Venezuela, The Starving Socialist Dystopia (Part 1)

[Arkain2K]

Yeah but why didn't we do do something about it? We have our fingers in tons of pies and influence outcomes all over the world. But we couldn't dictate the outcomes in Venezuela? I find that hard to believe.

Why oh why do we need to intervene in that hellhole at all?

Maduro was democratically-elected by his people, as was his predecessor Hugo Chavez. To oppose him and his insane Socialist policies before his Presidential term is over is to oppose the Venezuelan people's decision to build their Chavismo utopia, don't you know?

Let the Venezuelan people sort out the Socialist mess that they got themselves in out of their own free will. Once they're finally fed up with this fantasy and choose to get off the bus, a new Venezuelan President will be elected, the Venezuelan economy might embraces the free market, and international business investments will definitely come flowing in and revive all those industries that Chavez and Maduro nationalized and left to die.

Oh, and foreign oil companies will gladly repair Venezuela's crumbling oil platforms and refineries in no time, in return for their fair share plus interests of the assets blatantly stolen by the Venezuelan government in the last decade:

Venezuela seizes 60 oilfield service company assets
May 08, 2009 ​

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez seized assets from 60 oilfield services companies including Oklahoma-based Williams Cos., using a law the national assembly passed recently.

Employees at state oil company Petroleos de Venezuela worked through the night to take over operations from companies that provided services such as water and gas compression and maritime support, Chavez said. Venezuela's benchmark government bonds fell the most in 2 1/2 months.

"Today, the private services companies disappear, we don't need them, the people and workers can do the labour and be more efficient," Chavez said. "We're going to bury capitalism in Venezuela."

PdVSA, as the state oil company is known, is pressing foreign oil services companies to lower their prices as growing debts hamper oil output. Production in Venezuela, the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, was down 8.4 % in April from a year ago, and services firms have idled rigs this year because of past-due payments.

The government seized two gas injection units called El Furrial and PIGAP II from Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams Cos., the company said. Williams said April 30 it had declared PdVSA in default for non-payment and might cease operations in Venezuela.

"We'll pursue all available options including negotiating with PdVSA," Williams spokeswoman Julie Gentz said. "It may also include arbitration."

US oil giants ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips have taken their investment disputes to international arbitration after their assets were seized by Venezuela in 2007. Venezuela still owes about $ 10 bn for unpaid nationalizations, according to Ecoanalitica, a Caracas-based economic consulting firm.

Chavez also confirmed that PdVSA has taken over the SIMCO Consortium, which was operated by Aberdeen, Scotland-based John Wood Group. Bobbie Ireland, a spokeswoman at the Wood Group, said that PdVSA had taken control of its contract, and that it's in a "strong contractual position" to recover money due.

PdVSA owed service contractors $ 13.8 bn at the end of 2008, according to a year-end report sent to the country's national assembly. Chavez didn't provide names of all of the companies whose assets he said would be "liberated." Schlumberger and Halliburton, the world's biggest and second-biggest oilfield services companies, both operate in Venezuela.

The law approved recently by the National Assembly stipulates the government will pay book value for the nationalized assets using cash or securities, after deducting labour and environmental costs. Under the statute, the Oil and Energy Ministry is required to publicly identify companies with assets subject to seizure.

Oil and Energy Minister Rafael Ramirez said the government has seized 300 boats, along with water injection operations on Lake Maracaibo, a centre of oil production, and gas compression units in eastern Venezuela. PdVSA will absorb more than 8,000 employees from subcontractors, he said.

"These intermediary companies speculated, and took a large part of our oil earnings," Ramirez said. "With this, we'll continue reducing costs in our oil industry." PdVSA will save $ 700 mm by assuming the "primary" service activities from private companies, Ramirez said.

Unpaid bills

Services companies have been idling equipment in Venezuela since the beginning of the year because of unpaid bills. Houston-based Boots & Coots International Well Control said it suspended operations in the first quarter because of past-due obligations.

