Chavez: Will nationalize telecoms, power

Yahoo! News ^ | 1/7/01 | IAN JAMES, AP

[Riflema]

CARACAS, Venezuela - President Hugo Chavez announced plans Monday to nationalize Venezuela's electrical and telecommunications companies, pledging to create a socialist state in a bold move with echoes of Fidel Castro's Cuban revolution.

"We're moving toward a socialist republic of Venezuela..."

[Riflema]

I give it 5 years before we hear about the "rolling blackouts", "lack of investment in essential infrastructure"...

[LibKill]

Why anyone thinks that socialism will work is beyond me.

I have more faith in the tooth fairy.

[Shermy]

"Why anyone thinks that socialism will work is beyond me"

It provides Chavez a ideological pretext for dictatorship.

[Virulas]

It is democracy of a sort, in that the majority essentially voted themselves money out of the treasury.

Alexander Fraser Tytler: "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship." -1776

[muir_redwoods]

Price controls, nationalizing industries and all the other hallmarks of socialism will lead inexorably to Chaves' head on a spike within 5 years.

One more pipsqueak, tin-horn dictator in Latin America, Ho hum, haven't we seen this before?

[GAB-1955]

And after Venezuela is wrecked, then the free-market reforms are going to lead to street protests and cries from the campesinos "We were left behind!"

[MaDeuce]

You folks notice how the AP wrote the story? Not one mention about the disasters of nationalizing industry and socialism. The statemtment about Cuba nationalizing its industries in 1959 went without a comment about what it did to the country and the poverty and oppression it produced.

Someone reading this story with the accompanying photos of the dictator-to-be, not knowing anything about history, would think that nationalizing industry was a good thing! Nice going AP.

[jordan8]

Note to self - invest in Venezualan candle factory.

[Mike Darancette]

Soon they will be able to drive fine automobiles like the Cubans.

[alrea]

Perhaps if we nationalize Microsoft we can feed a few more million attorneys.