented social programs known as theBolivarian Missions to expand access to food, housing, healthcare, and education. With Venezuela receiving high oil profits in the mid-2000s,[SUP][15][/SUP]improvements in areas such as poverty, literacy, income equality, and quality of life occurred primarily between 2003 and 2007....After intervening to prevent the beating of an alleged insurgent by other soldiers,[SUP][81][/SUP] Chávez began to have his doubts about the army and their methods in using torture.[SUP][79][/SUP] At the same time, he was becoming increasingly critical of the corruption in the army and in the civilian government, coming to believe Venezuela's poor were not benefiting from the oil wealth,.....Chávez said his experiences with them (the local indigenous tribal peoples, the Cuiva and Yaruro.) later led him to introduce laws protecting the rights of indigenous tribal peoples....' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chávez

Seriously, does any of that sound bad? I believe that he had a real heart for the poor but he was not a good manager of the countries fortunes.

And remember when he gave low cost heating oil at least one and maybe three winters in a row to America's poor? I think he also offered the same to Europe's poor. My gosh, what a bad guy eh? Whatever his reason for doing it, I'm sure there were 100,000 American families those years who were thrilled with his help.




http://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision...a-low-income-americans-warm/story?id=18650347
 
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It's seems every dictator seems to something ok during their reign. But if not a dictator if Chavez was a man of the people why did he do things like fire striking oil workers.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...rs-president-hugo-chavez-threats-came-one-day

And this from a man who came to power after a failed coup or two.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/apr/15/venezuela.alexbellos





I guess inflation and economic turmoil is a natural occurrence after a government loses control an economy it is/was controlling at the behest of one man.
 
I think, from the reading that I've done this morning, his problems came as a result of a feeling among the middle class (after he'd already been elected by them a couple times previously) that the bulk of his reforms were more for the sake of the really poor and indigenous tribes and the environment. Until that point, even the middle class were pretty much behind him. Unfortunately, too, my impression is that while he really cared about the inequality and widening gaps between rich and poor and strove hard to improve the situation and level the playing field (reforms to education, health services, etc.) his failing was a poor understanding of economics. As a case in point, not only did he provide low cost oil to Americans for a year or two, but he was also welcomed by the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who called him 'the best news out of Latin America in many years' when he travelled there to make the same offer on behalf of London's poor.

Regarding the fired oil workers: (from Wikipedia)

'....Chávez faced a two-month management strike at the PDVSA.[SUP][219][/SUP]The Chávez government's response was to fire about 19,000 striking employees for illegally abandoning their posts and then employing retired workers, foreign contractors, and the military to do their jobs instead.[SUP][220][/SUP] According to one observer, this move further damaged the strength of Chávez's opposition by removing the many managers in the oil industry who had been supportive of their cause to overthrow Chávez.[SUP][220]...'

so it would seem that that particular move was a result of a developing opposition (with support from foreign entities) from a number of high ranking military officers who attempted a coupe which did have support among the managers of the country's oil industry. A business leader named Carmona then declared himself leader (after Chavez gave himself up) however rising protests in support of Chavez and a quickly disappearing support for Carmona saw the business man give up his new position and a mere three days later, Chavez was back in office. All of this happened in the space of a week.

Regarding your second link, it mentions that 'Chavez snipers fired into the crowd' but I would submit that the author has no idea who those snipers were and they may well have been Opposition snipers. The same kind of thing was reported during the Maidun protests in Ukraine and the countries then current government was blamed. However, it's also a fact that in Ukraine, the opposition protestors (among them several violent neo-Nazi parties) burned alive about 45 people in Odessa who had the temerity to support that current government and considering the violence and threats of violence that erupted in the wake of the coup and all turned against any Russian or Jewish Ukrainian citizens, I believe it isn't improbable that here is one more example of 'opposition snipers firing into crowds' in the course of a demolition of an elected government in order to gain a certain justification for the coup. I would seriously question whether it was Chavez who ordered the sniper-fire at all especially as it didn't seem to be his way of operating if you know what I mean.


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


I think the overriding moral of the story and every story like it, is to not accept at face value, the media reports of events. There is always far more to it that never gets heard unless you make a point of going and looking for the other side.





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