Thank you Stephen for a well thought out analysis.

Clear thinking individuals know who Hugo Chavez is; a bright light in Latin America, and a man who cares for all his people.

If only America had a leader with the same concern for his people, and to ensure that all get part of the pie.

Obama may be the man, but his newly appointed advisers do not show Obama is listening.

A meeting between Obama and Hugo Chavez could resolve all differences so the sooner the better.

This planet needs more leaders like Chavez.

by Rolland Miller (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 227 comments [78 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Friday, Nov 14, 2008 at 12:53:57 PM

  (0+)

Chavez allows more freedom of speech in the press of his country than we have here:

There are continued and nearly constant calls for his Impeachment there. Lol. When is the last time you heard about the Impeachment movement in MSM here??

When i debate neocons, they always seem to trot out Chavez as the evil enemy we must stop.... For some reason never precisely given. Perhaps it is because the propaganda masters who feed these poor souls their daily gruel think that Chavez represents what they fear most: A government not under the thumb of industrialists, bankers, and oil corps.

A government where universal healthcare has been successfully and efficiently instituted, where freedom of the press is allowed no matter how vile and absurd the US-backed right-wing attacks get, and where the People can actually feel a true sense of ownership of their country and valuable resorces... Where government is transparent and accessible to them (abet somewhat fractious and tumultuous ;).

In short, they hate Chavez because he won't let our way of life blot out theirs. He won't let the corporations and international banks run him, and he won't allow wholesale theft and graft by them to become public policy. He is what they REALLY hate most: Someone who can't be bought or threatened off.

So he is loudly labeled a "terrorist"... Because he is making the normally "natural ruling class" piss their $500 pants at the thought of others following his lead successfully too... Which proves that the greedy self-absorbed parasites are just not needed for a world that can live in peace and abundance without their rule. He is effectively "terrorizing" THEM by simply being him.

How would that feel?... To realize that your whole way of life, your entire family, entire social class are not required for the planet's well being, and that in fact, your existence is detrimental and counter-productive to your fellow human beings... In those dark, sleepless times at 3 AM, it might break through the usual armor of self-justification and be quite a shock... It might shake up these people who believe in their own natural born superiority and their "indispensability" in the scheme of things.  

It isn't a pleasant thought. And those like Chavez prove it; and become "terrorists" for simply existing ;) 

by Steve Windisch (jibbguy) (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 360 comments [54 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Nov 14, 2008 at 2:03:33 PM

  (0+)

What is it with some people's preoccupation with Chavez? Chavez is dirt, only out for himself. The dictator that he is and you say they have a more free press than ours!?! RIDICULOUS. Only a few morons would make such a claim. Very suppressed country. Americans would scream at the restrictions Chavez has imposed.

by sbaker (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 147 comments) on Friday, Nov 14, 2008 at 2:42:47 PM

  (0+)

... They only make you look like an old drunk guy in a bar with white spittle on the corners of his mouth.

Where do u get YOUR information?

There have been repeated drives in the Venezuela press to have Chavez impeached, and there are several large news papers there vehemently against him... They are not being repressed. This is a fact.

You must have been listening to Lush Rimbag again.... ;) 

Here's some advice: Start making notes on what they tell u, then go research it for yourself on the internet. Don't listen to us, don't take the word of our corporate-owned mainstream media, and just carefully fact check it for yourself.

by Steve Windisch (jibbguy) (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 360 comments [54 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Friday, Nov 14, 2008 at 4:01:15 PM

  (0+)

... in a way, he is very similar to the Oil rich Arabian countries and emirates and Russia and oil rich places in the Pacific like Brunei. If you are rich in petrodollars, you can implement almost whatever system you want and your economy is going to be successful.

I think the whole "Porque no te callas" episode is a strong indication of whether Chavez is a leader or demagogue. Here you have Spain's Zapatero, a fellow socialist, trying to explain to Chavez that Latin America needs economic investment and Chavez freaked out and lost control of himself ranting about Spain's previous leader Jose Aznar.

