The big news item coming out of Venezuela on December 3 was not President Hugo Chávez’ reelection, but his wide margin of victory. With 62 percent of the vote—the largest ever for Chávez—the former coup leader is stronger than at any time during his eight years in power. Conversely, the opposition has reached an all-time low, losing in all 23… return to article
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Reader Comments (195)Redhorse, did you call me a coon again ? Or are you watching too many cartoon shows, please clarify.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 8, 2007 at 4:07 PM Arpie, spare us your white guilt rap. Another verbiage laden piss poor writer that couldn’t locate his own pecker in a game of pocket pool.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 8, 2007 at 4:10 PM ‘ TOON........’ TOON.......’ TOON......Yu are a ‘ toon....
Obviously basic logic , confuses the multi-personalitied....socio-pathic one known as the prepHJerky / blindemikey / Micheal Hardesty....etc....? ? ?
Yu signifying pocket-puddle fool.....................
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 8, 2007 at 5:33 PM Jay-Jay,
We may well be talking past each other here.
There are two statistical arguments H/R makes. One is a comparison of Si votes to recall registration and then comparing that to the audited precincts, and one is based on assumptions of voter preference. It appears you are refering to the former.
The problem with the first is that the results from the audit would be different from the election, given the assumptions of H/R:
“To give an example, suppose that out of the 4,580 automated precincts used in the election, 3,000
precincts were altered but the rest were not. Let us further suppose that the unaltered 1,580 precincts were
picked at random. This implies that they would represent a balanced sample of the country from a regional
and social point of view...It is critical that the
selection be made among the 1,580 un-tampered precincts and not among the 3,000 tampered ones.” H/R pp. 28-29.This would mean the audited samples, if chosen from the unaltered precincts and if they also represented a balanced sample (whether they were chosen randomly or not), which they do and they would have to in order to disguise the alleged fraud, would necessarily reflect some result significantly different from the totality of the election results. They don’t.
The kicker is that the independent panel of statisticians engaged by the Carter Center, reproduced the H/R regression with data recieved from Sumate which were slightly different from the data sets used by H/R and the 10.5% variance disappeared. [See p. 133 of the Carter Center final report.]
Although the Carter Center is much more charitable in their conclusions the only logical conclusion I can see is that H/R fudged their data sets to agree with their results.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 8, 2007 at 5:44 PM Redhorse, you are the most inarticulate, incoherent person I know.
Did you even attend elementary school ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 8, 2007 at 5:59 PM Thank you Hardesty............................
I feel yu are quite the ostentatious idiot.....with your thrice....dementia prae-cox personalities.....
Is Nina waxin’ all three of your sockpuppets.......?
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 8, 2007 at 7:22 PM However, one of the most pervasive arguments made against anti-Chavez rhetoric, is that the Venezuelan media is completely controlled by the opposition.
Jay Cline on Jan 8, 2007 at 4:02 PM
This quite goes beyond hyperbole and distortion to border on an outright lie, Jay-Jay. No one I’ve ever heard is arguing that the Venezuelan media is completely controlled by the opposition. Only that the corporate and privately owned commercial mass media (TV and radio) is dominated by the opposition.
Another strawman up in flames.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 8, 2007 at 7:30 PM Jay-would really appreciate an answer to my question about you being the Jay Cline at MPC. If yes, you would be one person that surely wouldnt need to worry your activity online biting him.
LB has already pointed out where your statement about all the media being controlled by the opposition was a misinterpretation. Turns out my daughter has a documentary video-The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, done by a crew that went down there to do a piece about Venezuela and were at the Presidential Palace filming all through the coup. As the title suggests, all the major stations failed to cover what was going on in the streets except the 1 government station. It was also disabled for a while, until military loyal to Chavez freed it. You really should try and find a copy of that DVD. Amazon?
Regarding my being an expert here or anywhere else on Venezuela, I have only been there twice, the longest stay just 2 months. Most of what I know about the country is as with all others I have spent time in; from books. I surely got far more insight into Colombia from Garcia Marquez then from the year and a half I spent in country.
