In a move announced as aiming to bring citizens in line with the new morality of his “21st Century Socialism,” Venezuelan President-cum-Dictator Hugo Chávez announced a stringent set of new laws, highlighted by sharp tax increases for both liquor and cigarettes, during his “Aló Presidente” TV and radio show recently.
With typical caudillo-style bombast, Chávez scolded his audience during the show, saying, “We’re one of the countries that consumes the most whiskey in the world. We ought to be ashamed. I’m not willing to keep offering dollars to import whiskey in these quantities. What kind of revolution is this? The whiskey revolution? No! This is a real revolution!”
According to Venezuelanalysis, a pro-Chávez website, and other analysts however, the new taxes are really designed to help curb spending, and thus the out-of-control inflation, which at 17%, is currently the highest in Latin America, and to boost government revenues, which were curtailed sharply by other inflation-fighting measures recently implemented by the Chávez regime.
Slated to go into effect on November 1st, the new taxes, which also include a surtax of 1.5% on all business transactions, were announced by Chávez at ceremonies honoring Argentine thug, perennial T-shirt adornment, and erstwhile “revolutionary,” Ernesto “Che” Guevara on the anniversary of his death. Guevara, a major figure in Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolution, who oversaw the trials and executions of hundreds of Batista loyalists in Cuba, was himself captured and executed by the Bolivian Army on October 9th, 1967 while leading a failed attempt to overthrow the Bolivian government.
José Manuel Puente, Venezuelan economist and professor at the prestigious Center for Public Policy of The Institute for Advanced Administrative Studies in Caracas, an outspoken critic of the Chávez regime’s economic policies, notes that the government’s decision to rush the introduction of the new taxes in November instead of waiting for the new year indicates that the regime’s fiscal policy is “unsustainable.”
A story published by Latin American News Agency Mercopress noted,
“The tax increases are part of Chávez's crusade to introduce 'socialist' ethics, which include a new school curriculum and a drive to persuade Venezuelans to become model citizens.
'Old-style individualist, capitalist, egotistical values must be demolished,' Chávez has said, `and new values created.'
Puente described the rhetoric as 'almost evangelical,' adding that `it has very little to do with designing genuinely progressive policies.'”
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Dave Nalle
Wow, it's been hours and Moonraven hasn't found this article about her secret crush yet.
Dave
2 - Clavos
Dave,
I've noticed that she usually shows up in the afternoon (Eastern time).
She'll be here, spouting invective, before long.
She's VERY predictable.
3 - REMF
Dave, Clavos;
You're like a couple old ladies gossiping about a neighbor...
4 - Martin Lav
Didn't she say she was traveling to the soon to be Mexican Nation or Mohawk Nation in New Mexico (US) to stock up on cigarettes and booze (tax free of course) to sell back to Venezuela? That sounds like a capitalist!
5 - moonraven
Clavos, if you can PROVE--not fatuously OPINE--that Hugo Chavez Frias is a dictator, I will buy your redneck ass all the whiskey you can guzzle.
Lots of luck!
Booze and cigarettes are not taxed up the ass in the US?
Hah! Only on the rez can you get them tax free, as the honorary kike Martin, just observed.
Nobody--and much less this busy bird--has time for silly opinion pieces like yours.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
6 - moonraven
Just a note in passing, as clavos is clearly ignorant about anything to do with the Nobel prize winners, although he CLAIMS to read venezuelanalysis.com:
Joseph Stiglitz, in Caracas, Praises Venezuela’s Economic Policies
October 11th 2007, by Kiraz Janicke " Venezuelanalysis.com
Economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz Caracas, October 11, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Nobel Prize winning economist and former vice-president of the World Bank, Joseph Stiglitz, praised Venezuela's economic growth and "positive policies in health and education" during a visit to Caracas on Wednesday.
"Venezuela's economic growth has been very impressive in the last few years," Stiglitz said during his speech at a forum on Strategies for Emerging Markets sponsored by the Bank of Venezuela.
Venezuela, the fourth largest exporter of crude oil to the United States, has experienced the highest economic growth rate in Latin America in recent years, with fifteen successive quarters of expansion and looks set to close the year with 8-9% growth. Despite the high rate of growth, high public spending and increased consumer demand have contributed to inflationary pressures, pushing inflation up to 15.3%, also the highest in Latin America. However, Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, argued that relatively high inflation isn't necessarily harmful to the economy.
He added that while Venezuela's economic growth has largely been driven by high oil prices, unlike other oil producing countries, Venezuela has taken advantage of the boom in world oil prices to implement policies that benefit its citizens and promote economic development.
"Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez appears to have had success in bringing health and education to the people in the poor neighborhoods of Caracas, to those who previously saw few benefits of the countries oil wealth," he said.
In his latest book "Making Globalization Work," Stiglitz argues that left governments such as in Venezuela, "have frequently been castigated and called ‘populist' because they promote the distribution of benefits of education and health to the poor."
"It is not only important to have sustainable growth," Stiglitz continued during his speech, "but to ensure the best distribution of economic growth, for the benefit of all citizens."
Although Stiglitz praised Venezuela's "positive policies" in areas of health and education and policies to promote economic diversification, he assured that Venezuela still faces the challenge of overcoming structural problems associated with an economy overwhelmingly geared towards oil production.
In terms of economic development Stiglitz argued it was not good for the Central Bank to have "excessive" autonomy. Chavez's proposed constitutional reforms, if approved in December, will remove the autonomy of the country's Central Bank.
However, Stiglitz claimed, developing nations must strike a balance between public and private control of the market.
"The key to success is to find the correct equilibrium between the private sector and the government, which is different for each nation," he said.
Stiglitz also welcomed Venezuela's initiative to create the Bank of the South; due to be founded in Caracas on November 3, saying it would benefit the countries of South America and boost development.
"One of the advantages of having a Bank of the South is that it would reflect the perspectives of those in the South," said Stiglitz, whereas, he argued, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund often impose conditions that "hinder the development effectiveness."
Stiglitz also criticized the "Washington Consensus" of implementing neo-liberal policies in Latin America, in particular the US free trade agreements with Colombia and other countries, saying they failed to bring benefits to the peoples of those countries.
The Washington Consensus "is undermining the Andean cooperation, and it is part of the American strategy of divide and conquer, a strategy trying to get as much of the benefits for American companies," and little for developing countries, he said.
Stiglitz also met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Miraflores, where they exchanged points of view on the global economic situation, economic indicators and the behavior of world markets.
Of course we all know, without that GED to prove one can read, we only have his word for it.
And he lies like a swamp dog in heat.
I SUPPOSE HIS NOBEL IGNORANCE MEANS HE DOESN'T KNOW THAT GORE WON THE PEACE PRIZE.
How fucking uninformed can you greaseballs be....
7 - Clavos
What's the matter moon? Can't you write your own article? You have to post someone else's work in its entirety to make your point?
Interesting that you pick a piece about "Economics Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz," when just a few weeks ago you were denigrating Milton Friedman's having won the exact same prize on the basis of it not being a "real Nobel prize."
Go back to your hammock, moon.
Come back when you can actually mount a coherent and cogent argument instead of simply flinging insults around like a baby with her toys.
8 - Dave Nalle
Stiglitz is another globalist progressive wanker who softpedals marxism and ideas for a command and control economy as 'information economics'. It's hard to take anything he says terribly seriously. And take into consideration he was getting paid to show up and say nice things about Chavez. Plus Chavez turned to Stiglitz for advice on how to reorganize his economy in the first place. Of course Stiglitz is going to praise him after that.
But here's the thing. If Stiglitz wants to be Friedman to Chavez' poor man's Pinochet, that's fine. We'll see if he's half as successful as Friedman and Pinochet were in a decade or sol.
Dave
9 - alessandro
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
CR, I hope you're keeping all these attacks. They'll make for a great book one day.
10 - Dr Dreadful
Dave, I've been noticing a pattern the last day or two.
Just in the last few hours, you have employed the very non-Texan words 'wanker' and 'bollocks'.
Are you becoming a wannabe Brit?
:-p
11 - Dave Nalle
Dr. D., I spent a substantial portion of my childhood and young adulthood in England or in English schools in other countries, hence the Britishisms. I did manage to get rid of my British accent some years ago, though.
Dave
12 - moonraven
Clavos made no attempt whatsoever to provide PROOF that Chavez is a dictator.
He has lost again, but this site has also lost as anyoone visiting it can see that it is just a fraud: clearly the site owner only cares about depositing the money per hit that he gets from advertizers and anything to do with ideas or debate is simply NOT HERE.
[Gratuitous vulgarity deleted by Comments Editor]
Pray that you come back next lifetime to a family that can afford to put shoes on your feet and send you to school.
Lots of luck.
13 - Clavos
The AP wire service has just reported that the Chavista dictatorship is blocking a concert by Grammy-winning Spanish pop star Alejandro Sanz scheduled for Novemebr 1 by prohibiting the use of of the state-controlled Poliedro stadium as a venue for the event.
