Blogging the democratic revolution
Oil prices are rising. Yet US inventories are up. That’s not normal. Venezuela is pumping below its OPEC quota, with production down. (Link UPDATED). The state oil company is in shambles. And Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez is on the rumored verge of firing 12,000 oil workers in already-rebellious Zulia state in the west. Meanwhile, his…
Bolivia’s excellent Miguel Buitrago, who blogs in English, warns that big trouble may begin tomorrow in Bolivia. The Congress is set to vote on the question of taxes and royalties on Monday, May 2, and Coca King Evo Morales, fresh from being succored by Chavez and Castro in Havana this past week, is in no…
Fidel Castro’s Big Dumb Houseboy down in Caracas will listen to any sweet talk from his hairy Havana caudillo provided he says it nicely enough. That was why it was so easy to convince the hulky fool to turnnnnnn the checkbook, uhrrrr …. precious oil resources … over … to Castro’s own loving care. Fidel,…
How bad is it for Venezuela? Is it really a colony of Cuba? This essay by Gustavo Coronel should settle the question definitively. Read it here.
Venezuela does not have a conventional revolutionary set-up. It’s a revolution within a revolution, where, six years ago, “reformer” Hugo Chavez was elected to power as an outsider who would make a difference, and who instead ran his country’s affairs like an old-line caudillo party boss, his cronies lining their pockets, but with the added…
I’ve been reading a lot about the maneuvering in Asia between China, India, Australia, and India. Of course, in the midst of all this, it doesn’t help U.S. policy that China has been portrayed as a capitalist boomland with the slight burden of a communist regime. Up until now, most people and even legislators have…
Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has an important item out about growing unrest in China. Huge riots are occurring, not just in the remote, impoverished west, but now in the wealthier coastal cities. At issue is corruption and impunity. And with the rise of mass communications and Internet connectivity, Chinese expectations about governance are rising….
In unstable countries, the fuse of revolution is lit from a burning dollar bill. And right now in Venezuela, there’s very dry tinder indeed. Billions of dollars of oil cash is being stolen by the cronies of dictator Hugo Chavez on a scale never seen while poverty there rises. Forty percent of Venezuela’s economy is…
Miguel has translated a dazzling article from Spain outlining, in the most precise and concrete terms, why Venezuela can have all the poverty it cares to pay for. It’s chilling and illuminating. Read it here.
…and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez behind it. I wrote an analysis for American Thinker this morning. It’s here.
Blogger Daniel keeps us well-apprised of the everyday aspects of Venezuela’s descent into communism. Today, the grocery stores are demanding ID for even the purchase of bread and water. This is the beginning of rationing. Daniel also gives us a rundown on Venezuela’s state oil company and Hugo Chavez’s mysterious unwillingness to open the books…
Jorge Arena has an extraordinary personal account of what Venezuela was in the 1960s, the 1970s after the Arab oil embargo, and the conditions that led up to the rise of Hugo Chavez. It’s readable and lucid and a must read – a truly excellent essay. Read the whole thing here.
The Nation magazine has a sugar-coated vision of Hugo Chavez’s Veneuzela, described in an article purportedly written as a “news” story by Christian Parenti, someone who used to spend his time at Young Communist League meetings in San Francisco. Parenti’s trying to make his story appear a respectable reporting job (as Cuban propagandists coincidentally advise)…
Common canard holds that Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, whatever his faults, at least is ending poverty through his soup-kitchen programs. Andres Oppenheimer blows the lid off that steaming pot, though, by taking a good look at the Venezuelan government’s own statistics. What he sees appalls him. He writes: Indeed, the latest poverty figures from Venezuela’s…
A few significant things have happened in this arena besides the sale of fighter jets to both Pakistan and India. Secretary of State Rice has recently said that the U.S. aims to make India a world power in the 21st century. Washington: The United States unveiled plans Friday to help India become a “major world…
If you need a summary of what has happened to Venezuela since the dictatorship of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Coronel, an elegant essayist, has a long but well-written description of the path to ruin, “In Venezuela: The Time of the Barbarians” here.
Larry Kudlow on Real Clear Politics has an important analysis on just how out out of whack oil prices are and why skyrocketing prices at the pump won’t last. If he is right, there will be political consequences for oil giants like Iran, Venezuela and others whose dictators have sealed their claims to power on…
This week, the U.S. declared Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s economic model an absolute failure and warned him against exporting it abroad. That’s the right thing to say, and obviously, they have looked at what he’s done domestically. But for ordinary Venezuelans, there is still hunger and poverty. Venezuelan blogger Gustavo Coronel gives an important description…
In my recent post, Has Qadafi Caught the Spirit?, I wrote that there were mixed signs that Libya’s ruler, Mu’amar Qadafi, was committed to ending his country’s economic and political isolation. In today’s Al-Quds Al-Arabi, it was reported that Libya plans to cut 46,000 government jobs over the next year. As the article notes, Libya…
While the New York Times spews Molotovian propaganda for land reform in Venezuela, Miguel’s got some AUTHENTIC reporting about what a terrifying disaster it’s becoming, a serious maelstrom of murder, violence, bloodshed and thuggery. This is a must read, the important truth from the blog trumping the flowery ‘Imagine’ picture written up about in the…
Gustavo Coronel, a retired Venezuelan oil executive weighs in with a superb essay on Dutch Disease, the impact of oil on an economy and how it is fueling Venezuela????????s dangerous swing into backward communism.