Posted on 02/14/2007 6:55:52 PM PST by jazusamo
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez threatened Wednesday to nationalize any privately owned supermarkets and food storage facilities caught hoarding inventories or violating price controls imposed on basic goods.
Accusing private companies of hoarding beef and other foods, Chavez warned supermarket owners and distributors that he would nationalize their facilities as soon as they gave him "an excuse."
"If they remain committed to violating the interests of the people, the constitution, the laws, I'm going to take the food storage units, corner stores, supermarkets and nationalize them," Chavez said during a televised broadcast. "So prepare yourselves!"
Chavez has been intent on nationalizing "strategic" sectors of the economy since winning re-election in December. He has moved quickly to buy out private interests in leading electricity and phone companies since the National Assembly gave him authority to enact sweeping measures by decree and accelerate the country's socialist transformation.
Earlier this week the government signed deals to buy stakes in local companies owned by two U.S. corporations - Verizon Communications Inc and CMS Energy Corp. There are no major U.S. interests, however, involved in the supermarket or food storage business in Venezuela.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Chavez Ping
It's probably the people of Venezuela who are most threatened here.
The people have voted
Sell out of all food items and close the door and let him have it.
Is that a threat or a promise?
Good point, it'll happen and it won't stop with the supermarkets.
Chavez, king of the looters!
Any reeducation camps rumors yet?
The chain stores are selling these goods at higher than price control levels to black market traffickers who then sell to the public at an even higher price.
Commies never get it, do they.
It's like Liberal heaven down there. Unfortunately leftists are too stupid to learn any lessons from it.
Next we'll be seeing pictures of starving kids in Venezuela -- who will experience the same fate at that other confiscator of private property in Zimbabwe...
Semper Fi
Any different than hitlery wanting to nationalize health care and take away the profits of the energy companies.
No they don't. Those oil dollars are being stretched real thin and the people are going to suffer greatly because of this thug.
Now, let's compare an average supermarket in the West with, say, a suppermarket of the former Soviet Union. Whoops, no comparison. I feel sorry for the people of Venezuela, and Jimmy Carter screwed up again.
"Any reeducation camps rumors yet?"
Any assasssination rumors yet? I'm sorry, that was insensitive.
No we won't it'll be blocked out by our MSM while celebrities and left-wingers visit the "good" parts of Venezuela just like they do in Cuba now.
GW could take him in the later rounds, Chavez probably wouldn't answer the bell for the 7th or later givin' GW a TKO. :-)
PS: Chaves could take kerry.
He will also be making a South American/Caribbean NATO/Warsaw Pact-type military alliance bringing local militaries under his direction in the name of regional security.
Calculated incrementalism is hard to stop even when you see it coming from miles away.
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