RIP Hugo Chavez

[m_ridgeway]

As with any other socio-political system, it has its ups and downs. No political system yet devised has been able to overcome it one critical failing; people are corruptible.

Can't disagree with you, but I tend to lean towards a system where a person is allowed to chase a carrot on a stick vs the one where they give you the carrot then beat you into submission with the stick. I've thoroughly considering leaving the u.s. the older u get the more I see we take for granted. In socialism the corruption Is more prevalent IMHO.

 

[Projekt]

Not sure what your asking?

The question is: On what basis do you formulate these statements? What caused you to have the perspective you do? I am simply curious for the sake of understanding. Everyone even the worst (not saying yours is bad) can trace back the reasons for the certain stance to a first person experience and I would like to you to illustrate that firsthand experience. It helps the rest of us get a better idea of what you are all about homie.

 

[zukracer]

RAF Croughton

having spent some time at this base and likely in the same buildings as you, I can say there's not a whole lot there.... I did however dig working from the control tower building and looking out at the little bit of history spawned from the fields.

As for the rest of this thread...eh, the dude like most anyone was loved and hated by many, hell in his case perhaps equal numbers on both sides. I don't believe he was good for the US, I'm not disappointed he's dead but I'm not going to go tap dancing on his grave. As with any change in a country's power/control, I am concerned with what this means to this country and how it might impact me directly. My most immediate thought is what will happen with gas/oil prices.

 

[Blanca BusaLess]

Well I for one miss him. :stirpot:

 

[Argilbertson]

I get two feelings reading over these statements... 1) most of the people who think socialism sucks haven't lived in a socialist country, and 2) Many people mistake communism for socialism...there are some critical differences between the two.

Here's a nice website that talks about the differences:
Communism vs Socialism - Difference and Comparison | Diffen

 

[Argilbertson]

some interesting reading regarding socialism and capitalism...
Capitalism vs. Socialism | The Big Slice

 

[Projekt]

Well, would you lookie here...

Translation: In the Venezuela that Hugo Chavez leaves:
-Minimum salary is 6,000 mexican pesos (Better than Mexico)
-Gasoline costs 11 cents per liter
-EDUCATION IS FREE FROM PRESCHOOL THROUGH TO UNIVERSITY.
-Extreme poverty dropped from 24% to 4%
-THE PETROLEUM COMPANY AND ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY ARE STATE COMPANIES (NATIONALIZED) AND THE PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF VENEZUELA and with subsidies costs are maintained a low levels.
Source: Channel 11 News of Mexico

 

[dadofthree]

Well I for one miss him. :stirpot:

 

[dadofthree]

Well, would you lookie here...

Translation: In the Venezuela that Hugo Chavez leaves:
-Minimum salary is 6,000 mexican pesos (Better than Mexico)
-Gasoline costs 11 cents per liter
-EDUCATION IS FREE FROM PRESCHOOL THROUGH TO UNIVERSITY.
-Extreme poverty dropped from 24% to 4%
-THE PETROLEUM COMPANY AND ELECTRICAL INDUSTRY ARE STATE COMPANIES (NATIONALIZED) AND THE PROPERTY OF THE STATE OF VENEZUELA and with subsidies costs are maintained a low levels.
Source: Channel 11 News of Mexico

Yes, he destabilized the country and stole the oil industry as well as all media, along with a whole laundry list of terrible things. He did improve things for the poor, but at what cost. Did I mention he used the military to do this. Reminding me of someone but I just can't put my finger on it.

 

[Projekt]

Yes, he destabilized the country and stole the oil industry as well as all media, along with a whole laundry list of terrible things. He did improve things for the poor, but at what cost. Did I mention he used the military to do this. Reminding me of someone but I just can't put my finger on it.

No. He stabilized the country by empowering the poor and therefore built a better foundation for growth and progress. He returned the oil industry to the people it belongs to, not Exxon, Shell, BP, Texaco or all the other carpetbaggers. If you include building hospitals and schools for the use of the people in that laundry list of terrible things I say you're nuts. Who doesn't use the military to get shiz done? Surely you are not looking in the mirror at the place you live and just because you don't see the military in action doesn't mean they ain't out there. ???

 

[dadofthree]

No. He stabilized the country by empowering the poor and therefore built a better foundation for growth and progress. He returned the oil industry to the people it belongs to, not Exxon, Shell, BP, Texaco or all the other carpetbaggers. If you include building hospitals and schools for the use of the people in that laundry list of terrible things I say you're nuts. Who doesn't use the military to get shiz done? Surely you are not looking in the mirror at the place you live and just because you don't see the military in action doesn't mean they ain't out there. ???

So all I have to do is get elected or oversee a successful coup. Use the military to steal from those that have, give a percent of my booty to the poor and I'm your hero ......