That said, more work is needed in Latin America to break control of the oligarchic situation that exists in many of the countries there. Someone asked me what the issues are in Latin America that cause them to embrace socialism and I gave them this example:

In Latin America in the 1970's, if you worked hard to save up some money, and you wanted to start your own business, lets say, your own gas station, here is what happened: 

1. You went to the bank to get a loan and were turned down. It turns out that the wealthy people who owned the banks were friends with the wealthy people who owned the other gas stations in town. 

Lets ignore that and imagine you somehow got a loan. 

2. You get your loan, you build your station and start looking around for a wholesaler of fuel to provide you gas for your pumps. The few people in the country who provide that service refuse to sell to you.

It turns out that those wealthy people who on the wholesale fuel companies are also friends of the bankers and the wealthy people who own the other gas stations in town. 

Lets even ignore THAT and imagine that somehow you get past that hurdle. 

3. You notice that the price you are charging for gas is much higher than the other stations are charging in your area. No people are coming to your station to buy gas. You cannot imagine why this is happening since you are barely charging more than what you are paying for the gas and other expenses and taxes.

It turns out that the wealthy people who own the other gas stations in town have a number of advantages, such as: 

A. They have the politicians in the country in their pockets and have arranged for their businesses to get tax breaks. 

B. They have lowered the price of gas at the stations they own that are near you and are selling at a loss so they can run you out of business. Meanwhile, they have raised the price of gas at the stations they own at the other end of town and in other cities. 

C. Their wealthy friends, who own the majority of cars in the country anyway, refuse to buy gas from you.

Most Americans dont understand that the above describes Latin America prior to the 1980s and they are still recovering from that.

by Steven Leser (255 articles, 58 quicklinks, 38 diaries, 2147 comments [63 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 15, 2008 at 12:36:48 AM

  (0+)

Zapatero is a socialist in name only. He's really a neoliberal and a globalist like all the other European leaders and "leaders" of the world.

by Ty (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 888 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Saturday, Nov 15, 2008 at 9:53:05 PM

  (0+)

are really useful, as opposed to rants. Keep it up, Steve!

by Deena Stryker (27 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 48 comments [3 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Nov 19, 2008 at 9:20:08 AM

  (0+)

At the heart of what Chavez has done that really gets some people angry is that he required higher royalties to be paid the government from production of oil.  Regardless of what else Chavez has done or not done this is the underlying reason for all attacks by American business interests and their media.  It is about the money not flowing as much as before into the coffers of American corporations.  It is only secondarily about what Chavez has been doing with that money.  And what really angers some folks is that there is nothing they can do about it. Do you think anyone would care if this was not at the heart of the matter?

Royalties can only be paid out of that part of private oil company revenues above and beyond the cost of production for the reason that to do otherwise would drive the producer completely out of business. So the trick is to leave enough revenue in the hands of producers to at least cover their costs with enough additional revenue to allow an appropriate "profit", i.e. return on real capital invested.

The market value of oil like the market value of every other natural resource above the cost of production plus reasonable return on capital invested is a value not created by the "owner" of the natural resource. It is a value wholly the result of demand for the oil, the copper etc. etc. In other words the market value of natural resources and in particular oil above the cost of production is created 100% by the community. Of course the community can be the whole world.  To allow private interests to pocket this community created value is to give private interests a wholly unearned income above and beyond what could be earned by investment of the same amount of real capital elsewhere. If a government requires any part of this community created value to be paid via royalties or taxes to the government, such taxation does not burden, confiscate, discourage or create a disincentive for anything anyone does.  In other words the tax/royalty on community created resource and land value is a completely neutral tax that merely returns to the community the value the community confers on the natural resource, the land or the location before anyone does anything with them.

I lied, taxation of community created land and natural resource values does create a disincentive for speculation and engaging in shenanigans to get hold of the right to collect this unearned value.  I don't see anyone shedding any tears about this kind of disincentive although as the article pointed out, there is plenty of gnashing of teeth, name calling and outrage. But who these days can have too much sympathy for speculators and those others who make it a practice to get something for nothing at the expense of everyone else?  Wasn't it real estate, i.e. land speculation the collapse of which that set off our current financial crisis?

