Chavez once again porves he's a tin pot dictator in the making.

[Ned]

There are sites, such as this one, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/arti...hp?artno=1321, that link US documents that allegedly prove that the US supported the earlier coup. But, when one actually read them, they actually say that the plotters were deterred by US insistence that change be constitutional.

[Barnabas]

The issue is that in the low gas wealthy , soy exporting provinces (Bolivia I am talking), they dont like to share their wealth with the other provinces, and correctly think, if we were independent we would be wealthier.

So, the issue is that
+ it is mixed with racism, since the mountain provinces are inhabited by millions of amerindians, while the low provinces are relatively whiter, and they ask themselves, why must those indians live off the wealth we produce, we would be much better without them!

Bolivia is the country in south america with the highest chance of dividing (the only one I would say)
The country was born weirdly and shouldn have existed ever in first place, it should have been a part of Peru, or at least of Argentina.
Pinochet himself said that bolivia wwhich was never very viable, lost its viability completely when it became landlocked.

I see bolivia getting partitioned in the future, some independent, some to peru and some to argentina

[Flubber]

Originally posted by DanS
Chavez has done a lot of stupid things, these acts among them. But he is being kept in power by paying off the underclass. For Venezuela, unfortunately, that is not bad politics.

and the "underclass" will continue to wield most of the power since a lot of the professionals are leaving. Alberta has benefited a LOT from the exodux of Venezuealan engineers who have a lot of experience with the complexities of heavy oil and I work with a couple of venezuealan lawyers.

These regular working professionals hate Chavez and what he is doing but I am sure that some of the commies on here will dismiss them as part of some privileged overclass.

I'm SURE that Chavez will do just fine blleding skilled professionals

[Flubber]

Oh and the article on war purchases was hilarious. I agree that its obviously not aimed at the US. BUt the authors conclusions are not the only possibility.

It is possible that Chavez has bigger territorial aspirations. Their neighbors range from the puny Guyana to mighty Brazil. Perhaps he wants to invade Columbia and fight the drug lords!!!

NO seriously . .. It is kind of tough to see who Venzuala would use fighter jets against

[Ned]

Flubber, which seems to suggest that the article was right. He is trying to get the Air Force on his side.

[Impaler[WrG]]

If the aircraft purchase speculations are true then the next logical step is for Venizuala to start selling off its American fighters (and use the money to ofcorse buy more Russian goodies), this would completly castrate the old airforce elites and he can cherry pick which ones will be retrained on new equipment. Ofcorse if done too soon leaves the country without an effective airforce. Which is no big loss as hes not being threatened by anone nearby. Outright liquidation though might trigger the very coup he's trying to prevent so the safer bet is to just get stingy on the maintance of the Yanky airforces and gradualy sell them off as they breakdown/wear-out. If on the other hand he plans to attack his neibors then he will keep the existing forces at peek performace, If I was one of Venizuala's neibors I would pay close attention to ware the maintance dollars are spent.

Chavez has done a lot of stupid things, these acts among them. But he is being kept in power by paying off the underclass. For Venezuela, unfortunately, that is not bad politics.

Thats why the upper class needs to control its greed and make shure they dont piss off the lower class so much that it produces one of hyper-leftist types that rides a wave of popular discontent into power. A middle class with the bulk of the politcal power can act to balance the extreams and keep so many extereamest leaders from poping up. This is why latin-america is so unstable. Without a stablinzing middle class the Elites inevitably get to greedy, its realy not suprizing after all its their nature. Capitalism says me first and screw everyone else. If your in a position to plunder you do so even if it will trigger reprisals against your social class, its just a race to see who can steal the most before the next revolution.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Impaler[WrG]
If on the other hand he plans to attack his neibors then he will keep the existing forces at peek performace, If I was one of Venizuala's neibors I would pay close attention to ware the maintance dollars are spent.

Why? This guy would get ***** slapped 5 seconds after he thought of attacking a neighbour.

[Traianvs]

Originally posted by Flubber


and the "underclass" will continue to wield most of the power since a lot of the professionals are leaving. Alberta has benefited a LOT from the exodux of Venezuealan engineers who have a lot of experience with the complexities of heavy oil and I work with a couple of venezuealan lawyers.