Williams, which has gas processing facilities in the country, said on April 29 that it wrote off $ 241 mm for uncollectible Venezuela payments. Helmerich & Payne said it may not be able to collect $ 116 mm. Helmerich has idled seven rigs, while Dallas-based Ensco International idled one, which was later seized by PdVSA.

PdVSA cut its investment plan for this year to $ 14 bn from a previously planned $ 24 bn on April 28, and in February Ramirez said the company asked service providers to cut their fees by 40 % after the price of oil plunged. Chavez has pledged to maintain spending on social programs that provide subsidized food, health care and housing to the poor, even after crude oil prices plunged 61 % since July.

Ramirez said May 6 that Venezuela, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, supports efforts to raise the price of oil to $ 70 a barrel. Angel Rodriguez, a lawmaker and president of the Energy and Mines Commission in the National Assembly, said in an interview May 6 the government wouldn't expropriate foreign-owned oil and gas drilling rigs.

http://www.gasandoil.com/news/ms_america/274686c0f7f8640ca64ca9f55b284bf6

Venezuela Seen Paying Price for Chavez Expropriation of Oil Contractors
By Jeremy Morgan | May 08, 2009​

In the wake of the seizure of foreign and domestic oil service companies and assets by armed troops following the orders of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, experts began to count the cost to Venezuela -- which holds the Western Hemisphere's largest oil reserves -- in lost oil production, lost jobs, lost foreign investment and lost foreign expertise.

CARACAS -- Venezuela could end up paying a high price for President Hugo Chavez's abrupt takeover of over 60 domestic and foreign oil field service companies, according to the initial reaction in Venezuela this weekend.

National Assembly Deputy Luis Díaz, a former external consultant to the state oil corporation, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), which now supposedly owns around 60 expropriated companies, pointed out that the company would have to absorb as many as 30,000 people who work for it in one capacity or another.

Just where this figure came from wasn't clear. Up to now, reports have suggested that around 8,000 people are employed by the oil field service companies in question. However, Díaz's estimate could take in sub-contractors and other people indirectly dependent on the oil field services industry for making their livings.

Labor unions have warned that at least some of those employees could find themselves out of a job. However, mass sackings would obviously be highly unpopular, undermining Chávez' claims to have expropriated the companies in the interests of the people.

Whether the president would be willing to take that risk remains to be seen. In Díaz' view, much the same could be said about PDVSA's capacity to take on so many new staff. The current payroll at PDVSA is put at around 80,000, although exact figures aren't available.

Díaz said that PDVSA stood to earn an additional $500 million to $600 million by taking over oil field services. Chávez claimed Friday that the corporation would save $700 million by doing the work itself.

However, Díaz also saw problems ahead. He pointed out that the companies whose assets were being expropriated held patents to technology and also owned the machinery and equipment used for gas injection, well drilling and other techniques used in the oil field services sector.

Díaz also pointed to a mounting pile of unresolved compensation disputes from this and earlier takeovers. He noted that it was as yet still unclear as to whether the companies would actually be willing to sell their assets in the wake of Friday's high profile assets grab at Lake Maracaibo.

Compensation disputes of all sorts now involve a total of around $15 billion in unsettled claims, according to Díaz' estimate. In the oil sector, these disputes include two particularly bruising spats: one with ExxonMobil (the biggest oil outfit on the planet) and the other with ConocoPhillips (the third largest US oil producer and second largest refiner), both over the loss of their erstwhile controlling interests in heavy oil fields in the Orinoco Basin.

ExxonMobil is pursuing legal action at courts in The Netherlands and the United States, amid reports suggesting that its reckoning is that PDVSA could owe it billions of dollars. ConocoPhillips, like ExxonMobil based in the United States, is digging in its heels in negotiations that are said to be going nowhere very slowly.

In the meantime, there’s speculation about what sort of impact this latest takeover could have on the oil industry as a whole. The Bloomberg news agency carried a report warning that the seizure of 60 oilfield services companies could reduce Venezuelan oil production because it was thought PDVSA didn’t have the capacity to run the companies that had been taken over.

One estimate had it that Venezuelan oil output could drop below two million barrels a day for the first time in two decades.

