Chavez steals millions from foreign companies.

[Jon Miller]

When you have to put all your effort in to survival, you don't have much time to desire or care about rights or respect.

Jon Miller

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Velociryx
if the act of making a buck was the self actualizing catalyst you're making it out to be, then your stance against capitalism would take on even darker undertones than you're willing to fess up to.....

If they could make a buck, without having el jefe's hired thugs come down on them, I wouldn't be a communist.

The most ironic part of this conversation is that you, the one who knows little to nothing about the concrete situation in Latin America and even less history are claiming that I am the one who is a vicitim of propaganda, when all you have in this argument is your faith. Before I studied Latin America, I was a happy, little capitalist-wannabe with delusions in the Democratic Party. A decade of studying massacres, torture, death squads, and genocide, all with the complicity, support, and or active participation of your own government tends to destroy any faith in American democracy or capitalism.

Before you whip out, "victim of my own propagana" again, I didn't merely read leftist works. I had teachers who were former CIA agents, I read the U.S. government's own blue books (aka economic stats), I talked to people who participated in and were present at massacres, people who were tortured, people who were torturers, etc. If there's anything I know, it's Latin America.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
My point being that Chavez. . . .

You're not listening. You're only repeating what you want to hear. You really need to pay attention to someone besides the neo-liberals and the anti-Chavistas, even if you don't agree with them. Talking with you about Venezuela is like trying to talk to someone who only listens to FOX News about the war in Iraq.

[Dinner]

OK, what do you want to say?

[Barnabas]

Chavez said recently that, with oil at 50 dollars el barril, Venezuela has the greatest oil reserves in the world, not saudi arabia, and that in that case running out of oil, for venezuela, would not be a problem of this century but of the next one.

[Dinner]

The question is will oil stay above $50 forever or will the high prices bring about a lot of new exploration thus crashing the price back down. That's what happened in the 1970's and the 1990's. It does take about a decade for the various oil companies to find, develop, and bring online new fields though so I'd guess we have 4-8 years more of high oil prices before increased supplies come online and drive the prices down. Of course, much will depend on the growth of Asian demand.

[Jon Miller]

umm, if oil gets rarer, prices will go up... (unless the need for it is replaced)

in otherwords, Venezuela claims that there won't be serious oil shortages for over 100 years

Jon Miller

[Barnabas]

Venezuela claims she has (not the rest of the world) enough oil for more than 100 years, I guess for her needs and to sell to the rest of the world (I dont know how much).

Maybe it was chavez just talking bs.

[Velociryx]

If they could make a buck, without having el jefe's hired thugs come down on them, I wouldn't be a communist.

Che, you said yourself that the root problem was land reform (and specifically, resistance to). A strong body of laws codifying (and protecting) land ownership is one of the key ingredients of successful capitalism. This is no great mystery, nor is it a big mystery that countries with problems in this area tend to fall short when applying capitalistic principals.

But your post WAS a nice dodge, in that it was an "answer" that did not require you to think about your own ideology, and what it will do to the huddled masses, and their ability to "make a buck" (and then start demanding rights and respect).

That's cool tho, and it's well-covered ground. I realize that I'm not gonna change your mind, and no fears, I'm not gonna bother trying.

-=Vel=-

[Sandman]

A strong body of laws codifying land ownership is one of the key ingredients of successful capitalism.

People who own their own land is one of the key ingredients of successful capitalism. Not vast aristocratic estates serviced by landless labourers.

[Velociryx]

Yes....and a strong body of laws relating to land ownership serve as a key to letting the little guy have his piece of the pie (including such tangential stuff as a banking system that's not so in the pocket of the wealthy that it allows the little guy loan opportunities to buy some land, and then protect him once he's got it).

This is, in any case, tangential to the point I was making earlier, that Che's version of events in Ven. strikes me as being a cartoonish fantasy.

That's cool tho. If he wants to believe it, I'm not gonna stand in his way.

-=Vel=-

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Yes....and a strong body of laws relating to land ownership serve as a key to letting the little guy have his piece of the pie (including such tangential stuff as a banking system that's not so in the pocket of the wealthy that it allows the little guy loan opportunities to buy some land, and then protect him once he's got it).

This is, in any case, tangential to the point I was making earlier, that Che's version of events in Ven. strikes me as being a cartoonish fantasy.

That's cool tho. If he wants to believe it, I'm not gonna stand in his way.

-=Vel=-

The solution would be inheritance taxes like the ones the UK used to break up the large estates of the gentry without simply marching in and redistributing land.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The question is will oil stay above $50 forever or will the high prices bring about a lot of new exploration thus crashing the price back down. That's what happened in the 1970's and the 1990's. It does take about a decade for the various oil companies to find, develop, and bring online new fields though so I'd guess we have 4-8 years more of high oil prices before increased supplies come online and drive the prices down. Of course, much will depend on the growth of Asian demand.

Well he could actually make good investments with the oil revenues, then he wouldn't need foreign investment.

[Patroklos]

Yeah...

[Kidlicious]

I'm not saying that he does, only that he could.