CHAVEZ CONTINUES HIS LEFTWARD LURCH AND HIS DOWNWARD SPIRAL

GLENN TONIGHT:

MEGAN MCARDLE: Chavez’s Economic Problems Turn Nasty: “For a long time I have been saying (along with a lot of other people), that Hugo Chavez was running his country into the ground. He diverted investment funds from PDVSA, Venezuela’s state-run oil company, into social programs. As long as the price of oil kept rising, he could do that. Unfortunately, Venezuela’s sour, heavy crude is particularly hard to get at and refine, and requires a high rate of investment in order to keep production up. As a result, the number of barrels per day (bpd) that Venezuela produces has declined pretty sharply since he took office in 1999. As a consequence, the money that Chavez used to paper over the cracks in his socialist paradise has vanished, and the cracks are deepening.”

Posted at by Glenn Reynolds at 6:42 pm

AS USUAL: THE BLOGGER-BIGGIES ARE LATE TO THE STORY AND HALF-ASSED. US EARLIER THIS WEEK:

CHAVEZ TAKES OVER THE COFFEE INDUSTRY:

Venezuela formalizes compulsory acquisition of coffee manufacturer

The Venezuelan government made official the compulsory acquisition of coffee companies Fama de América C.A. and Cafea C.A, as published in the Official Gazette No 39,303 dated November 10, 2009.

The government argued, among other things, that Fama de América and Cafea had come to purchase each, up to 30 percent of domestic production, dislodging small and medium coffee roasters.

THE ROAD TO SERFDOM IS A DOWNWARD SPIRAL... FIRST OIL THEN ELECTRICITY THEN BANKS AND WATER AND THEN COFFEE AND SOON...

SOCIALISTS LIKE CHAVEZ ARE MORE GREEDY AND CRIMINAL THAN THE CAPITALISTS THEY ATTACK - WHO AFTER ALL JUST WANT AS MUCH AS THEY CAN EARN.

CHAVEZ USES THE COERCIVE POWER OF THE STATE TO STEAL WHAT OTHERS EARN.

THIS TODAY/AP:

Chavez tightens control over food sector

President Hugo Chavez's government has nationalized two coffee processors and is planning to purchase a majority stake in a third as it moves to assert greater control over Venezuela's strictly regulated food sector.

Presidential decrees published in the Official Gazette on Wednesday ordered the takeover of Fama de America and Cafea. Government officials have said they also hope to purchase a majority stake in a third company, Cafe Madrid _ guaranteeing Chavez's government control over more than half of Venezuela's coffee industry.

Company executives have not been available to comment on the announcements, and it was not clear whether they would be compensated.

In addition to nationalizations in the electricity, cement and oil sectors, Chavez's government has nationalized some 2.5 million hectares of land considered to be idle or whose titles were in doubt.

In the past two years, the government has also purchased a major dairy company and expropriated a rice processing plant owned by U.S. food giant Cargill Inc.

It is now asserting control over coffee companies it accuses of acting as monopolies and flouting price controls by smuggling coffee into Colombia _ allegations the companies deny.

Price controls are among the dozens of laws and regulations that Chavez's government has imposed on the food sector. The government says the controls are necessary to guarantee affordable supply in the face of 27 percent annual inflation. But food prices have increased 26.5 percent in the last twelve months despite the regulations.

AND ALSO TODAY THIS - WHICH YOU WONT SEE ANY OTHER BLOG POST ON - CHAVEZ DESTROYS 30,000 GUNS:

Venezuela on Wednesday crushed more than 30,000 guns seized from the streets during police raids this year.

Policemen used blow-torches to chop up some of shotguns and pistols. They compacted weapons including home-made pistols into a 5 ton block, said Interior Minister Tarek Al Aisammi.

"Here we have weapons captured in operations during 2009," he said on state television. "This act forms part of the disarmament policies that we have been promoting."

With 13,000 murders in 2007, the last time figures were published, violent crime consistently registers as Venezuelans' main concern in opinion polls.

Gun laws are lax in the South American oil exporter. The government estimates there are 6 million firearms circulating among the population of about 28 million. Venezuela's murder rate is about 8 times that of the United States.

Crime has risen under President Hugo Chavez, who has focused on poverty reduction to tackle violence in poor city neighborhoods.

YES: CHAVEZ IS DIARMING HIS PEOPLE - MAKING THEM LESS SAFE FROM CRIMINALS AND LESS SAFE FROM A POLICE STATE.

DO OLIVER STONE AND DANNY GLOVER AND SEAN PENN REALLY SUPPORT THIS STATIST CRAP?!

ARE THEY TOO DUMB TO SEE IT FOR WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT ACTUALLY DOES!?

IT'S A FASCIST POWER GRAB AND IT DESTROYS AN ECONOMY, REDUCING PROSPERITY AND MAKING MORE PEOPLE SUFFER. MAKING THEM MORE VULNERABLE, NOT LESS.

IT GETS WORSE: Colombia takes Chavez war talk to Security Council

NOT ONLY IS CHAVEZ A COMMIE THIEF, HE'S A BELLIGERANT ASS.

AND A SUPPORTER OF IRAN, HAMAS AND HIZBALLAH.

ANYONE WHO SUPPORTS CHAVEZ IS AN ENEMY OF LIBERTY, PROSPERITY AND WORLD PEACE.