<p>:But the top U.S. diplomat for Latin America, Thomas Shannon, said the law isn’t an issue for the United States. </p>
<p>“The enabling law isn’t anything new in Venezuela. It’s something valid under the constitution,” Tom Shannon, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, told reporters in Colombia. </p>
<p>“As with any tool of democracy, it depends how it is used,” he added. “At the end of the day, it’s not a question for the United States or for other countries, but for Venezuela.” </p>
<p>Chavez has requested special powers twice before, but for more modest legislative changes. </p>
<p>Chavez’s policies will, at best, be nothing more than unmasked populism. At worst, they will cause exchange rates to go up, kill the manufacturing sector, and cause Venezuela to suffer the worst case of Dutch disease in the region for decades.</p>
<p>Our news sources are so poor, it is difficult to get an objective view .</p>
<p>On domestic policy, it is my impression that most Venezuelans will benefit.</p>
<p>On world policy, it seems that he is overly provocative.</p>
<p>The U.S. always chooses a right wing dictatorship over a left wing democracy
(nationalization of resources). He has put food on the table for many of the poor.</p>
<p>Putting food on the table for the poor in the short term by using oil revenue does not develop long-term infrastructure, industry, and capital. It does not make Venezuela better off in the long term.</p>
<p>This is the problem with populist policies-- they make everyone feel warm and fuzzy because poor people benefit, but they often overlook the grim realities underlying the situation.</p>
<p>Our news sources are remarkably robust, and our understanding of the economic effects of resource exports is pretty good. I keep saying this, but it’s getting ignored: Dutch disease is BAD.</p>
Well said: Like a bit of brandy when lost in the deep snow–a flush of warmth followed shortly upon by a cold death; it merely exacerbates an already desperate situation…the cure is to find your way back to civilization: in both cases.</p>
<p>The pity of Chavez’s rule is that it’s all being done democratically. Unlike Hussein in Iraq, we can’t even step in and say, “Hey, stop that! We don’t like dictatorships!” We just get to stand by and watch the nincompoop fetter away the country’s resources in order to strengthen his cult of personality.</p>
<p>I have yet to see any evidence that he’s doing anything truly long-term with the money. And considering that UN economic stats suggest that export manufacturing is dropping (and has been for years), and Norway-esque prescription to the ailments of Dutch disease doesn’t seem to be on the Chavez’s regimes to-do list.</p>
<p>But the “champions of the poor” will continue to trumpet his “successes,” all the while ignoring the fact that there is a 5, 10, and even 50 year future that may be jeopardized by the policies.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the kids are going to school and getting an education. Domestic workers are feeding their families. Mothers can take care of their children. Farmers are staying on their land. Infant mortality rate has declined 20%. Why, it’s positively unAmerican!</p>
<p>Forget 50 years from now. In 50 years, most of us will be dead.</p>
<p>“Putting food on the table for the poor in the short term by using oil revenue does not develop long-term infrastructure, industry, and capital. It does not make Venezuela better off in the long term.”</p>
<p>You know it’s hard to think of tomorrow when you haven’t eaten today.</p>
<p>This is not to attack you personally or anyone else here. I think we all have to understand our POV are skewed because most of us aren’t living in poverty. It’s easy to criticize the policies when the hardest choice is to choose the steak or fish for dinner. Again this is a generalization, not personal.</p>
<p>We don’t understand the world and the world doesn’t understand us. </p>
<p>Growing up on the Government Cheese and having a childhood with evictions and being hungry at night, I can understand what they are trying to do. I was the kid your donations sent to camp. When you’re poor you don’t think of vacations, retirement, rental income, positive cash flow. You think where will my food come from today? </p>
<p>You have to deal with the short term before you can consider the long. </p>
<p>Again this is not a personal attack on any poster here. It’s a general comment, don’t take it personal. It’s like men talking about pregnancy, we can talk about it, but we don’t know what it feels like. Going to bed hungry, not because your dieting, but because there’s no money for food, you understand what’s being attempted.</p>
<p>UCLARI, would you rather live in a country with the most productive economy were only 60 percent of the country has basic subsistence, or a country with the 30th most productive economy, but everyone has the basic subsistenence?</p>