A dictatorship spokesman gave Sanz's criticism of Chavéz three years ago as the reason for the move:
"[Higher Education Minister Luis] Acuna said during a radio interview: 'If an artist comes to Venezuela to rail against Chavez, against the Bolivarian project, how do you think the people of this country would respond if he were to be allowed to use the stadium?'
Responding to questions about Chavez before a 2004 referendum on the president's rule, Sanz said: 'I don't like your president. I don't like those from other places either.'"
Contrast Sanz's mild remark with Chávez's own recent remarks about Bush during his recent visit to New York.
Free speech is becoming a relic of the past in Chavezuela.
Speech is always the first freedom suspended by dictators.
14 - Dave Nalle
learly the site owner only cares about depositing the money per hit that he gets from advertizers
That's how the site is able to maintain its political neutrality and allow even those too ignorant to spell 'advertisers' correctly to express their ill-informed political views.
Dave
15 - bliffle
My understanding is that Venezuela is converting from Windows to linux on all government computers. If so, they get my vote. I have coffee with one of the movers tomorrow night so I'll find out. I hope.
16 - moonraven
Several countries in SA are converting to Linux.
Venezuela is just one of them. Brazil is another.
And then there is Argentina.
Not to mention clavos favorites: Chile and Colombia.
And Linux is getting a big toehold even here in Mexico.
You can sneeze at Venezuela--despite all its resources--but sneezing at Brazil is like sneezing at Russia--two countries that are the size of continents.
Two years ago the push to open-source technology fired up in in Europe.
Admittedly, Chavez set the ball rolling in Latin America.
BIll Gates is, after all, just another monopolist robber baron.
Here in Mexico we have the guy who finally outrobbed him this year--Carlos Slim.
Chavez does not believe that technology should be used as a capitalist weapon.
And he is a very persuasive guy--so much so that yesterday Uribe--president of Colombia and bastion of US interference in Latin America--requested that Colombia be admitted as a member of Banco del Sur--which will officially start up Nov. 3rd.
By the way, clavos "forgot" to mention in his "article"--which I have printed out on toilet paper here--tat Chavez is currently mediating the end of Colombia's 60-year long civil war (which began with the CIA inaugural assassination of Gaitan).
Even the US State department has had to come out in support of Chavez on that.
But--poor old clavos--accent on the OLD--just keeps on sqirming along the Gusano Highway to Nowhereland.
17 - Dave Nalle
I have to admit I'm with Chavez on switching to Linux. There's no justification for using the crap which is Windows when there's a decent alternative available.
dave
18 - RJ
Great article, Clavos.
When you're 24 places behind Haiti in "ease of doing business," you know things aren't going particularly well... :-/
The real tragedy, of course, is the millions of Venezuelans who are suffering at the hands of the Caudillo and his train wreck of a government. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of those Venezuelans who are able to do so have already arrived here in Miami, and dozens more continue to arrive every day, adding to Venezuela's woes by creating a serious talent and brain drain in the beleaguered country.
That's always been somewhat of a goal for communist governments, though. Make most of the intelligent, educated, wealthy people flee, so that any potential political opposition is weakened. Eventually it will be mostly impoverished, illiterate sheeple who remain, and they'll suck up the propaganda and the government handouts with clueless glee.
19 - RJ
Hah! Only on the rez can you get them tax free, as the honorary kike Martin, just observed.
Nobody--and much less this busy bird--has time for silly opinion pieces like yours.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
Christopher: If you let the slur "kike" stay, what in Gawd's name did you delete!?
20 - RJ
"Venezuela's economic growth has been very impressive in the last few years," Stiglitz said during his speech at a forum on Strategies for Emerging Markets sponsored by the Bank of Venezuela.
And it's purely based on high oil prices...
Despite the high rate of growth, high public spending and increased consumer demand have contributed to inflationary pressures, pushing inflation up to 15.3%, also the highest in Latin America. However, Stiglitz, who won the Nobel Prize for economics in 2001, argued that relatively high inflation isn't necessarily harmful to the economy.
If this clown seriously believes that 15.3% inflation isn't "harmful" to an economy, he deserves his Nobel Prize about as much as Al Gore or Yasser Arafat deserve theirs...
"It is not only important to have sustainable growth," Stiglitz continued during his speech, "but to ensure the best distribution of economic growth, for the benefit of all citizens."
Yeah, that worked so well in the former USSR, North Korea, and Cuba...
Stiglitz also criticized the "Washington Consensus" of implementing neo-liberal policies in Latin America, in particular the US free trade agreements with Colombia and other countries, saying they failed to bring benefits to the peoples of those countries.
Let's see...Colombia is #66 on the list Clavos cited...Chile is #33...and Costa Rica is #115...they all have free trade agreements with the United States (Costa Rica just approved theirs). Venezuela (at #172), however, doesn't.