The takeover could also affect a bid round scheduled for later this year for blocks in the Carabobo field, Venezuela’s biggest offshore oil reserve. It was suggested that PDVSA didn’t have the capacity, nor the funds to undertake more exploration and production work on its own, and that the future of Venezuelan oil finds would “probably lie fallow for some time.”

In Maracaibo on Saturday, Zulia State Governor Pablo Pérez of the Opposition claimed that the takeover had been motivated by a "cover-up" of PDVSA's mounting pile of unpaid bills it owes under oil field services contracts. Pérez claimed these debts had now reached $13 billion. A recent report at the National Assembly said these debts totalled $13.8 billion as of the end of last year.

Some oil field services companies had already suspended operations or pulled out of Venezuela before the takeover hit the headlines, and several are said to be in the process of following suit. In the process, some appear to have realized they simply weren’t going to get their money, or at least not without getting tough.

Williams Company of Tulsa, for instance, decided it had to write off $241 million in unpaid PDVSA bills. The company is talking about going to arbitration. But Chávez has already ruled out arbitration, claiming any such tribunal would be on the companies’ side from start to finish.

Pérez' point was that not only would the government or PDVSA have to compensate the companies for their assets, but also for the unpaid bills. Energy and Oil Minister Rafael Ramírez has accused the companies of over-charging when world oil prices were high, and demanded that they "adjust" those bills in line with the new circumstances of the global oil market.

The expropriation could also have an impact on the local economy, Pérez warned. In particular, he said the takeover would severely affect the municipality of Lagunilla, a shore base for the oil field services industry at Lake Maracaibo.

Despite Ramírez’ tough talk, it appears that the government harbors hope of enticing some oil field services companies into staying on as minority partners after the takeover. “There’s going to have to be some sweet pillow talk to get some of these companies to stay,” Russell Dallen, head of Caracas capital markets at BBO Financial Services, was quoted as having said.

Argument continued over whether or not Chávez had jumped the gun on Friday, by taking action before a new law extending his expropriation rights to the oil field services sector before the legislation had been published in the Gazeta Official.

The law was published in the Gazeta on Friday. But Chávez claimed that “84 percent” of the industry had been nationalized by six o’clock in the morning, at which time the Gazeta was most unlikely to have been on sale.

The new law was rushed through the National Assembly at a velocity that was surprising even by the standards set by the government-packed legislature in recent times. Chávez signed and promulgated the law within hours, and then embarked on the takeover.

The National Assembly is all but entirely dominated by Chávez’ ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its minor allies. In the absence of the mainstream opposition after it shot itself in the foot by withdrawing from the last parliamentary elections in 2005, the sole dissenting voices to be heard are those of Podemos, the social democratic party that once b

http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=334300&CategoryId=10718

 

[Greoric]

Why oh why do "we" need to intervene in that hellhole at all?

Let the Venezuelan people sort out the Socialist mess that they got themselves in, and once they choose to become a Democratic nation, our investments will flow.

Yeah.... I think democracy was the problem here though. This kind of thing has a precedent for when the majority has a lasting mandate over a minority.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

I wonder if now if those Caracas to Caracas flights are more or less lucrative than before.

 

[panamaican]

b/c they don't care? or it was too recent/too much technological capabilities to get caught interfering via CIA like say the Arbenz government in Nicaragua prior

i'm being serious, it's likely the same reason we don't intervene more in Africa with it's massive amount of humanitarian and war situations. Or why Haiti is completely fucked up

Also we have long history of not intervening in Haiti going back to the French revolution. We and the British and the Spanish made a deal with the French to stay out of it and I don't think we've ever reversed course politically.

 

[SiKnSiN]

Not a fan of socialism, but no economic ideology could withstand such fiscal irresponsibility. Combine it with incompetent dictatorship and this is what you get.

 

[Arkain2K]

Venezuela Oil No Easy Fix After Brain Drain, Asset Seizures
By Mark Shenk | April 10, 2017​

​

• In March, the country produced the least oil it has since 2003

• Loss of engineers, service companies hinder any output boost

A turnaround for Venezuela’s oil industry, the lifeblood of the South American country’s ailing economy, would take at least two years under the best of circumstances.