What I would like to read is your expiations on the potential for manipulation of the electronic voting systems right here in the U.S. If you have already done so in another forum or venue, let me know. It would seem apropos, given the current poll on this site. Continue to enjoy your debate with LB, and might I suggest you address this user as such and bet he/she will respond in kind. You must admit the tone of our dialectic is only undermined by allowing it to be influenced by those engaging in childish behavior around us.
Arpie
Posted by recursive prophet on Jan 8, 2007 at 9:19 PM “The first variable we use is the number of registered voters in each precinct that signed the recall petition in November, 2003.... Therefore, it is very telling that in the precincts where the Penn, Schoen and Berland exit poll makes bigger mistakes is also where the number of petitioners suggests that the Yes votes would be higher.”
The voter registration statistics were created by Sumate, who,
get this,
were paid with an NED grant, to organize the petition drive.
The Penn, Schoen and Berland exit poll was funded by a NED grant to,
get this,
finance and train Sumate ‘volunteers’ to conduct said poll.
By all accounts Sumate conducted said poll with mistakes you could drive a truck through.
Plenty to hide a host of sins as my old perfesser used to say.
In conclusion; having direct control over two out of three independent variables ain’t bad.
Last but not least,
get this,
Sumate paid Hausmann and Rigobon to produce their study. With money they raised themselves, apparently.
Now, I’m not sayin’ that any such coincidental sequence of events would constitute statistical proof of fraud, but it certainly doesn’t provide proof of innocence, does it?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 8, 2007 at 9:39 PM “You must admit the tone of our dialectic is only undermined by allowing it to be influenced by those engaging in childish behavior around us.”
--Arpie
The totality of my research into trollishness can probability-wise be summarized with the following verse:
Dear friends who live under bridges
With prim’tive occipetal ridges.
Your juvenile jibes
And snide snarky vibes
Are less than the bites of small midges.
I can’t say I wrote it with just Jay Cline in mind, but, in spite of himself, his behavior is better even than the last time we chatted. Perhaps that Panda proposal is bearing fruit. In present company, Jay isn’t even a troll at all.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 8, 2007 at 10:21 PM Luminous Beauty, I remember your verse.
I have always maintained that my old friend Jay is not a troll.
Here is my drunken poet impersonation (winkwinknudgenudge) for tonight ....
I went out there,
the places I have been
and things I have seen.Throngs of trolls,
thick in the thicket,
missing the mark,
snarl and snark,
snarl, snarl,
snark.I came back here,
after things I had been
and places I have seen.But there is fruit in the thicket, tonight ...
Posted by David in Canuckistan on Jan 8, 2007 at 11:30 PM LB-do you happen to know if Jay is THE Jay Cline? If so, he might well be looking at you as you type with the new Google Alpha Satellite. (Joking of course) Feel guilty about calling him a troll. I clicked the link I believe the Major posted on the wiki-terminology for such, and had thought a troll was someone with a contrary viewpoint to those a site was established to serve. So, unless you know things I dont about anyone contending he is employing sockpuppets here, any troll assignation would seem inaccurate at best. If he does in fact have a hand in the sites most notorious/disruptive troll, his game is deep indeed. I really doubt this is the case.
Jay has a detailed knowledge of IT and some of statistics, but this doesnt mean he cant be easily misled by an erroneous data trail. Ever read James Randi? Skeptic Magazine? Once again let me say how much I enjoy your meticulous attention to detail in your debate with JC. I only wish the effect of the real trolls here were small as midges, but so many respond to their bating.
I believe those like Jay that have any reasonable case to make should be not just welcome but prized on this site. Before we can effectively counter-spin, we need to see which way the opposition are spinning the larger truth. Wouldnt you love to have Carl Rove posting here? I have attained some excellent debate points from your dialogue with JC. I doubt I would have learned as much from just reading an article about it, which would have inevitably contained some bias. Thanks, and do keep those replies coming. And dont let JC-or Jay-take the high ground. Be gracious. The facts are on our side-we can afford to be.
Arpie
Posted by recursive prophet on Jan 8, 2007 at 11:31 PM Hello Arpie (aka. Recursive Prophet),
Does that mean you swear a lot or have nice handwriting?
Just kidding!I have wondered if this Jay Cline is that Jay Cline.
