Chavez is loony, looney, looney.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by laurentius
How can anyone else then Fez or Ned seriously claim US had nothing to do with the failed coup in Venezuela...

I guess Oerding just got some new buddies.

And you base this on? Nothing other then your personal bias, I see.

So far all I've seen are editorials pieces of people giving their opinion without any facts to back it up. Of those two editorials techumseh was to embarrassed even to name the source on one of them.

For anyone whose actually interested in a decently factual take on the failed 2002 try this LINK here. It includes Chavez's numerous claims that the US & the Israeli Massoud tried to topple him Yes, Chavez also blames the Jews.

The key part about the coup is [q]
CIA documents released in November 2004 reveal that the Bush Administration knew that a coup in Venezuela was imminent, contrary to earlier claims by U.S. officials [2] (http://www.newsday.com/news/nationwo...news-headlines). However, no evidence of direct CIA support of the coup or any involvement of the Mossad, which was claimed by Chávez's supporters, could be found.[/QUOTE] knowing something is happening is very different from carrying it out and being responsible for it.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Agathon
Otherwise it looks as if you've been pwned pretty badly in this thread Oerdin.

It looks like Aggy is right:

Chavez didn't claim that the US had made hundreds of assassination attempts, but that they had tried to kill him.

Despite being shown the facts repeatedly, not just by Kid, Oerdin fails to accept the published real GDP growth rate, because it differs from an estimate given by travelblog, a very credible source.

Oerdin claims those poverty figures are supported by the CIA factbook and the BBC. Yet the later makes no mention of it and the former is yet to be produced, and the CIA are hardly the most credible source on the economic impact of someone they've tried to assassinate.

I'd say that's a pretty convincing PWNage, which puts the scores now at:

Commies - 2 (Fez being the second), Capitalists - a lot.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Circumstantial evidence is enough to convict.

If it can meet the reasonable doubt threshold. We haven't even gotten close to preponderance of evidence yet.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor

I have just googled for the statistics, and I can find the 1998 estimate everywhere (47%), but I found no estimate more recent than that. Where did you find your stats?

Here's a BBC article which says 2/3 of the people live in poverty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2577227.stm

Read the section "Wealth paradox".

Here is a link for 2004:

2004 figures are 72.1% in poverty with 32.5% living in extreme poverty.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/link/m...zuela200411.pdf

[Dinner]

Drogue, but do you notice how they don't want to talk about Chavez's claims that the US is trying to kill him (read the first BBC article I linked in the starting post) nor how Chavez is claiming the Israeli Massoud and Spain's previous government were supposedly also in on it. Any way you look at it Chavez is a nutter.

Unfortunately, we got side tracked by statistics but the basic previous remains that Chavez comes up with strange conspiracy theories.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
If it can meet the reasonable doubt threshold. We haven't even gotten close to preponderance of evidence yet.

Yeah, but your side rarely convicts even when no reasonable doubt is left. When Colin Powell admitted that the U.S. was behind the Chilean coup, all the right-wingers jumped up and said he was crazy.

However, just because someone is a serial killer doesn't mean he killed this particular person. The fact that almost every coup in Latin America in the last forty years, doesn't mean the U.S. was behind the coup attempt in Venezuela. Still the odds are rather in favor of it.

And there's still the curious welcoming of the coup by the Bush administration before it became clear it had failed.

[GePap]

How come NO one, not one signel press outfit uses Oerdins "real growth" notion?

If no one takes it upon themselves to subtreact, then it makes me deeply question the entire notion of Oerdin's economic "case".

Thought I wish el freako was here to set us economically right.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Drogue, but do you notice how they don't want to talk about Chavez's claims that the US is trying to kill him (read the first BBC article I linked in the starting post) nor how Chavez is claiming the Israeli Massoud and Spain's previous government were supposedly also in on it. Any way you look at it Chavez is a nutter.

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you. The U.S. tried to kill Casto dozens of times. They tried to kill an anti-U.S. contra leader in the 80s. They tried to kill several Sandanista leaders. They killed Lumumba. They had Allende killed. If you're a Latin American leftist, the chaces are good that the U.S. wants you dead.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Here's a BBC article which says 2/3 of the people live in poverty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2577227.stm

Read the section "Wealth paradox".

That was true before Chavez came to power, as the quote shows in context. He hasn't made it any better, true, but he didn't create that poverty level. That's why you can have 17.3% real GDP growth and still have high poverty levels.

But still two-thirds of Venezuelans still live in poverty.

It was anger at that injustice which in 1998 swept Mr Chavez and his 'Bolivarian revolution for the poor' into power with almost 60% of the vote.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Here's a BBC article which says 2/3 of the people live in poverty.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2577227.stm

Read the section "Wealth paradox".

I'm not a fan of the Beeb's economic coverage. I recently read an article I should be sympathetic to (a criticism of Berlusconi's economy), but I was underwhelmed. For the matter, I consider it possible that Chavez' rule worsened the situation for the average Venezuelian, so I'm not in denial. But I'd really like to see a real statistic.

Here is a link for 2004:

2004 figures are 72.1% in poverty with 32.5% living in extreme poverty.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/link/m...zuela200411.pdf

Thanks Could you please fix the link?

[Dinner]

Che, which could? The anti-Allande coup in the 1970's? Everyone knew that was the CIA from day one so I'm not sure why people anyone would get excited about Colin Powell talking about it 30 years later.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/link/m...zuela200411.pdf [/Q]
Thanks Could you please fix the link?

Reprinted from page one.

http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/link/meeting/ctryrep/venezuela200411.pdf

It's a pdf file or else I'd print here. The first page at the bottom has the relavent info including 32.5% in "extreme poverty" and a 72.1% "total poverty" rate. Unemployment is up to 18.1% (hard to have Kid's world record growth and explain the rising unemployment rate) and that is only achieved because they're counting informal employment as well as formal. Slightly over half of all workers work in the informal economy.

The article also explains the differences in reported inflation rates. The consumer price inflation was 27.08% while the over all rate of inflation (including durable goods for businesses, etc) was around 19%. Compare the nominal growth rates Kid has links of 18% now subtract the 27.08% inflation rate on consumer goods and you'll see why so many more people are living in poverty.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Drogue, but do you notice how they don't want to talk about Chavez's claims that the US is trying to kill him (read the first BBC article I linked in the starting post) nor how Chavez is claiming the Israeli Massoud and Spain's previous government were supposedly also in on it. Any way you look at it Chavez is a nutter.

Unfortunately, we got side tracked by statistics but the basic previous remains that Chavez comes up with strange conspiracy theories.

I thought it was generally accepted that the US administration wanted to remove Chavez, and they didn't really care how it happened. US-sponsored coups are nothing unusual, and Venezuala looks like a likely target.

How does it make Chavez a nutter, thinking that the US is trying to do something it's done before, and relatively often in similar situations.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Che, which could? The anti-Allande coup in the 1970's? Everyone knew that was the CIA from day one so I'm not sure why people anyone would get excited about Colin Powell talking about it 30 years later.

To this day, there are still people who deny the US involvement in Pinochet's coup. We have such people on this very board

[Kidlicious]

That bbc article is 2 years old Oerdin.