Under business as usual, it might be virtually impossible.

That’s the message from analysts who say that government intervention at the state-controlled oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela SA, has chased away much of the expertise needed to boost production that’s fallen 16 percent since President Nicolas Maduro gained office four years ago.

While opposition to Maduro gains new momentum following a failed attempt to oust him last year, any hope of reversing Venezuela’s decline as an oil supplier would take more than his political opponents eventually getting their way. The country would have to settle debts with oil-service providers, fix fraying infrastructure and, potentially, get foreign companies to operate some fields.

"You first have to stabilize production, which could take at least 12 months in the best of circumstances," Luisa Palacios, senior managing director at Medley Global Advisors LLC, said by telephone from New York. "I think it will take another year before you will start to see an increase in production."

Venezuela faces a major test this week, when the state-controlled oil company, known as PDVSA, is slated to repay more than $2 billion in debt obligations. While the oil producer has pledged to honor its debt, and said it’s already transferring coupon payments for other bonds that mature in 2027 and 2037, the country is undergoing a severe cash crunch.

PDVSA declined to comment and the oil ministry didn’t immediately reply to calls and an email seeking comment.

Growing Unrest

Maduro’s opponents have taken to the streets in recent days after the country’s top court tried to quash the opposition-controlled congress. They are calling for authorities to hold fresh elections and purge institutions of socialist party loyalists. A nationwide protest on April 19 “will be the mother of all mobilizations,” opposition leader Freddy Guevara said at a press conference.

One of the founding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976. Foreign companies were invited back to the country in the 1990s to help develop heavy crude deposits in the Orinoco Belt. But the government later increased PDVSA’s share of joint ventures and eventually seized the fields of companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips.

Crude output, which provides about 95 percent of the country’s foreign currency earnings, has yet to fully recover from a general strike in 2002 and 2003 that was aimed at overthrowing late President Hugo Chavez. Chavez responded by firing more than half of the staff of PDVSA and ordered it to direct a greater share of its income to social programs.

Engineer Exodus

"The people with knowledge about the fields have left," said Michael Lynch, president of Strategic Energy & Economic Research in Winchester, Massachusetts. "A big question if there were a change in government would be how many engineers will come back. Most have settled elsewhere, so probably just a sprinkling would return."

If the service providers and at least some of the former workers were to return, they could provide an increase of perhaps 500,000 barrels a day in as little as three months, according to Lynch.

For any further improvement, he said, “they will need to get people to invest in the oil industry, which will take changes to the energy law and the replacement of some people at both the company and ministry. Such an effort could take three to five years before you would see any impact in output."

Production Decline

Venezuelan oil production should drop below 2 million barrels a day by the fourth quarter and average 1.9 million barrels in 2018, according to Michael Cohen, head of energy commodities research at Barclays Plc in New York. Apart from the temporary collapse in production during the 2002-2003 strike, that would be the least in almost three decades and compares with a peak of almost 3.5 million in the late 1990s.

Lack of investment and maintenance in the country’s refineries, in addition to fires and equipment failure, has diminished PDVSA’s ability to supply the domestic market, making an importer of a nation once awash with gasoline supplies. The units were running at less than 50 percent of capacity, Ivan Freites, an oil-union official, said last month.

The collapse of oil prices -- with a barrel of crude in New York worth less than half its $107 peak in mid-2014 -- just made everything worse. West Texas Intermediate crude was down 13 cents at $52.95 at 8:52 a.m. in New York. The Venezuelan oil basket price stood at $43.57 last week.

Schlumberger Ltd. said in a federal filing in January that it faces a total outstanding balance of $1.2 billion from PDVSA. Schlumberger and Halliburton Co., the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 service providers, announced plans last year to cut back activity in the country to better deal with missed payments. Phone and email messages to Schlumberger press officials weren’t returned. Emily Mir, a Halliburton spokeswoman, had no comment when reached by phone.