 

[dadofthree]

Hey, I'll even throw in some free cell phones

 

[Projekt]

So all I have to do is get elected or oversee a successful coup. Use the military to steal from those that have, give a percent of my booty to the poor and I'm your hero ......

That about sums it up.. :Yes:

Better job than Robin Hood if you ask me.

 

[dadofthree]

That about sums it up.. :Yes:

Better job than Robin Hood if you ask me.

Can't draw the parallel, but he did party like a rock star

 

[skydivr]

So, let's see. You put in a lifetime of sweat equity and build your business...and one day he walks in and says, "It now belongs to the state" and that's OK with you?

 

[Projekt]

So, let's see. You put in a lifetime of sweat equity and build your business...and one day he walks in and says, "It now belongs to the state" and that's OK with you?

Self made people that practice sound economic policy and also care for the environment and people would not necessarily have been made a target for nationalization. What you fail to acknowledge and maybe I did not cover well enough is that the businesses he targeted succeeded on the concept of de-facto slavery of the workers and or the people that they exploited to get ahead. I see it happening in Brazil with all the land grabbing going on right now and deforestation of tribal lands held for hundreds of years. If you show up with your land grant from the king and are declared a governor of the region, does it make a difference to the indigenous people about who gave you the right, the privilege? No. They still have a ton of suffering and anger for generations until a man of the people himself such as Chavez comes along and rights what was done wrong.

I suppose that your ancestors did not have a problem with the tax collector or the diocese when they came out and demanded taxes and if you did not provide a share of your bounty, your home was burn down and demolished. If that is the case, well, I would be very surprised and the fact is that you are not exactly Feudalistic Aristocracy because if you were you would be riding a Y2K Jet bike and be in your Rolls Royce Phantom in the back seat on those forums and not riding a poor man's rocket. You and the rest of us that populate America save for very few come from a hard charging economic class of rebellious and take no manure type of people who were pissed off that they got their farm impounded under the crown or maybe even were being slaughtered for a certain religious belief. I can't say much more to offer you a better understanding of what those Venezuelan Campesinos suffered and why they cheer so much for the man that gave them a big dose of equality in the eyes of the world even as he was vilified because he didn't bow to US policy.

Shoot..... I just thought of it. He thumbed his nose on cue from the CIA when the tycoons and fatcats in Houston needed to build an addition to their global holdings and upgrade their Mansions or get a bigger yacht. The biggest yachts are owned by our government and are utilized mostly to scare helpless peaceful countries into taking a corncob in the bum...

 

[skydivr]

Self made people that practice sound economic policy and also care for the environment and people would not necessarily have been made a target for nationalization. What you fail to acknowledge and maybe I did not cover well enough is that the businesses he targeted succeeded on the concept of de-facto slavery of the workers and or the people that they exploited to get ahead. I see it happening in Brazil with all the land grabbing going on right now and deforestation of tribal lands held for hundreds of years. If you show up with your land grant from the king and are declared a governor of the region, does it make a difference to the indigenous people about who gave you the right, the privilege? No. They still have a ton of suffering and anger for generations until a man of the people himself such as Chavez comes along and rights what was done wrong.

I suppose that your ancestors did not have a problem with the tax collector or the diocese when they came out and demanded taxes and if you did not provide a share of your bounty, your home was burn down and demolished. If that is the case, well, I would be very surprised and the fact is that you are not exactly Feudalistic Aristocracy because if you were you would be riding a Y2K Jet bike and be in your Rolls Royce Phantom in the back seat on those forums and not riding a poor man's rocket. You and the rest of us that populate America save for very few come from a hard charging economic class of rebellious and take no manure type of people who were pissed off that they got their farm impounded under the crown or maybe even were being slaughtered for a certain religious belief. I can't say much more to offer you a better understanding of what those Venezuelan Campesinos suffered and why they cheer so much for the man that gave them a big dose of equality in the eyes of the world even as he was vilified because he didn't bow to US policy.

Shoot..... I just thought of it. He thumbed his nose on cue from the CIA when the tycoons and fatcats in Houston needed to build an addition to their global holdings and upgrade their Mansions or get a bigger yacht. The biggest yachts are owned by our government and are utilized mostly to scare helpless peaceful countries into taking a corncob in the bum...

He didn't 'pick and choose' based on right or wrong, he picked on who HAD MONEY. His estimated personal wealth at the time of his death was TWO BILLION DOLLARS; He didn't earn it or inherit it, he STOLE IT, and mostly from the poor, huddled masses that sing his praises, because he sent them TABLE SCRAPS. There is no denying that Venezuela is a much poorer nation (just like Cuba) because of his 'rule'.

