November 30, 2007
The End of Hurricane Hugo?
The American Magazine is a bastion of optimism (its Editor infamously wrote the book "Dow 36,000.") I'm fine with optimism; as Larry Kudlow would say, I've been optimistic for 25 years and it has served me well. Roger Noriega writes today of The End of Hurricane Hugo
In recent days, more and more Venezuelans have come to realize that the sweeping constitutional reforms championed by President Hugo Chávez represent a mortal threat to democracy. As the December 2nd referendum approaches, Venezuelans are contemplating the downside of dozens of radical changes that were approved by Chávez’s rubberstamp national assembly.
I'm not clear that the election will be fair enough or that his Hugoness will honor the result. But optimism is great.
I'll plug the magazine once more. Even if you don't subscribe, they have just started a daily e-mail -- I'd recommend signing up.
February 15, 2007
El Camino del Serfdom
Meat, sugar scarce in Venezuela stores
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.President Hugo Chavez's administration blames the food supply problems on unscrupulous speculators, but industry officials say government price controls that strangle profits are responsible. Authorities on Wednesday raided a warehouse in Caracas and seized seven tons of sugar hoarded by vendors unwilling to market the inventory at the official price.
Commentary is left as an exercise to the reader.
Hat-tip: Everyday Economist
January 9, 2007
Fire the CEO
For a stock chart like this, I'd say the CEO ought to get the chop:
Andrew Roth at Club for Growth offers this chart on CANTV, a Venezuelan telecom firm that Presidente Chavez decided to nationalize yesterday.
It was traded on the NYSE but Publius suggests it will soon be delisted
Worth 1001 words, that chart is.
It's like Atlas Shrugged, for real.
Posted by: AlexC at January 9, 2007 12:35 PMNow might be a good time to invest in the company that manufactures blue helmets.
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at January 9, 2007 12:44 PMI wrote a small utility to import existing customers from our support database into our CRM package (yeah, my life is freakin' magic on stilts...) and I just saw CanTV fly by on the console.
A customer of ours. Uh-oh, hope that baby's paid for.
After Monday's precipitous drop VNT traded on Tuesday around $12 a share and rebounded to a steady $14 range yesterday and today. Apparently the market's "freedom dividend" is roughly (20-14)/20 or 30%.
Posted by: johngalt at January 11, 2007 2:27 PMDecember 7, 2006
Open Markets
I'm really digging the blog, Open Market.
A sample post today: Let them use Solar!
- It’s a heart-warming ad, literally. A poverty-striken mother and daughter sit freezing in their unheated home in the dead of winter, trying to warm themselves with a small cooking stove. But then a fuel truck pulls up and a band of smiling deliverymen pile out and fill up the family’s oil tank. Now they’ll be warm.
The tagline, if I remember it correctly from when I saw the tv spot earlier this week, is “low-cost oil for those in need, brought to you by the good people of Venezuela and Citizens Energy.”
Read the rest.
Open Market is a blog of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
CEI could not buy the publicity they've received from the Rockefeller-Snowe letter. I trip across something of theirs once a day now.
Posted by: jk at December 7, 2006 4:21 PMOctober 9, 2006
Up Yours, Chavez
- In Alaska's native villages, the punishing winter cold is already penetrating the walls of the lightly insulated plywood homes, many of the villagers are desperately poor, and heating-oil prices are among the highest in the nation.
And yet a few of the small communities want to refuse free heating oil from Venezuela, on the patriotic principle that no foreigner has the right to call their president "the devil."
The heating oil is being offered by the petroleum company controlled by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, President Bush's nemesis. While scores of Alaska's Eskimo and Indian villages say they have no choice but to accept, others would rather suffer.
"As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us," said Justine Gunderson, administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. "Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."
Well, shit. I'm guessing that the DNC is not really all that interested in the Aleut Vote after that.
Posted by: mdmhvonpa at October 9, 2006 10:47 PMOctober 8, 2006
Dead Man Walking
The next President of Venezuela?
September 24, 2006
The Real Reason
Congresspersons Pelosi and Rangel came out and bashed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week, not out of respect for President Bush, but to cover themselves. It's good politics.
When a crazed America hater echos the same commentary of America's political left it makes people stop and say, "hey... there might not be that much difference...."
Okay, write this date down, I am going to leap to the defense of Reps. Pelosi and Rangel. (September 24,2006, it was sunny out, a Sunday as I recall...)
Contra the cartoon, I find it appropriate that opposition party members criticize the president, yet find it admirable that they objected to Chavez's rhetoric. Try agreeing with your friend when he is running down his wife or sister.
I say bravo to Ms. Pelosi (sept 24) and was especially touched by the eloquence of "Old Chollie" with whom I can barely agree on the color of the sky. "You don't come into my Congressional District and insult my President." That's good stuff, baby. Good politics, yeah, but good stuff.
