Mises Wire

Oliver Stone on Chavez

Oliver Stone on Chavez
Mises Wire Briggs Armstrong

Stone mentions in the CNBC interview below that he didn’t take Chavez’s word, he talked to 7 other presidents in the region. Perhaps he should have spent less time talking to presidents and more time talking to the people standing in long lines desperately trying to acquire food.

See

A fantastic article from the Telegraph details the catastrophe Chavez has caused in the name of getting food to the poor.

Here are a few excerpts:

Church leaders said the failure of the state-owned PDVAL, a subsidiary of the national oil company, to distribute food imports that rotted at the shores was “a sin that Heaven is crying over.” Several thousands tons of rotting meat was among 80,000 tons left to go bad at the Puerto Cabello seaport.

The scandal emerged just weeks after Mr Chavez launched an “economic war on the bourgeoisie owners” of supermarkets, mills, rice plants and food distribution companies.

The result has been an economic catastrophe in the only Latin American economy in recession. Inflation leapt to 21 per cent in May as food prices rose 41 per cent over the level of a year ago. Soldiers have been deployed to raid private homes for food stores. Long lines regularly form on streets for basic commodities.

As complaints grow louder Mr Chavez has turned on the few remaining bastions of opposition in the country he has led since 1999. Guillermo Zuloaga, the owner of Globovision TV network, was forced to flee the country last month after he was charged with offending Mr Chavez by spreading false information.

Be sure to read the rest of the article here.

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