Face it - If it wasn't for the recent oil boom, Venezuela would be Cuba without the good cigars.
21 - RJ
As for his economic ineptitude: more than 10% per annum economic growth is just too much for you to calculate on the one finger you use to count, apparently.
Hmmm...
From the Venezuelanalysis.com article you "cited" -
"Venezuela, the fourth largest exporter of crude oil to the United States, has experienced the highest economic growth rate in Latin America in recent years, with fifteen successive quarters of expansion and looks set to close the year with 8-9% growth." [emphasis mine]
8% does not equal "more than 10% per annum economic growth"
9% does not equal "more than 10% per annum economic growth"
So I guess you're just making stuff up again. Typical.
22 - Clavos
Welcome to the thread, RJ, and thanks for the "attaboy."
You make some good points, especially the one about wanting the intelligent and educated people to leave.
My favorite:
"Face it - If it wasn't for the recent oil boom, Venezuela would be Cuba without the good cigars."
Not surprisingly, with Castro as his mentor, the chavista regime begins to resemble Cuba's more and more every day. I wonder how long it'll be before they start lining dissenters up against the paredón (wall) and shooting them, Castro style?
23 - RJ
Thanks, Clavos.
It's very helpful that you're bilingual (actually, more than just bilingual - quintilingual? - but you understand my point), because you are able to read and translate Spanish-language news reports.
I remember a college course I took several years ago. The title of the course was "Comparative Latin American Politics" or something similar. The big class project, worth 30% of the final grade, was to visit a news website from a Latin American country several times a week during the course of the semester, supplement what we learned about the politics and government of that country from our chosen news source with other references, and then write a 10-15 paper on recent political developments in that country.
I made a huge error in choosing Venezuela as the country I would write about. The only English-language internet news source that the professor would allow for Venezuela was VHeadline, which at that time was little more than a leftist, anti-American mouthpiece of the Chavez regime. (I don't know what, if anything, it is anymore. Hopefully it doesn't exist.) But, because I don't speak/read fluent Spanish, that was my only available Venezuelan news option.
So almost every day, for approximately four months, I visited this poorly-written "news" website, and read their barely-concealed anti-American agit-prop. Some days the site was simply offline. Other times, the major "news" story of the day consisted of little more than quotes of lengthy denunciations by Venezuelan government officials of independent American journalists who reported on the goings-on in Venezuela. It was essentially worthless as a news and information site.
Anyway, long story somewhat less long, I wrote the paper; it contained about 12 pages of text, it had three pages of citations, and it was generally anti-Chavez. Unfortunately, the professor was a Castro apologist and supporter of the leftist EZLN revolution in southern Mexico. So, naturally, he didn't like the fact that my paper was highly critical of Hugo Chavez Frias. And so he gave me a "C" on the paper, despite giving me an "A" on every single other assignment in that class. My final grade was, get this, 89.4%, just one-tenth of a point below what would have been rounded to an "A" ... coincidence? LOL. I'll let you decide...
Anyway, just a rambling personal anecdote, and yet another reason why I utterly despise the leftist American apologists for left-wing despots (in academia especially).
24 - Clavos
RJ,
I went to college in the late 60s, after returning from Vietnam, and taking advantage of my GI bill benefits, which didn't amount to much: a check for $130 a month while enrolled full time (not during the summer), with no assistance for tuition or anything else.
Even in the late 60s $130 wasn't much, so I worked my way through (and took out a couple of loans, too) for the rest. Ironically, one of my jobs was night shift in a factory, building air-to-ground rockets for the Air force (I made the venturi tail pieces), so I helped the war effort for another couple of years after I got back to the World.
But, that's not my point.
My point was, I found your story pretty interesting (and I chuckled a bit) because, you can imagine what it was like to be a conservative student AND Vietnam veteran on a college campus in the 60s!
Mostly, I kept it quiet (about Nam) until I really got to know someone well (NEVER the profs!). My (now) wife moved in and lived with me for several months before I told her I'd been in Nam, and her Dad was a retired lifer WW II and Korea vet!
Those were weird times, but we sure had some good rock and roll!.
25 - RJ
Yeah, the music of that era was great, but...
It really must have taken a lot of personal willpower to not just fuckin' lose it, as a conservative 'Nam vet on a college campus in the 1960s.
Seriously, how many times did you hear some dirty, unkempt commie, who probably had a "Che" poster above the bed in his dorm room, denounce anyone and everyone who had ever served in the US military as "criminal baby-killers" or something similar? And how many times did you have the strong urge to commit A&B? :-/