9.7.09
My goodness, when you decide to act a little too late, it just may be too late. I was reading this short note on Venezuelan protests against the government (against? wow) in the Wall Street Journal:
It seems there is a new rule regarding education, which people are concerned could “indoctrinate” students. And many Venezuelans don’t like it, and apparently, political opposition leaders were arrested recently for some protests that reportedly turned violent.
Now, I don’t know much about the day to day activities in the political spectrum of Venezuela, but I will say that these protests may be a bit too late (I hope not).
Chavez swept to power with his promises to bring the poor to higher living standards promising education, infrastructure improvements, and other benefits to the many who live in the slums. And he began to do that – gaining favor from many voters with the increased social spending. But where did all this money come from? Chavez in part, nationalized many industries, chief among them, their prosperous oil industry. Now I’m sure some of you socialists reading this gave a good Che’ cheer, but let’s talk about what happened after.
He spends all of the oil profits on social services after effectively stealing those oil assets from private companies. He spends all the profits, and according to many analysts, reinvests nothing in the national oil company so that production has been declining. In addition, with oil prices half of what they were a year ago, his revenues are much lower.
He can not afford all the “financial crack” as I called it in an article last year (use search box to see my past articles on the “illustrious Chavez” and his performance in Venezuela). So now he’s short on money. All along, he has also been cracking down on opposition by closing radio and TV stations that oppose him, arresting opposition leaders, and trying to make his position PERMANENT.
Which brings this lesson home – I have been spending more time on my blog over the last few months discussing health care control by the government, the over reaching Federal Reserve, free speech issues etc – if we let government officials (who seem to have lifetime appointments here too) control our lives, one day we will wake up with no freedoms.
In Venezuela, the people might find it’s too late – many opposition leaders are in jail, success is punished in order to provide for “the people,” votes are bought indirectly with government handouts (are you going to vote against your [sugar] daddy?), the hard workers will likely have no choice but to leave the country if things don’t change. And this is just what you want right? The hard workers “doers” leaving your country? Folks, how do you think America became so great? By stealing talent from countries with poor policy like Venezuela. If America pursues policies that punish success, then we will lose talent to Sydney, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, and New Zealand. This is starting to happen in the UK – they recently raised the top tax rate to over 50% (who the heck would work to give more than half to government buffoons? Seriously, put yourself in their position- would you stay?). Many are moving to Switzerland. UK will in a few years, no longer be the financial hub it was recently (China is also setting up a gold exchange in Shanghai and shipping all their gold from London to Shanghai – hello western world).
We have lots of things to learn from the examples of other countries. Our country was founded (I think for many reasons) on the fact that some people wanted to be independent. Interestingly, our present government is behaving a lot like Parliament during our Colonial period – looking to increase taxes, adding to government payrolls (colonists could not stand all of the idle British government officials their taxes paid for in the colonies), regulating and trying to control more and more of people’s lives.
If you are going to speak up and get involved, now would be a good time.
Chris Grande