He didn't try and make laws or follow any constitution, he did it BY DECREE (sound familiar?). Their legislature didn't create any anti-trust laws in order to keep absolute monopolies in check; or they didn't be he didn't follow them (sound familiar again?).

 

[masterblaster]

Well, I am glad he is dead. Projekt, you have it mostly right, you really have to live here in Miami and travel Latin America to understand the culture of corruption. Rich people treat the poor like sht, poor people get pissed and have a revolution, dictator installed, the rich people take all the money they stole and come to Miami. While in Miami they talk sht about the US (except the Cubans), hang out with people like me and ask over and over why the US doesn't do something about the dictator they created and ran from. Then you have these douche bags that will not assimilate (not the Cubans) so their kids take an extra generation to get up to speed. Latin culture in general believes in a classed society so I don't think this will ever change. I have been going south for the last 20 years oin business and a bit before that in the military, its sad to see the needless suffering.

 

[skydivr]

Here is a independent economic assessment by a economist that I get info from:

Now that Hugo Chavez has died there has been a rather intense discussion over what really happened during his 14 years as the dictator in charge of Venezuela. One of the more common references has been to Chavez as “champion of the poor”. This bears some looking into. Did Chavez make the life of the poor better in his country? Is there anything that could be considered praiseworthy about the policies pursued under the rubric of the new Bolivarism?

A look at the actual numbers would suggest that this reputation is not all that deserved. If this is what one’s champion delivers one would hate to see what would come from someone not so “dedicated”.Perhaps the single most serious issue is the inflation rate that has been hammering the country for years. The currency has been devalued repeatedly in an attempt to cope with the problem and every time that happens the population sees their spending power diminish dramatically. Through the course of the last14 years the inflation rate has averaged 22%. That has been utterly devastating to what was left of the middle class and it certainly has done the poor no favors. The nationalization and expropriation policies that have been in place have all but eliminated foreign investment – even the oil companies gave up after a few years. When Chavez took office for the first time FDI was at 2.9% of the nation’s GDP and today it is half that. In contrast the rate of FDI in Colombia and Brazil has been growing at six times the rate in Venezuela.

There are basically two ways to cope with inflation of this intensity. The first is to allow the prices to rise to a point where the market can no longer sustain them. This eventually results in a reversal but not until there is severe distortion. During that period of inflation most nations will attempt to hike interest rates as a means to slow down the price growth and there are generally attempts to boost investment as a means to bolster competition. This is not a painless process by any means but the alternative is worse. This is the policy that was pursued by the old Soviet Union for years. Instead of high price the problem was shortages. The government imposes price caps on various sectors so that they can’t hike their price to the consumer. Unfortunately nobody is capping the price they pay and in short order these companies stop producing anything at all. In Venezuela that meant that they would be nationalized and forced to produce at a loss.

The problem with that strategy becomes pretty evident when one looks at the money that should have been made from oil. The oil sector is 95% of the national income. That is a vulnerable position to be in but nations have been able to thrive in that kind of economy (think of the Persian Gulf states). In Venezuela the oil money was used to subsidize the nationalized companies and precious little of the revenue made it back to the cash cow of oil development. Today the per barrel output from the country is far less than it was when Chavez started – from 3.2 million barrels a day to less than 2.5 million. In the process the oil industry has become the single most dangerous industry in all of Latin America. The average number of injuries per day in the *****ian oil fields is two. In the US there are two injuries per month and in Venezuela the average has been 15 injuries a day
When one translates these economic issues to other social concerns the situation gets worse. The number of homicides per 100,000 population is 73 – a total of 21,700 murders last year. In contrast the Columbian rate is 32 per 100,000 and in Mexico the rate is 19 per 100,000. The drug wars in Mexico and the insurgent conflicts in Columbia do not produce close to the same numbers as murder provoked by desperation and destitution in Venezuela,

Analysis: This is not to belabor the point. The death of a leader tends to bring out all kinds of statements of praise and honor, especially when that leader had charisma and a platform on the world stage. Chavez was larger than life for the majority of his 14 years and he had an impact on Latin America that will far outlast him. The regimes of Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correon in Ecuador owe their existence to Chavez. In the midst of this assessment it is important to understand the real situation in Venezuela. In terms of the numbers Venezuela is far worse off today than it was 14 years ago – despite the fact that oil prices were $17 a barrel when he took power and have been at or above $100 for most of the last several years. The opportunities that have been provided to this oil rich nation have been squandered and the “champion of the poor” has left a legacy of deprivation behind.

 

[zukracer]

ok so seriously, :wtf:

Dramatic exit: Heads of state gather for Hugo Chavez's funeral - World News

Jessie Jackson (I'm not a fan) and Sean Penn and others are at the funeral. Jackson spoke as if Chavez was a saint. No fuggin wonder we are heading down the rabbit hole in this country. And president Obama sent them....