Political Gridlock

Maduro has been in a bitter dispute with the National Assembly since opposition parties won a majority of seats in elections in late 2015. The institutional gridlock is taking place as the country, which has depended on loans from China and Russia in recent years for liquidity, is finding it harder and harder to obtain financing. As reserves shrink, debt service is becoming more burdensome. The economy fell into a depression, with runaway inflation and widespread consumer shortages.

"There’s a lot we don’t know," Chris Cote, an analyst at ESAI Energy in Wakefield, Massachusetts, said by telephone. "What we can see is that oil infrastructure is in a very poor state."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-no-easy-fix-after-brain-drain-asset-seizures

 

[Arkain2K]

GM Ceases Operation in Venezuela as Plant is Expropriated
By Anatoly Kurmanaev | April 20, 2017

​

CARACAS, Venezuela -- General Motors Co., the world's third-largest car maker, said it has stopped operating in Venezuela following the expropriation of its plant.

Venezuelan authorities on Wednesday unexpectedly took over GM's plant in the central Carabobo state, seizing production facilities and car stock, the company said in a statement. The company said it has been forced to lay off its 2,700 Venezuelan workers.

GM "strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights," the company said.

The Venezuelan government, which frequently blames big business for economic sabotage, hasn't commented on the expropriation. The move happened amid deadly nationwide antigovernment protests. The Information Ministry didn't respond to request for comment.

The government of Nicolás Maduro and his predecessor Hugo Chávez have expropriated more than 1,400 companies and private assets since taking power in 1999, according to industry group Conindustria. The vast bulk of the seized companies have since shuttered, contributing to an unprecedented economic crisis rocking the country.

​

GM, like other Venezuelan manufacturers, has struggled for years to obtain hard currency to import car parts because of the country's stringent currency controls.

The company went from producing 5,052 vehicles in 2015 to zero in 2016 and has yet to assemble a car in 2017, according to the Venezuelan auto industry group Cavenez.

Mr. Maduro has previously said that every idled plant would be "recuperated by the Revolution."

The seven private manufacturers that make up Cavenez saw production fall by 84% to 2,849 cars in 2016 compared with the previous year. In the first two months of 2017 they produced just 240 vehicles in a country of almost 30 million people.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/features...on-in-venezuela-as-plant-is-expropriated.html

 

[Rozko]

That country will be fucked for a while. Hopefully the bodies that get stacked are the politician's.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

I thought we don't intervene in Africa because we need access to the resources and unstable governments make it easier for our corporations to land beneficial contracts by preying on the greed of local strongmen.

that actually makes sense, although i'm not sure to what degree we still get resources directly from Africa. I think that's why we don't do more humanitarian aide, the unstable governments don't exactly ensure it reaches the local populace. That's pretty much exactly why we went into Somalia in teh first place after first trying to help.

but we have some long lasting ties w/ some african nations, obviously Liberia in particular, yet we don't do much to help any of those nations. Surely having a somewhat stable democracy in lieu of a dictator would provide for a better business environment, presumably less corruption (i.e. more revenues actually reaching the pockets of the US), and better opportunities for Direct Foreign Investments. I mean think of the infrastructure projects alone....

 

[GORETAURO]

Or basing ur whole economy on oil and watching as it becomes as cheap as water
Lets not pretend the right woulda done much better

cause we all know marxism produces the best economy....oh wait I mean they are super good at killing their own population

 

[Rod1]

Why oh why do we need to intervene in that hellhole at all?

Maduro was democratically-elected by his people, as was his predecessor Hugo Chavez. To oppose him and his insane Socialist policies before his Presidential term is over is to oppose the Venezuelan people's decision to build their Chavismo utopia, don't you know?

Let the Venezuelan people sort out the Socialist mess that they got themselves in out of their own free will. Once they're finally fed up with this fantasy and choose to get off the bus, a new Venezuelan President will be elected, the Venezuelan economy might embraces the free market, and international business investments will definitely come flowing in and revive all those industries that Chavez and Maduro nationalized and left to die.