The whole point of resource exploitation anywhere and everywhere is for the "owner" who may or may not be the producer to collect the community created value.  This is a preferred mode of doing business because unlike manufacturing one does not have to create the profitable part of the value one markets and pockets.  Of course there is great risk in bringing natural resources to market and people who do so should be compensated for that risk, but above that every penny is unearned.  There is an argument to be made that manufacturers earn their profits but there is no argument that land and natural resource owners per se earn theirs. They are completely different modes of producing value and profits come from completely different sources, one from effort and capital expended and the other from and at the expense of the community as a whole.  This was and is the sole motivation for every effort private individuals and companies make to engage in such risky business.  It is also the main if not entire motivation for all environmental abuse. Why else would anyone exploit the environment except for the money and what better incentive could there be than that someone else create the value that is the source of the profit.  Exploitation of the earth in all its forms including real estate/land speculation above all the actual costs of engaging in such business is a get something for nothing game that has gone on far a long time so much so that its destructive and unjust nature is not obvious until it is pointed out.

It turns out that private natural resource exploiters have collected far more than it cost them to engage in such activities. So much more that many a war and extremely dirty deals have been perpetrated against countries and people who cannot or do not control their resources.  In recent decades most governments have woken up to the fact that the community created value of resources exploited within their sovereign borders belongs to them and can be taken by them without fear of military reprisal (the recent example of Iraq excepted). Governments know that they can impose steep royalty requirements on production of their natural resources because they know that the private companies know that they have been getting a free lunch and cannot really argue when the true owners of the free lunch value take it back. The truth being gradually recognized is that 100% of the community created value an be taken justly and without harm to the producers who get paid for adding value above and beyond the raw value of the resource..

Governments have woken up to the fact that one of their prime responsibilities is to collect via tax or royalty the community created value of land and natural resources for use by the governments. Some of these governments actually use this appropriate form of revenue to benefit their people.  

This kind of behavior is often called socialism but is there anything more appropriately "socialized" than the value that society as a whole creates?  There is no argument against dong this and even though foreign corporations and exploiters hate it, they cannot win arguments against it. They, therefore, do not talk about it very much in order not to draw attention to the obvious economic justice aspect of such practices.  So far they have succeeded in keeping this most fundamental of issues out of the press and out of the heads of those who long for social and economic justice., the commons movement notwithstanding. 

Chavez has merely taken back a larger share of the community created value of Venezuela's oil and appears to be using it to benefit his people and many another person in other countries including the US. How utterly maddening to the exploiter mentality.  On the other hand this makes him a hero in my book because he is not only dong the right economic thing in his own country, he is pointing out that people and governments everywhere can and should do more of the same.

In the US we do not tax land values very much nor do we require natural resource "owners" to pay over a very large share of the community created value they pocket.  For the mot part we do not make community created land and natural value owners pay anything.  Check it out. Instead we prefer to tax the hell out of labor and real capital to pay for public services all of which make land more valuable.  I say it's crazy.  Ironically Sarah Palin's State of Alaska is one of the few States that imposes a Hugo Chavez like royalty on the production of oil and distributes some of it directly in equal shares to every Alaska citizen.  This looks like the right kind of "socialism" to me.  

 The lions share of community created land and natural resource values remain in private hands in this country and elsewhere in the world although the trend is heading in the other direction  Hugo Chavez has shown that this value can and should be collected to pay for government services.  His example also shows that this kind of taxation does no economic harm to the incentive to invest capital.  In addition it  shows that relying on community created land value as a primary source of revenue can replace onerous and destructive taxes on labor and real capital.  This is a clue for real change and tax reform that will be needed from now on here and elsewhere.

Maybe we should kidnap Hugo again and make him Obama's new guy in charge of something.  Arriba!

by Wendell Fitzgerald (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 2 comments) on Saturday, Nov 22, 2008 at 1:25:50 PM

  (0+)