Jay ? Sorry if it seems like prying.I believe those like Jay that have any reasonable case to make should be not just welcome but prized on this site.
Yea, speak on brother [or sister].
Be gracious.
And heap coals on their heads.
Forever and ever, Amen ...(Forgive me Lord, for I have sinned.
Again, just kidding! Mostly!?)
Posted by David in Canuckistan on Jan 8, 2007 at 11:55 PM Arpie,
My sockpuppet crack at Jay was a little inside joke, just between us. I don’t think he is pulling the strings on the notorious triad, but it has crossed my mind.
I don’t know if our Jay-Jay is ‘the’ Jay Cline, but I sometimes do have strange things happen to my computer when we’re going at it. Hmmm?
There was a character on here awhile ago, going by the name of Jack Barnes with a lot of sockpuppets before ITT made it more difficult to post under multiple names. He shared a lot of characteristics with this current crop. Gratuitous personal attacks. Disjointed grammar. Name dropping self-importance.
You might of heard of a Jack Barnes as the somewhat controversial head of the SWP. Maybe not. A left-wing liability if ever there was.
A bit of a pattern there. Identity theft? Dis-info? Psy-ops? A recurrent form of insanity? Life is full of mystery.
Unfortunately, we’re all more easily misled by error when it is in ageement with what we already believe. The curse of being human, all too human.
The Great Randi And His Psicop Cynics? I love to tweak their noses when I can. I like my skeptics to have a little humility and sense of irony. More like Vonnegut and Asimov. Or Voltaire.
OK, not so much humility.
I’m a little prone to letting my wit serve as a weapon more than a balm, sometimes, I admit. Fortunately I am blessed with angels I can often depend on to give me a gentle hint when I cross the line.
Speaking of which,
David, are you lurking on the Spychopath Who Loved Me thread? I feel I’m having a bit of a breakthrough with our good friend, scorpy. Let me know what you think.
I think I might have posted this verse from that old master nudger and winker before:
Sit down, be quiet and listen.
You’re drunk!
And we are at
The roof’s edge.I like it a lot.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 2:02 AM David,
I took ‘recursive prophet’ to mean something like,
Always just half-way to paradise.
So near, yet so far away.Must be all this talk about statistical regressions that got me.
I like your take, too.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 2:21 AM starboy,
Unfortunately, you are misquoting again. The Carter Center merely claimed that the deviation was not as “robust” as they would like and attributes the statistical discrepancy to some other theoretical causes, causes they do not elucidate, which in itself is a tacit acknowledgement that there is a discrepancy. Maybe if we opened up the data from the other 99% of precincts, we might actually get to the bone of it all.
This is no different than CERP asserting that the mistakes they allege in H/R’s analysis to most likely stem from a misspecification in their (H/R’s) econometric model without actually identifying it. Of course, as we have discovered, CERP’s misspecification is actually a misinterpretation of assumptions on CERP’s part.
You a Dallas Cowboy’s fan? You have thus far thrown five Hail Mary’s into a Shotgun formation and have come up short every time. Maybe your quarterback needs to be told which way to throw the football....
Posted by Jay Cline on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:41 AM Fortunately I am blessed with angels ...
Luminous Beauty, thanks, you are too kind. Halo or horns ... I try to do my best.
Yes, I have seen the discussion with Scorpy. It is nice to see a more personal side of him and hear his story.Barky, it is always entertaining. Not to sure about the quality sometimes.
Posted by David in Canuckistan on Jan 9, 2007 at 8:41 AM Actually, I wasn’t quoting, Jay-Jay.
Another indice of your reading comprehension skills.
But I will now, since you’ve again shown yourself to be such a poor reader:
“A pure Súmate regression (using Súmate’s Yes, audit, and signature
data) does not result in an estimated coefficient
on the key variable that is statistically different from
zero and thus presents no evidence of fraud under the
Hausmann and Rigobon assumptions.”P. 131 CCFR
“A regression analysis showing that the audited
sample behaves slightly differently than the total universe
of votes proves to be dependent on the 2003
petition signature data, and that result was not robust
under small changes in that data.”P. 133 CCFR
If you believe ‘not… significantly different from zero’ and ‘not robust’ means ‘significant’, you are welcome to your opinion. You are free to believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, too. But don’t be fooled into thinking you are impressing anyone with your expertise in statistics.
