Viva Venezuela!

hipshot

Ballysmate wrote:

Vote Wolfie!!
Power to the Peeeeeeeeeeeeopie

Someone's just got back from the pub.

ballysmate

Just an ardent supporter of The Tooting Popular Front

MaxwellBygraves

Jaw nearly hit the floor when I read this paragraph in a (apparently serious) report from Associated Press on the death of Chavez:

Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world's tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

Where do they find these people?!

verylonglegs

MaxwellBygraves wrote:

Jaw nearly hit the floor when I read this paragraph in a (apparently serious) report from Associated Press on the death of Chavez:

Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world's tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi.

Where do they find these people?!

Actually the answer, as in most cases, lies somewhere between the two. Using national wealth to pay for short-term gain like cash benefits and food markets or prop up a lean period economic-wise (the UK?) is great until that wealth source runs out, then it turns out you've blown a decent asset. Investing it for the future is entirely sensible but it's questionable if that means gauche holiday destinations with faux character. Norway is the middle answer is it not? They seem to have managed their oil wealth fairly sensibly.

Cleat Eastwood

reeks of cia disinfo.

heres a pert response to her report

"That's right: Chavez squandered his nation's oil money on healthcare, education and nutrition when he could have been building the world's tallest building or his own branch of the Louvre. What kind of monster has priorities like that?

Souce: NACLA's Keane Bhatt
In case you're curious about what kind of results this kooky agenda had, here's a chart (NACLA, 10/8/12) based on World Bank poverty stats–showing the proportion of Venezuelans living on less than $2 a day falling from 35 percent to 13 percent over three years. (For comparison purposes, there's a similar stat for Brazil, which made substantial but less dramatic progress against poverty over the same time period.)
Of course, during this time, the number of Venezuelans living in the world's tallest building went from 0 percent to 0 percent, while the number of copies of the Mona Lisa remained flat, at none. So you have to say that Chavez's presidency was overall pretty disappointing–at least by AP's standards."

EKIMIKE

verylonglegs wrote:

Using national wealth to pay for short-term gain like cash benefits and food markets or prop up a lean period economic-wise (the UK?) is great until that wealth source runs out, then it turns out you've blown a decent asset. Investing it for the future is entirely sensible but it's questionable if that means gauche holiday destinations with faux character. Norway is the middle answer is it not? They seem to have managed their oil wealth fairly sensibly.

Well said.