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Page added on February 21, 2014
Venezuela and Chavez’s Deadly Endgame
Venezuela’s cities are convulsed with riots. A local beauty queen was shot in the head during protests over . . . well, everything: chronic shortages of basic goods, increasing repression of free speech by a government that clearly feels it cannot tolerate any dissent. She is not the only person to have been killed in recent days. The government is cracking down — hard — on any and all opposition.
It seems to me that this was always the inevitable end game to the disastrous policies of the late President Hugo Chavez. Diverting funds from capital investment into the nation’s oil fields was politically popular. But it was also disastrous: Venezuela’s oil is sludgy stuff, hard to get at and hard to refine, and it requires a high level of capital expenditure just to keep production level. Predictably, production is now well below pre-Chavez levels. That wasn’t so much of a problem as long as oil prices kept rising, because they offset lost production. But the price of Venezuela’s crude is no longer rising:
As the economy has deteriorated, the government has resorted to dubious stopgaps such as price controls. The price controls have produced more shortages, leading to more stopgaps . . . and more political repression to control complaints about the shortages and stopgaps. People made much of the fact that Chavez won elections — but less of the fact that he won them in the context of government policies that required television stations to broadcast hours of his speeches every week. And that he silenced stations that opposed him.
This has only continued to get worse under President Nicolas Maduro. Having shrunk the space for legitimate opposition so far, its only outlet seems to be the streets.
8 Comments on "Venezuela and Chavez’s Deadly Endgame"
MSN fanboy on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 7:56 pm
The periphery of civilisation falls first, still in America we should be last.
J-Gav on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 9:38 pm
Sad but there is considerable truth in this article. Chavez had the ‘cojones’ to stand up to the imperial master. However, that’s hardly enough when you’re crap at managing your country’s economy, which he was. Many long conversations with my old Venezuelan friend Fernando convinced me of that some years ago.
Shaved Monkey on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 10:40 pm
Venezuelans greatest problem is they have lots of oil that the West wants to control the flow of and they will do what ever it takes.
DC on Fri, 21st Feb 2014 11:10 pm
Quite the barrage of weekend Agit-prop from the bloomberg\forbes twins going on….
Yeti on Sat, 22nd Feb 2014 1:50 am
Righhhhht, it’s “Agit-prop”, not reality-based concern over a major oil producing country headed for widespread civil unrest.
If they just followed through and kicked CNN out, I’m sure the people’s paradise could finally be achieved.
Makati1 on Sat, 22nd Feb 2014 3:07 am
With all of the ‘distractions’ now, what is the ‘O’ up to that he wants to be ignored? Another loss of freedom for the sheeple? The rape of their bank accounts and retirements? Oh, that’s right, the laws are already in place to take care of that pillage when he is ready.
Maybe he is invading a new country? South America has a lot of resources left to pillage. Only time will tell.
Davy, Hermann, MO on Sat, 22nd Feb 2014 10:47 am
@Gav – Sad but there is considerable truth in this article. Chavez had the ‘cojones’ to stand up to the imperial master. However, that’s hardly enough when you’re crap at managing your country’s economy.
I agree @Gav. I admired the genuine effort by Chavez to redistribute wealth. The problem is where do you stop with manipulating the economic system to effect a change. Chavez and his cronies became a quasi-religion of Bolivarian nationalism and apposing his ideas of American imperialism. He started trying to be a global player with all the expenses that come with that. Let’s face it money talks globally. He did some redistribution of wealth at home then pisses away a fortune globally with his Chavez revolution. He was looking for personal appeal globally and paid for it. Much that is happening in Venezuela is just normal everyday problems with a resources rich 3rd world country. We know those issues no need to restate what has been said.
All you Yankee haters I wish I could put a spam filter on when I go through these posts because sometimes after I filter through the spew and squawking you do have some good ideas. Once I get through the North Korean style media propaganda rants sometimes there are some great ideas. Your anti American rants show your lack of sophistication
PrestonSturges on Sun, 23rd Feb 2014 8:44 pm
Forbes is banging the drum about this pretty loudly. On some days they are nearly as silly as ZeroHedge, so I don’t accept anything from Forbes or Bloomberg at face value.