The signature data, as I have already pointed out, is Sumate’s own data and is quite different from the official CNE lists. It is known to be full of non-qualified persons, dead people, double signatures, completely fictive entities and other assorted statistical anomalies, which would make one think it might not be entirely useful for rigorous analysis in the first place, don’t you think?
The Carter Center does elucidate causes elsewhere in their very, very comprehensive report. However, I’ll just leave that as something for me to know, and for you to find out.
“This is no different than CERP asserting that the mistakes they allege in H/R’s analysis to most likely stem from a misspecification in their (H/R’s) econometric model without actually identifying it.”
Since there is, mathematically, an infinite universe of possible specifications for a constant, even within narrow parameters, there really isn’t much need to identify just one, is there? All CPER has to show is that H/R specified a less than rigorous value, from the universe of all likely values, that predetermined agreement with their conclusions. What I believe is called in the trade, a tautology. Since circular reasoning, though skewed in a Mobius fashion, seems to be your forté, it isn’t all that surprizing that you can’t recognize it when you see it.
The CPER discovered a major and damning non-sequitor in H/R’s assumptions, which I have outlined and quoted above, more than once, and you have yet to address. I know you’re not a total idiot, so what are your reasons for ignoring it? It couldn’t be because you can’t refute it, could it?
You’re batting well below the Mendoza line, Jay-Jay. You might not even be on the Interstate. If I could be bothered to compute your batting average, it would probably show you are batting Bingo. Are you a Cubs fan?
(Bye the bye, if one were to be throwing ‘Hail Marys’, it would most likely be ‘from’ a ‘shotgun formation’. Throwing ‘into’ a ‘shotgun formation’ would be one crazy game of football. But that’s our Jay-Jay. Making a mockery of common sense, day in, day out. You are so consistently inconsistent one could set one’s watch by you. Twice in every 24 hours.)
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 10:26 AM Redhorse, I’m NOT “Hardesty” whoever that may be. And I do not know any Ninas.
As for the rest of this insane dialogue all of you are crazy as mad hatters, you forget your original purpose but have redoubled your aims and all your multiple pissing keeps missing the pot.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 12:40 PM ...Talk about your inarticulate , garbled responses......
Posted by Redhorse on Jan 9, 2007 at 12:52 PM Your projecting again, horse. A person with normal intelligence or better will find my posts quite articulate. An ebonics major will be havin’ difficulty de language.........................so sorry, bro.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 1:00 PM No, not a tea drinker, David. And you need to go easy on the LSD.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 1:15 PM What is your drug of choice, Jack?
Are you following in the footsteps of your mentor, Methamphetamine Aynnie?
It would explain a lot.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 1:51 PM Don’t believe everything you read from the discredited Brandens, LB.
Actually, don’t believe anything you read from the Brandens.
Sex is my drug of choice.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 2:41 PM Redhorse, just kicked David’s ass (aka “Eric Blair") over on the Caracas thread. Your slimey butt gets a mention too.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 3:18 PM LB-"I don’t know if our Jay-Jay is ‘the’ Jay Cline, but I sometimes do have strange things happen to my computer when we’re going at it. Hmmm?”
That’s a rather paranoid reaction to what was most likely just a coincidence, and I bet it goes right into your file. Loved your quote-Rajneesh, was it? So much catching up to do and I even misread the Tracy/Hepburn role play you and Jay have got going on. You kids!
Amazed by your link-thanks for posting it. Would have never thought to check that article, and wish there was a way to go directly to all the replies of selected users here. Like David. And yes, Dave, I keep re-cursing the same damn prophets with a pure cursive script that then folds back into a recursive loop like one of Bach’s fugues or Escher’s prints. And like an object lingering in the vision to those just outside the event threshold of a black hole, “so near, yet so far away.”
I like the implications/contradictions in the RP moniker so much I broke my own rule and used it on more than 1 site. And then of course Arpie has it’s own significance beyond being a homonym for the initials. The problem with understanding recursion is that you must first comprehend the dimensions of recursivity. It’s mostly about numbers.
