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Misplaced blame for Venezuela's woes
Commentator David Frum.
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Kai Ryssdal: Hugo Chavez is looking for some help from his friends. The Venezuelan president has invited a team of Cuban energy experts to help Caracas deal with an ongoing power crisis. That's interesting on two counts. First, Cuba's not really known for having sound energy policies of its own. Also, Venezuela is one of the world's leading energy exporters. It ships millions of barrels of crude oil every day.
Commentator David Frum has just come back from a State Department-sponsored trip to Venezuela. And he sent along these observations about the curious state of its economy.
DAVID FRUM: The campus of the Central University of Venezuela is a UNESCO landmark, a perfect example of the tropical modernism of the 1960s. I visited just a few days ago to talk to students and faculty and noticed something strange: Every clock in the building had stopped dead. I asked why. Answer: The 1980s vintage computer that controlled the clocks had failed, and the university could not obtain foreign currency to repair or replace it.
It's not an unusual story in Venezuela. In the five days I spent there, I met middle-class professionals who had given up their cars for lack of imported spare parts. Next-door, Colombia demands dollars for its coffee, so most Venezuelans must make do with brackish Nicaraguan brew.
Those who have maintained illegal bank accounts in the United States smuggle scarce goods from Miami. It took an hour to load my flight, as middle-class Venezuelans struggled to wedge their bags into the overhead bins. They won't check their luggage because, they explain, they fear the Caracas luggage handlers will rob them.
Those who must use local currency lose one-third of their purchasing power to inflation every year and in late January saw their savings cut in half by a devaluation. Electricity disappears for two hours a day outside the capital. Water taps run dry. In the single month of January, the Hugo Chavez government seized ownership of a major shopping mall and a large grocery chain was caught shipping a boatload of missiles to Hezbollah and ordered cable stations to drop the country's most popular TV station because it did not carry a long-winded presidential speech in full.
It takes a certain kind of genius to lay waste to the economy of one of the world's major oil producers. But in his excuses, at least, Chavez is very far from original. He fixes the blame where it always goes: on the Americans and the Jews.
RYSSDAL: David Frum is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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To all of you saying how wonderful Hugo Chávez is, you are so welcome to come and experience the wonders of the “revolutionâ€. You’ll find yourself in a deteriorated country, with no government stability, marching protesters, shortage in food, medicines and consumables, no freedom of speech, lack of safety, unemployment and fear for future. It’s easy to give an opinion when you don’t live our reality in Venezuela. Chavez is a despot dictator. Don’t fool yourself.
Well, I've been to Venezuela and the low income folks I spoke to there were virtually unanimous in saying President Chavez is the only President in the country's history who ever did anything for them. They told me now they have health care, free college, loans from banks, improving housing, better pay, and more respect. They call him "their President". This is the majority of the population.
Yes, the so-called "middlle class" in Venezuela, has lost some of their privileges, but this is a small class of no more than 25 percent of the population. I also met more than a few professionals, shop owners, and workers of the middle class that support Pres. Chavez too.
Mr. Frum only interviewed middle/upper class people during his visit to Venezuela. People who have been seriously affected by the ferocious psychological campaign led by the TV channel Globovision against the Venezuelan government, non-tolerant people who believe that every single thing that do not work in Venezuela needs to be blamed in Chavez. People who do not want to bring solutions to the chronic problems of our country, which our current government is trying to deal with. For example, during demonstrations these people violently shout: “I hate Chavez†but they cannot articulate the reason why.
In reference to cable channel RCTV, it is temporarily suspended because Venezuelan law requires that local channels also air presidential speeches. This is not a new law, what is happening in Venezuela is that finally the law is being enforced to everyone despite power or money, and that can make some people very uncomfortable.
Lived there, done that. Chavez never promised the Venezuelan people 'A chicken in every pot.' From the beginning his mantra has been more like 'Those oligarchs have chickens! I will see to it that nobody has a chicken!' He isn't helping the poor much at all. And guess what? If you take away the livelihood of the people who are doing well, you take away the livelihood of several other (possibly poor) families as well. If a man is supporting his family, his parents, paying wages to a maid, a gardener, a guard or two, a driver, etc. You are bankrupting 7 families when you ruin his financial status. With the recent devaluation (50%!) of the currency the government is saying to Venezuelans that they don't put any value on people trying to plan for a stable future by saving. How would you feel if your dollars were worth only half as much when you woke up tomorrow? Trust me, unless you have 'connections' you do not want to live in Venezuela the way it is today. The reason is plain and simple, too. The reason is Hugo Chavez.
To Sam Mandke in Houston: I grew up in Venezuela, in the 1960's and 1970's, and worked there until the early 1990's. I have friends from Venezuela and family members who still visit there.
Regardless of who he works for, What Frum says is the truth.
Venezuela may have officially been a Third World country, but in the 1970's there were more paved highways than in most other Latin American countries put together. Illiteracy was nearly wiped out, along with malaria and most other tropical diseases.
Since then, Venezuela has regressed in almost every measurable category of human achievement.
You don't have to blame it all on Chavez; previous governments had mismanaged the oil wealth and a change was needed.
But at least there was a free and independent press. Chavez nationalized the most prominent broadcasting company without compensation.
By comparison: What if Obama nationalized Fox News? Not just cut off their signal, but took over their studios and every local Fox station?
In addition, the telephone company, much of the cement industry, the steel industry, and parts of the oilfield that were run by private companies (who had put up their own money) is now in state hands. In many cases, without compensation to the owners. In all cases, with declines in service quality and response capacity. Oil and gas production is declining fast.
So, I still am puzzled as to why Marketplace allows Frum to comment? Something about getting a "balanced" view? Mr. Frum's comments are interesting to me because all that he describes as ill, the loss of electricity, the scarcity of goods, reminds me of....wait for it.... other 3rd world countries! I admit I don't know much about Venezuela's history, but I don't recall when they were ever carrying a standard of living the likes of Europe or the United States. Furthermore, the complaints Mr. Frum offers are quite indicative of other major oil producing nations, including Nigeria and Sudan. Even China, which is now the Neocon's new best friend, still does not provide electricity for 80% of its population; neither does India. Is Chavez bad? Probably, but so were his more capitalist-leaning predecessors. Is Venezuela a 3rd World Country still? You bet.
This article is spot on. I challenge anyone with a romantic view of life in Venezuela to live here for 6 moths before they talk garbage about how the poor are so happy and well taken care of. Life has been very hard the last few years and getting worse day by day. But you guys stay in you comfortable countries where you can say what ever you want without fear of prosecution and talk about how great the revolution that YOU are not experiencing is. you are just naive or selectively ignorant. Have to go now, electricity is supposed to go soon and have to wash because water is going for 3 days starting tomorrow.
I have a very simple suggestion. To all those who claim that Chavez has done so much to help the poor in Venezuela (yes, he's sent millions of dollars to aid poor people abroad, including in the US as a propaganda ploy): come visit us and see for yourself. Don't believe this story (or Eva Goldigger, for example), just GO. See for yourself. THEN we can talk about the current situation in my poor, rich country. What Chavez says (repeat, says) he has done is one thing, concrete, measurable improvements is another...
The disinformation campaign against the Bolivarian revolution continues. Venezuela is still a Capitalist state on the road to socialism, with a corrupt bureaucracy that is holding back the revolution,a opposition that can not even agree on its own unity and is turning to wiolence because they have very little support and militant grassroots that soon will not put up with half a revolution. Rojo Rojito
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