Oh, and foreign oil companies will gladly repair Venezuela's crumbling oil platforms and refineries in no time, in return for their fair share plus interests of the assets blatantly stolen by the Venezuelan government in the last decade:

They also elected the opposition to Congress and Maduro abolished it, so its pretty safe to say its a dictatorship.

So no, its not the voice of the people of Venezuela.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

Also we have long history of not intervening in Haiti going back to the French revolution. We and the British and the Spanish made a deal with the French to stay out of it and I don't think we've ever reversed course politically.

technically true
but we did have minor military intervention in the 90s, and the horribly corrupt humanitarian efforts after it's natural disaster not long ago.

 

[panamaican]

that actually makes sense, although i'm not sure to what degree we still get resources directly from Africa. I think that's why we don't do more humanitarian aide, the unstable governments don't exactly ensure it reaches the local populace. That's pretty much exactly why we went into Somalia in teh first place after first trying to help.

but we have some long lasting ties w/ some african nations, obviously Liberia in particular, yet we don't do much to help any of those nations. Surely having a somewhat stable democracy in lieu of a dictator would provide for a better business environment, presumably less corruption (i.e. more revenues actually reaching the pockets of the US), and better opportunities for Direct Foreign Investments. I mean think of the infrastructure projects alone....

I don't know. Despite the times I spend pointing out the long standing problems that came from colonial powers pitting local factions against each for the benefit of the colonial power, I also recognize the effectiveness of the strategy. Unstable local governments probably also means inconsistent enforcement of the law while is a great environment if you were inclined to bend the law profit.

 

[panamaican]

technically true
but we did have minor military intervention in the 90s, and the horribly corrupt humanitarian efforts after it's natural disaster not long ago.

True, I forgot about the 90's. We might give humanitarian aid but I was thinking more about government stability.

 

[HunterSdVa29]

I don't know. Despite the times I spend pointing out the long standing problems that came from colonial powers pitting local factions against each for the benefit of the colonial power, I also recognize the effectiveness of the strategy. Unstable local governments probably also means inconsistent enforcement of the law while is a great environment if you were inclined to bend the law profit.

i understand it even much more so in regards to the sunni/shia Islam split

people don't like to admit it, but there's a reason the Saudi royal family and Saddam Hussein were in power in the first place

 

[Arkain2K]

Maduro was democratically-elected by his people, as was his predecessor Hugo Chavez. To oppose him and his insane Socialist policies before his Presidential term is over is to oppose the Venezuelan people's decision to build their Chavismo utopia, don't you know?

They also elected the opposition to Congress and Maduro abolished it, so its pretty safe to say its a dictatorship.

So no, its not the voice of the people of Venezuela.

Oh, you'll get no disagreement from me there.

What's happening here is that innocent Venezuelan children are paying for the sins of their fathers and mothers.

You can't possibly put people who don't even bother to hide their extraordinary dictatorship qualities like Chavez, Maduro, and Erdogan into power, and then acting all surprised at the length they're willing to go to eliminate all oppositions, or ever want to leave their position of power.

I really feel for the young people in Venezuela, but if any of their parents telll me "Oh, I never thought Maduro would turn out to be a Dictator when I voted for him!", I'd laugh and walk away.

Maduro is not the voice of this Venezuelan generation who never voted for Chavismo. He and his government are the manifestation of the previous generation's stupidity, and it is their duty to fix their mistakes now before their children starves and salvage what's left of their crumbling country.

 

[Rod1]

Oh, you'll get no disagreement from me there.

Venezuelan children are paying for the sins for their fathers. You can't possibly put people who don't even bother to hide their extraordinary dictatorship qualities like Chavez, Maduro, and Erdogan into power, and then acting all surprised at the length they're willing to go to eliminate all oppositions.

I really feel for the young generation in Venezuela, but if any of their parents telll me "Oh, I never thought Maduro would turn out to be a Dictator when I voted for him!", I'd laugh and walk away.

Maduro is not the voice of this Venezuelan generation, what he is the manifestation of the previous generation's stupidity, and it is their duty to fix their mistakes now before their children starves.

Chavez outright lied about everything until he had supermajority and skyrocketing oil prices helped him economically achieve that.