Much reading to do now in the archives, and hope the progress of the Chavez Administration is followed in future with new ITT articles. I think at this point so goes Venezuela so goes the southern portion of the hemisphere. Hope LB soon turns those formidable analytical skills on responding to the onslaught that will come from the right now that Chavez is actually doing just what he promised during the election. They’re not used to politicians doing that. Given the history of Bush and his petro-pals policy in the region, he is wise to take steps to consolidate his authority. Sadly, I believe the poor of Venezuela owe their new found freedom/hope more to the Iraqis then to Chavez.
Arpie
Posted by recursive prophet on Jan 9, 2007 at 3:27 PM Jack,
Don’t believe the Brandens. Don’t read the Brandens. I never heard of the Brandens until you brought them up.
I outgrew Ayn Rand and her circle jerk of sycophants before I was 14. I couldn’t care less about any of them.
“Sex is my drug of choice.”
That’ll put hair on your palms.
(Just kidding, dude.)
What explanation for your painfully obvious arrested development do you have?
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 9, 2007 at 3:28 PM To answer your rhetorical question, none because none is required since you are the princess of “arrested development” (when were you first arrested ?) and as far as Rand obviously you were too retarded at age 54 to understand her. So tell me about your circle jerk group ?
David’s in it but what about Redhorse, surely you draw the line at old farts that smell like goats ? Don’t you ?
PS Your lying about the Brandens.......
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 9, 2007 at 7:39 PM On Yahoo ! see today’s story on wannabe Commie dictator Chavez by Thomas Catan of The Christian Science Monitor.
First, nationalization of several companies so his fellow comrade looters can seize control of the economy.
Second, the license revocation of RCTV, the oldest TV station and an opponent of his plans.
Third, the purge of his cabinet to stack them with fellow Commies
mislabeled “radicals.”
Fourth, a plan to bring all NGO’s under the control of the government.
Fifth, a blacklist of 3.5 million people whom he feels are enemies
and the purge of them from government jobs.
Sixth, the savage denunciation by Chavez of the respected head of the OAS for calling attention to his increasing dictatorial power grab.
Seventh, AP reports today that Chavez is trying to repeal any term limits for President so he can be President for life. Gee, libbies, sound familiar ?
Eighth, every Chavez speech ends with “socialism or death” a la big amigo Fidel.Same totalitarian pattern as under Goulart, Arbenz, Castro (his idol),
Ortega, Noreiga, Bosch, Allende, Sukarno, Nehru, Mao, Torrijos, etc.
Time for Bush to get out of Iraq, ship the neocons on a one way boat
to Tel Aviv and start paying attention to South America.How many times does this scenario have to repeat itself before our gooney faced, braindead libs wake up ?
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 10, 2007 at 11:09 AM Jack,
Some of us recognise the need for open and on-goingly apperceptive communication between persons with an interest in cultivating and developing an open-ended, evolving and therefore expansive and increasingly comprehensive imagining, remembering and understanding of the world and our place in it. This requires a certain commitment to respect the opinions of others. A commitment to try to imagine and understand those opinions through the lens of those other persons’ particularly individualized imagination, reason, and memory. By communicating in an atmosphere of mutual respect, we collectively establish the intent of growing, expanding and evolving beyond conventional delimitations, thereby ensuring our eventual individual and collective liberation.
The apt sexual metaphor for this would be; loving and tender, mutually satisfying intercourse of the most mind-blowing intensity.
A circle jerk, by contrast, implies a group of individuals sharing an identical set of opinions, each contributing their own self-satisfying masturbatory affirmations of the group mind
There is and there will always be a place at the table for you and Redhorse, Jay Cline, scorp, anyone and everyone else who may or may yet awaken to the limitless potential of engaging in mutually beneficial dialogue.
It is your free choice.
You are intrinsically potentially free, but to make freedom actually real you must necessarily make an heroic effort. An effort not only to make it your own reality, but to generously grant others that unconstrained potential.
Heroic, because navigating against the current of the dichotomizing delimitations and presumptions of conventional thought and opinion is hard, difficult, and fraught with unseen obstacles and dangers.