<p>The problem with Ari and others who advocate these neoliberal economic policies is that they don’t understand globalization as it occurs right now and what some strong leaders are trying to do.</p>
<p>" I don’t know of anyone opposed to globalization – that is, international integration, economic and otherwise - except, perhaps, for some dedicated hermits.</p>
<p>So, at some level, workers and companies agree: everyone favours globalization, in the technical sense of the word, not the doctrinal sense that has been appropriated by advocates of the investor-rights style of integration that is built into the so-called “free trade agreements,” with their complex mixture of liberalization, protectionism, and undermining of popular democratic control over policy. </p>
<p>Globalization that does not prioritize the rights of people will very likely degenerate into a form of tyranny, perhaps oligarchic and oligopolistic, based on concentrations of tightly-linked state-private power, largely unaccountable to the public."</p>
<pre><code> ___The most cited intellectual, Noam Chomsky
^ Poison to the ears of those who advocate terrorist economic policies
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m not anti-poor. I’m anti-populist.</p>
<p>You don’t need populist policies to develop a country. If anything, import substitution and populism’s continued past failures should demonstrate to us that they’re not viable economic development models.</p>
<p>Feeding the poor is all well and good, but what happens when the resource runs out? Look at the Netherlands.</p>
<p>Globalism has its thorns (“the race to the bottom” is a potential example), but this isn’t about globalism. It’s about understanding that relying on petrodollars to fuel and theoretically grow an economy past the need for economic doles is key.</p>
<p>By the way, ad hominems are logical fallacies.</p>
<p>“” I don’t know of anyone opposed to globalization – that is, international integration, economic and otherwise - except, perhaps, for some dedicated hermits."</p>
<p>Not a hermit. Waving my hands wildly. I have seen and documented the effects firsthand. I’m caring for 240 children of migrant laborers, kicked off the land they had farmed for centuries by multinational corporations, with funds from the World Bank; and in 7-10 years, the land is gray, cracked chemical waste.</p>
<p>I invite anyone out there who is interested to accompany me on my next trip. Or better, see for yourself. I will PERSONALLY see to your housing and food while you are there. I mean that quite literally. Any takers?</p>
<p>I was being sardonic. Had Chavez been an autark or dictator, the UN or World Bank might have punished his policies. However, because he’s a populist democrat (for now, at least), they’ll simply let him do what he pleases.</p>
<p>“or World Bank might have punished his policies”</p>
<p>Until assassinated.</p>
<p>Let’s let the people of Venezuela vote - Wolfowitz or Chavez (last I heard, the former - a graduate school classmate of mine - never got elected dogcatcher.)</p>
<p>So let’s say that Chavez continues to spend all the petrodollars. Since he’s not doing much to control for the exchange rate, it will kill manufacturing and the export market. You’re pretty clever, and I assume you know what Dutch disease will likely do to a developing economy.</p>
<p>"You don’t need populist policies to develop a country. If anything, import substitution and populism’s continued past failures should demonstrate to us that they’re not viable economic development models’</p>
<p>the problem though is everyone sees the other guy’s mistake as something that won’t happen to them, cause they’ll do it better. </p>
<p>Ask any one who is pushing Nationalized Health Care as “the solution”, they see the problems that exist in countries that have that system and ignore their problems because “we’ll do it better” than xyz (country). </p>
<p>So even if Chavez has seen it fail elsewhere, he’ll still try it, cause “he’ll do it different” than the last guy. Almost American in that determination.</p>
<p>Actually, what will happen is he will have an educated citizenry. Costs of medical care and social services will go down. Pregnancy rate will decline radically, as will infant mortality. Small business sector will flourish. Farmers will stay on their land, and migration to the cities will decline. Economic activity among Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, and Ecuador will increase. </p>
<p>The fly in the ointment is military expenditures. He has to - to defend himself. He knows the history of Chile, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador.</p>
<p>My invitation is still open. I’ll even throw in transportation from the Chennai Airport.</p>
<p>Economic activity to other countries cannot increase if the exchange rate increases. The other countries will look elsewhere for cheaper goods. That’s the very problem with resource based economies!</p>
<p>I mean, if Japan hadn’t kept the Yen down, do you really think their export economy would have worked?</p>
</p>