I'll save my disapprobation for Senator Harkin who didn't quite grasp the difference between an American citizen's criticism of a president he/she had the opportunity to vote for or against, and a foreign leader.
Lest the love fest get out of control, “Old Chollie,” who would Chair the Ways and Means committee in a Democratic 110th, has promised that he would roll back ALL the Bush tax cuts. Child credits, lowering the bottom rate from 15 to 10%, cap gains, dividends, they all gotta go.
Sure was great what he said about the president, though.
Yes, the loyal opposition should criticize the president's POLICIES whenever they'd like. When it comes to personal ad hominems, however, there is no difference between those of Hugo Chavez or Howard Dean. When Hugo Chavez does it we fairly conclude that he hates America. What do we conclude when Dean does it? That he opposes tax cuts and prescription drug benefits?
Posted by: johngalt at September 26, 2006 3:12 PMSeptember 22, 2006
Hugo Chavez, Meet Mayor Daley
Blog brother AlexC just shared an editorial from Alaska which said of Hugo Chavez's fuel oil stunt, "BOTTOM LINE: If you're cold and can't afford fuel oil, who cares about the political motives of the giver?" Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley, that's who!
This American Thinker blog posted yesterday contrasts the behavior of what I'll characterize as 'serious' Democrats with that of 'nutjob' Democrats:
Not all Democrats are as craven as Delahunt & Company, though. The Chicago Democrats of Richard M. Daley, who had the wisdom to veto a bill imposing pay scales on Wal-Mart, are also a step ahead when it comes to understanding the energy market.These actions contrast sharply with those of Chicago Democrats who told Chavez to beat it with his offer of $4 million in cheap transport fuel, and then started probing Chavez’s bid to penetrate their city’s electoral apparatus through voting machine contracts.
IBD has been consistently a leader in covering Chavez. The winning streak continues.
As if Chicago politics isn't smarmy enough without Venezuela pulling the strings. But a Venezuelan "elections contractor" couldn't even get its foot in the door if Jimmy Carter hadn't validated Venezuela's electoral apparatus as having "integrity" and "accuracy." Here's a blast from the past for you:
"We made it clear to them and to the public that this did not imply any doubt by The Carter Center or OAS regarding the integrity of the electoral process or the accuracy of the reported results."
But what's this he said even before the referendum took place?
Excluding the presidents, our group then met with President Chavez for about two hours. He appeared quite confident but pledged to resign immediately if he should lose the referendum vote and said in that case he would rest for a week and then resume campaigning for re-election. Toward the end of our meeting, I called on him to be gracious in victory, to make every effort to reunite the divided country, and to let us help in establishing a forum for dialogue between the government and opposition groups. He did not respond directly but was very quiet while I spoke and then said he had always wanted the nation to be united. Subsequently, he said he needed to spend more time with me and asked if we could have lunch together on Monday.
Hell, why bother with the vote if you already know who won?
Chavez Offers US Foreign Aid
- Margaret Williams of Hughes in the Interior said it doesn't matter who's providing the heating fuel, which costs about $6 a gallon in the Koyukuk River village of 69.
"We sure could welcome it," she said. "As long as we don't have to pay."
In the Kobuk River village of Ambler, heating fuel is running more than $7 a gallon.
Residents in the village of 283 and surrounding villages are ecstatic, said tribal administrator Virginia Commack. "It's a miracle," she said.
Each household will save more than $700 in fuel costs this winter, freeing cash for people to spend on gasoline so they can hunt more caribou and moose, she said.
Ooh. There's a bargain for liberals. They've got to stick it to the caribou so that Chavez can stick it to the President.
An unsigned Anchorage Daily Worker News editorial piles on the snark.
- Alaska has a similar program funded entirely with federal dollars. The Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program distributes funds to needy Alaskans to help pay the high cost of heating oil. But federal funding is at the same level today as it was 20 years ago, which means it's far short of what is needed. Gov. Frank Murkowski this year asked legislators to appropriate $8.8 million in state cash to supplement the program, but lawmakers gave the governor -- and low-income Alaskans -- the cold shoulder and rejected the request.
Good thing for those Alaskans that another country is coming to help.
BOTTOM LINE: If you're cold and can't afford fuel oil, who cares about the political motives of the giver?
Doesn't the state of Alaska give each and every state resident an annual oil royalty check in the thousands of dollars? How can ANY Alaskan claim to not afford heating oil?
As for Chavez's stunt, even 100 million barrels of free oil given to the proletarians of 18 states is not going to change any votes. How many proletarians vote GOP anyway? It's like paying an eskimo to wear a coat!
Posted by: johngalt at September 22, 2006 1:19 AM