Heroic, because you must make the effort yourself, beyond all aid and support that others may offer.
Heroic, because what heroes receive is just what they give.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------
The fore-going ‘psychobabble’ and ‘wordsalad’ is offered free of charge with no strings attached.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 10, 2007 at 1:35 PM Jack,
You are exhibiting a knee-jerk reaction to alarmist and one-sided reactions to Chavez’ proposals as if they were already in place.
You should google ‘socialism for the 21st century’. Read and digest various points of view, then come back and explain how it is just a reiteration and regurgitation of what has happened in the past.
What will happen in Venezuela? Chavez has put forth a bold program. What powers the people and the legislature and the courts will grant him remain to be seen.
Posted by luminous beauty on Jan 10, 2007 at 2:00 PM He is currently revoking the license of the major TV station that has displeased him. He is currently seeking to amend the constitution to provide for no term limits on his rule. He is currently savagely denouncing the head of the OAS for daring to question his power grabbing. He is currently trying to bring NGO’s under government thumb. He has currently begun a program of nationalization. He is
currently purging his cabinet to get hardcore advocates of state socialism only in there. Many people seem to think that he is currently purging the government rolls of enemies although this hasn’t been as firmly established as the other items listed. Please feel free to check out the two stories on yahoo from the CS Monitor and today’s AP if you think I missed anything in the translation.
The other accounts that I saw in today’s NY Times and Washington Post were similar.
I’ve read enough history for enough to recognize a pattern when I see one.
Thanks for your other email, I’ll reread it again when I have more time.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 10, 2007 at 3:25 PM We should all do everything possible to make sure that the CIA doesn’t intervene in Venezuela like was done in Chile with Salvador Allende.
Check out my blog:
http://thepodunkblog.blogspot.com/
Posted by alanmaki on Jan 10, 2007 at 4:35 PM Venezuela is much more important to the world economy than Chile ever was even with Anaconda. Better pray the W moron keeps getting tied up in the Middle East then.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 10, 2007 at 5:36 PM Don’t worry, Comrades, the Boy Moron’s going to invade Iran & Syria next, no time for South America.
Posted by hawaii jack on Jan 11, 2007 at 10:59 AM Meat, sugar scarce in Venezuela stores.............
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070208/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/venezuela_food_crunch“CARACAS, Venezuela - Meat cuts vanished from Venezuelan supermarkets this week, leaving only unsavory bits like chicken feet, while costly artificial sweeteners have increasingly replaced sugar, and many staples sell far above government-fixed prices.” “ Shortages have sporadically appeared with items from milk to coffee since early 2003, when Chavez began regulating prices for 400 basic products as a way to counter inflation and protect the poor.
Yet inflation has soared to an accumulated 78 percent in the last four years in an economy awash in petrodollars, and food prices have increased particularly swiftly, creating a widening discrepancy between official prices and the true cost of getting goods to market in Venezuela.
“Shortages have increased significantly as well as violations of price controls,” Central Bank director Domingo Maza Zavala told the Venezuelan broadcaster Union Radio on Thursday. “The difference between real market prices and controlled prices is very high.”
Most items can still be found, but only by paying a hefty markup at grocery stores or on the black market. A glance at prices in several Caracas supermarkets this week showed milk, ground coffee, cheese and beans selling between 30 percent to 60 percent above regulated prices.
The state runs a nationwide network of subsidized food stores, but in recent months some items have become increasingly hard to find.”
How suprising Socialism does not work.......
“The Venuzuelan economy is showing some signs of strain. The inflation rate, at 17% last year, was the highest in Latin America even though Venezuela’s currency is overvalued. Despite the oil bonanza, the government has run a fiscal deficit in most of Mr ChÃvez’s time in power: this year that deficit may reach 3% of GDP.”