If its the fault of anyone, its the fault of corrupt politicians that make such personalities like Chavez to get so much power in the first place by sowing a point where you get an "outsider" and claim, "whats the worst that could happen".

I mean, you guys elected Trump after all. The difference is that the institutions of America are far more solids than the institutions of Venezuela. That dreaded "deep state" that protects the people from themselves.

I could give you tons of interviews of early Chavez where he talked about supporting private property and claiming that statization is bad policy.

So either he lied through his teeth or he was brainwashed later on.

 

[Rod1]

Here is Chavez claiming that privatization is ridiculous and that the majority of the production of a country should be private, also claiming that the worst enemy of the economy are the monopolies that choke the economy.

 

[Arkain2K]

Chavez outright lied about everything until he had supermajority and skyrocketing oil prices helped him economically achieve that.

I could give you tons of interviews of early Chavez where he talked about supporting private property and claiming that statization is bad policy.

So either he lied through his teeth or he was brainwashed later on.

That's what fascinating about Maduro's rise to power.

The Venezuelan knows what Chavez was.

The Venezuelan saw all the things Chavez did to keep his seat, such as repeatedly attempting to eliminate Presidential terms limits all together.

Hugo Chávez Wins Removal of Term Limits
By Juan Forero, Washington Post Foreign Service | February 16, 2009

CARACAS, Venezuela - Fourteen months after his first attempt failed, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won a referendum Sunday to eliminate term limits, paving the way for him to rule far into the 21st century to carry out his socialist transformation of this oil-rich country.

With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Electoral Council announced Sunday night that the government had won handily, garnering more than 6 million votes, or 54.3 percent of the vote. Now in the third year of a six-year term, Chávez, 54, can run for office in 2012 and beyond, if he continues winning elections.

Fireworks went off across Caracas at news of the result, and supporters of the president flowed into the street to celebrate, blowing whistles and waving flags. Flanked by his top deputies and his grandchildren, Chávez addressed a crowd from a balcony at the Miraflores presidential palace.

"I asked you not to fail me, and that I would not fail you," Chávez said. "I knew that you would not fail me. I ratify to you that I will not fail you, the people of Venezuela, the hopes of the people."

He all but promised that he would campaign to be Venezuela's president when his current four-year term ends. What Chávez has been calling the "third cycle of the Bolivarian revolution" had its beginnings when he and other army officers plotted the overthrow of then-President Carlos Andrés Pérez. In 1992, he led a failed coup against Pérez. Chávez was jailed, but the assault -- and his words to the country in a brief televised interview -- brought him fame, and in 1998 he won the presidency by a landslide in an election that shattered Venezuela's long-ruling traditional parties.

"With this victory, we begin the third cycle of the Bolivarian revolution," he said Sunday night. "This soldier is a pre-candidate for the presidency of the republic" in the 2012 election.

In December 2007, in Chávez's first electoral defeat, voters rejected a broad constitutional amendment that would have expanded the president's powers. The cornerstone of that proposed change was a provision that would have eliminated term limits.

But Chávez was not daunted by that loss, and soon promised a way to reform the constitution so he could run once more when his second six-year term ends. He had to stage the referendum quickly, while his popularity remained high. Although polls showed a majority of Venezuelans supporting him, officials feared that the plummeting price of oil, coupled with serious problems like runaway crime, could chip at that backing.

Indeed, as he has done in the past, the president characterized the vote as a plebiscite on his rule.

Voters like Roberto Gonzalez, 19, a university student, agreed, saying Chávez needed to be allowed to extend his presidency if Venezuela were to be completely transformed. "I think it is very important he be permitted to run for a new term in 2012 to continue with the revolution that we are building in this country," he said.

The victory was a hard blow for the opposition, which failed to gain traction against Chávez even though its leaders hammered away at issues like the country's high murder rate and its serious economic problems. Opposition leaders quickly recognized the government's victory, while acknowledging the need to better articulate an alternative to the Chávez model.

"The struggle today is not between the government and the opposition," said Ismael García, an opposition lawmaker. "We have to plant, from today on, that in this country there is a different path."