These regular working professionals hate Chavez and what he is doing but I am sure that some of the commies on here will dismiss them as part of some privileged overclass.

I'm SURE that Chavez will do just fine blleding skilled professionals

That's part of the problem yeah. And with parallel with that exodus, the rampant corruption in all government departments causes credibility with the intellectuals to be blown to smithereens. Nationalizing the oil industry and others might not necessarily be a bad thing in order to bring the welfare level of the average Venezualan up to reasonable heights, but the problem is that the incompetence of many government officials with little or no experience at hand screw it all up.

Chavez might have started out with 'good' intentions, but now he's tasted the power, he wants to cling onto it (cf. the fact that he intends to stay in power for another coupla years). This causes him to become surrounded by weak people that have no critical sense (typical dictator behaviour really).

=> The oil income of Venezuela is huge, and although lots of poor people now are being employed in manufacturies etc. thanks to government subsidies, the oil revenues are declining. So obviously he's doing a bad job, and that's mostly thanks to bad governance, corruption and incompetence.


Now I hope Morales sees how Chavez screwed it up, so he will do better (he also seems more upright to me, despite his friendship with Chavez, which is probably just for geopolitical reasons I suppose)

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Why? This guy would get ***** slapped 5 seconds after he thought of attacking a neighbour.

Yeah but. say he attacks Colombia. President Obama sends some carriers down, they wipe out the Venezualan air force, bomb economic facilities (but oil related ones? WE are gonna need that oil) Venezualan forces beat a hasty retreat. Faster than Iraqi forces did from Kuwait.

And then what? We go in and force a change of regime? Cause like the lesson of Iraq is that after you beat back an aggression, forcing a regime change is a good idea? Prez Obama is gonna buy that? No way, Jose. Containment is the idea. And since Hugo aint got no Sarin gas, there wont be sanctions. As if the UNSC would go down THAT road again, in such a parallel case.

So Hugos got some bombed infrastructure, but he STOOD UP TO THE F*CKIN YANQUIS! And hes a helluva lot smarter than Slobo. He waits things out, and hes stronger than ever.

[Barnabas]

Hugo will not attack any neighbour (or not neighbour) country

He says he buys those weapons to defend himselg from a possible yank invasion of Venezuela

[Ned]

President Obama would do no such thing. One of Obama's first state dinners would be to host Chavez and his first state funeral would be to attend Castro's.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Spiffor

Everyone but the actual capitalists. Their assets aren't seized, they're bought. There's a reason the capitalists continued to come to Venezuela after Chavez took over and made his first nationalizations.

Not likely. Mexico didn't pay any compensation when they nationalized the oil sector nor did Chile when they nationalized the mining sector. Chavez has less leeway. Dispite the rise in oil prices output has continally fallen and now oil prices are falling (15% in 3 days). Given Chavez's fall in income it isn't amaxing that he has suddenly decided to steal $30 billion of foreign investment which just three years ago he was begging to have invested in Venezuela.

They foreigners built new power lines (just one investor paid for $1.7 billion in new power lines) while the international oil companies spent $17 billion on new heavy oil production facilities but the technology hasn't been fully transfered. They're going to have trouble operating those faucilities to their full potential. Chavez has chased out the domestic experts and now the foreign experts won't give him a second chance to steal their money. It's all down hill for him from here.

Chavez is screwed and stealing is the only way he can tread water. Oil prices are falling rapidly while Venezuela's out put has been falling for years. He doesn't have the money to keepdoing what he wants so now he is trying to get money by stealing property without payment. He's guiding his country into the ****ter just like Castro did.

[chequita guevara]

You don't have a clue as to what you are talking about, Oerdin. But really, is that anything new?

[techumseh]

Not that "Venezuelan output is falling" line again. Has that gynecologist that's into investing put out another newsletter?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
Hugo will not attack any neighbour (or not neighbour) country

He says he buys those weapons to defend himselg from a possible yank invasion of Venezuela

Did you read the war nerd article? The weapons he is buying are totally useless against the Americans. 24 SU-30s are supposed to stop the Americans? They're dead in the first wave. He needs Hezbollah style weapons with lots of RPGs, anti-tank mines, and anti-aircraft missiles.