“On January 21st he announced his intention to increase petrol prices for the first time since he came to power. Petrol costs less than 5 cents a litre in Venezuela at the official exchange rate, but raising the price is politically sensitive. The government also plans tax increases. Officials insist that plans to nationalise the telecommunications and electricity industries, announced last month, will not trigger a fall in tax revenues, though opponents doubt that. “ “So a lower oil price threatens economic growth, and with it Mr Chávez’s popularity. Already, official projections and independent forecasts suggest the rate of growth may halve this year (but to a still-healthy 5%). Venezuelan crude, much of which is heavy and sulphurous, sells for about $10 less than lighter benchmark crudes such as Brent and West Texas Intermediate. Last year the average price for the Venezuelan “basket†of crudes was $56 a barrel. Last month, that figure was about $46. Any further fall might start to constrain Mr Chávez’s ability to spend freely at home and abroad.”There’s a sustainability problem,bsays Luis Zambrano, an economist at the Catholic University in Caracas. More and more spending is needed to produce a [percentage] point of economic growth.†What will lubricate the revolution when the oil bonanza ends?
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 9, 2007 at 10:05 AM Nice of you to quote your predictable rightist sources, el shit in your panties war criminal beaner racist. I could quote leftist sources as to how everything is going great. Probably about as reliable as your sources. Maybe you ought to worry about our economy here which is mixed at best, stinky ass Pepito. When’s that fourth tour of duty coming up ?
Posted by blondemike on Feb 12, 2007 at 3:46 PM Venezuela to chop 3 zeros off currency bills.............
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070216/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_venezuela_economy_currency
“CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez said he will chop three zeros off new bolivar currency bills to bolster Venezuelans’ perception of a strong currency in a bid to curb inflation, which is now highest in Latin America.
The bolivar, named after Chavez’s 19th century hero Simon Bolivar, trades above 4,000 bolivars to the dollar on the parallel market, around double the official fixed exchange rate is 2,150 bolivars
Chavez said he wants to alter the bills so that for example, a 1,000 bolivar note would be a one bolivar coin
Chavez has faced opposition and media criticism for last year’s inflation of 17 percent and has struggled to keep food costs down despite controls that have caused distortions in supply chains and occasionally left store shelves empty.”
WOW The new socialism appears a lot like the old socialism.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 16, 2007 at 6:55 PM Nice of you to quote from your usual rightwing sources, beanerboy. But what does that prove ? And an old Army career man clown on the FedGov dole complaining about other people being
“socialists.”
Posted by blondemike on Feb 21, 2007 at 10:44 AM What source should I quote jackass, it an article states facts how can it be left or right.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 23, 2007 at 11:07 AM MORON, THE SOURCE CAN STILL BE LEFT OR RIGHT EVEN IF IT DOES STATE FACTS OR THE CORRECT INTERPRETATION OF FACTS. YOU RELY SOLELY ON BIASED NEOCON SOURCES THAT HAVE REPEATEDLY BEEN FOUND WANTING BY ALL POSTERS HERE.
Posted by blondemike on Feb 23, 2007 at 12:26 PM Fact conveniently left out of the CNN article:
The 17% inflation rate is a vast improvement over the 30-100% inflation during the Perez Administration.
Facts in the article conveniently left out by TI:
“ ‘This will give us higher efficiency in payment systems, consolidate confidence in the currency and produce positive psychological effects in people,’ Chavez said…
He said he hoped to launch the new currency next year...”
Chavez… announced the move as part of an anti-inflationary package that included reducing VAT...”
Tell us, how is lowering taxes the ‘old socialism’, TI?
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 23, 2007 at 2:11 PM So you don’t like Yahoo. Tough. Its neither left or right its factual information. No opinions. Unlike the “alternative” media. Somehow you people have confused opinion and facts.
Lowering taxes......By removing zero’s from the currency.... So now a thousand bolivars is one bolivar. If you think thats a great idea I want to handle your money from now on.
Posted by texasindependent on Feb 26, 2007 at 2:52 PM TI,
What opinions? Yer reading comprehension is none too good, is it?
Chavez is lowering value added taxes (VAT) taking effect March 1.
The currency re-valuation is a psychological gambit projected a year into the future with the intent of creating the feeling of confidence in the stability of the Bolivar plus somewhat more insignificant bookkeeping efficiencies.
They are two (2) parts of a package aimed at controlling inflation.
It is for similar reasons economics is called the ‘dismal science’ that it is also called the ‘happy religion’.
Posted by luminous beauty on Feb 26, 2007 at 7:48 PM -
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Also by Steve Ellner
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