Through 10 tumultuous years in office, Chávez has used Venezuela's oil wealth to launch myriad social programs -- from literacy classes and primary health-care programs to subsidized food markets -- that have helped millions. Indeed, government figures show that poverty has been cut in half -- and many poor Venezuelans praise Chávez for changing their lives.

The president, though, has also amassed overwhelming control over virtually every government institution. He has purged the Supreme Court of opponents, and all but a dozen of his allies hold seats in the National Assembly.

The outcome of Sunday's referendum was being closely watched outside the country as well.

With the price of oil rising steadily during much of his presidency, Chávez has supplied cut-rate oil to Caribbean nations, purchased hundreds of millions of dollars in Argentine debt and provided social aid of all kinds to poorer nations such as Bolivia. That, along with his verbal attacks against the United States, has made him one of Latin America's most important leaders, and perhaps the region's most visible.

The country that had the most riding on Chávez's victory is Cuba, which found in him a steady, loyal benefactor to replace the old Soviet Union. Venezuela provides 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil to Cuba daily, an important economic crutch for a Communist country with a long-stagnant economy.

"Our future is inseparable," Fidel Castro, who led Cuba until 2006, said in his regular column, reproduced in Cuba's state press.

"There is no alternative but victory," wrote Castro, who took power in 1959 and has been a mentor and friend to Chávez. "The destiny of the people of 'Our America' depends very much on this victory, and it will be an event that will influence the rest of the planet."

The vote was also being watched closely by the populist governments of a handful of small, poor countries that have forged close ties with Chávez: Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras and the island of Dominica. All of them, but particularly Bolivia, receive assistance or subsidized aid from Caracas. Even Colombia, a close ally of Washington that is politically at odds with Venezuela, had been studying events here.

The Obama administration also monitored the results.

Chávez thrived, winning followers worldwide by verbally assailing the Bush administration. Though Chávez recently said he felt Obama had the same "stench" as President Bush -- back in 2006, Chávez had called Bush the devil at the United Nations and said he smelled of sulfur -- in recent days he has expressed a willingness to patch up relations with Washington. The United States has worried about Chávez's new ties to countries such as Iran, which says that Israel should be erased from the map, and Obama recently raised concerns about the Venezuelan leader.

But those most discouraged by Chávez's win were the Venezuelans who believe he is taking the country on a dangerous path of authoritarianism. Though disorganized and lacking a single leader, the opposition had won the 2007 referendum and then captured key seats in municipal and state elections in November. Opposition leaders, though, were unable to marshal enough support for their cause on Sunday.

Among those who had voted against Chávez was Luigina Villano. "We voted a year ago and we said no," she said. "And here he is, back with the same proposal. We are tired of the same proposal, tired."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/15/AR2009021500136_2.html

The Venezuelan people KNOWS the only reason why they even have the chance to vote for a new President is because God decided to give Chavez cancer.

The Venezuelan people KNOWS Chavez taught Maduro everything he knows, and that he'll just pick up right where Chavez left off and press this Chavismo train full steam ahead towards the cliff.

The Venezuelan people voted for Maduro.

 

[Rod1]

That's what fascinating about Maduro's rise to power.

The Venezuelan knows what Chavez was.

The Venezuelan saw all the things Chavez did to keep his seat, such as repeatedly attempting to eliminate Presidential terms limits all together.

The Venezuelan people KNOWS the only reason why they even have the chance to vote for a new President is because God decided to give Chavez cancer.

The Venezuelan people KNOWS Chavez taught Maduro everything he knows, and that he'll just pick up right where Chavez left off and press this Chavismo train full steam ahead towards the cliff.

The Venezuelan people voted for Maduro.

The vast majority of Venezuelans associated Chavez with improving life conditions due to rising oil prices and redistributive policies.

Maduro also won by 1% and Venezuela was still growing thanks to high priced oil. I also doubt that Chavez would had let shit spiral out of control like Maduro is doing.

Chavez knew how to navigate the system, since he earned power, Maduro was a fucking bus driver.