Latin America

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YMix
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Re: Latin America

Post by YMix »

Más de 800 exmilitares colombianos, muchos de ellos de élite, se han enlistado en el Ejército en los Emiratos Árabes. Les pagan hasta 18.000 dólares al mes.
More at the link.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Typhoon »

BRAZIL: LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, ERGO LAND OF FAKE MARRIAGE
Once South Americans looking for residency in the US or Europe would concoct bogus unions with friends. Now in Brazil, the game has flipped.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Typhoon »

Typhoon wrote:BRAZIL: LAND OF OPPORTUNITY, ERGO LAND OF FAKE MARRIAGE
Once South Americans looking for residency in the US or Europe would concoct bogus unions with friends. Now in Brazil, the game has flipped.
Time to start looking up old girlfriends?
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Re: Latin America

Post by Nastarana »

For those of us who care at all about things like sustainable development, rights of indigenous people, anti GMO, rights of nations and their citizens to control and develop their own natural resources, South American seems to be the "happening" place. In the USA, any politician who dares to mention such issues is sneered at as a marginal crackpot, whereas in SA persons campaigning on issues like the ones mentioned above have been elected heads of state.

Which makes the authoritarian and reactionary attitudes of America's Latinos all the more difficult to account for and understand.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Nastarana »

AzeriloveIran, to add to your schematic about South American history, the drug trade, a sinful system which is in its own way as morally degrading, spiritually devastating and sociologically catastrophic as was the institution of slavery, seems to have been initiated by Nazis resettled in SA by the secret intelligence agencies of USA, GB and France, in return for collaboration against communism.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

Venezuela’s Inflation Rates Lowest Since 1986
By Tamara Pearson

Mérida, August 8th 2012 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s accumulated inflation for the first seven months of this year stands at 8.6% , down from 16% during the same period last year, and where annual inflation has averaged 26% per year since 1999.

Image

Yesterday Venezuela’s finance minister Jorge Giordani informed that July’s inflation was 1% and the year’s accumulated inflation was 8.6%. Yearly inflation (between June 2011 and July 2012) is 19.4%, down from the highest annual inflation rate over the past three years of 31.3%.

Inflation in July 2011 was 2.7%, and annual inflation in December last year was 27.6%. In 2010, the accumulated inflation rate in the first seven months amounted to 18%, and in 2011 it stood at 16%.

The Venezuelan government had predicted lower inflation rates this year, mostly as a result of it gradually implementing price limits on some products, but Giordani said the results are even below the government’s predictions. The government had based its 2012 budget on a yearly inflation rate of 20 to 22%.

"A one-digit inflation rate has not been reported in Venezuela since 1986," said Nelson Merentes, president of the Central Bank of Venezuela.

However Merentes added that product shortage in July was higher (14.2%) compared to June (11.7%), while the product diversity index declined from 173.2 to 162.8.

Analysing the results, Giordani noticed that the food products with the highest inflation rates were those with reduced supply, such as vegetables. Hence, he concluded, that increased production of such products would help slow down inflation further.

Merentes said the country’s “economic panorama”, with its low unemployment and sustained economic growth (of 5.6% in the first quarter of 2012) meant he could project that inflation would continue to decrease in August and September. Elias Eljuri, president of the National Institute of Statistics, also said inflation would likely continue to decrease, due to increased productivity, greater availability of goods and services, and the state’s fight against speculation.

Eljuri also attributed the low inflation to the creation of the National Superintendency of Costs and Prices (Sundecop), which so far this year has applied price limits to 19 types of products, including baby food, juices, hygiene products, and other food products. The National Assembly passed the law of fair costs and prices one year ago.

Merentes said the government was aiming for one digit inflation, and had put together a One Digit Inflation Committee.

“If we achieve one digit [inflation] we’ll be in a better condition to be able to participate in the economic events ahead for us in the geopolitical dynamic of Mercosur [Common Market of the South] as well as with everything that has to do with the political dynamic of Unasur [Union of South America Nations],” Merentes said.

While inflation peaked at 103% in 1996 in Venezuela, its average during the years of Hugo Chavez’s government, between 1999 and 2012, has been 26%.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/7160
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

Venezuela's Economic Recovery: Is It Sustainable? A CEPR Report
Oct 3rd 2012, by Mark Weisbrot and Jake Johnston- CEPR

Image
Public v Private capital formation (Cepr, Banco central de Venezuela, 2012)

Washington, D.C.- The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) released a report today on Venezuela’s economic recovery, which is often called into question by analysts and the press. The report, “Venezuela’s Economic Recovery: Is it Sustainable?”, looks at the country’s foreign and domestic debt, inflation, balance of payments, and other aspects of the economic recovery to see if it is sustainable.

“For most analysts over most of the past 13 years, Venezuela’s economic collapse has always been just around the corner,” noted economist Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director of CEPR and co-author of the report. “But it hasn’t happened, and these forecasts appear to have been based on some wishful thinking.”

Venezuela went into recession at the beginning of 2009, during the world economic crisis and recession. Recovery began after five quarters, in the second quarter of 2010. The economy grew by 4.2 percent in 2011, and expanded by 5.6 percent for the first half of 2012. Nonetheless, most forecasts and analysts remain gloomy about Venezuela’s economic future.

“Venezuela’s current economic recovery, as well as the rise in living standards, poverty reduction, and increased access to education and health care since the government got control over its oil industry nearly 10 years ago – all this goes a long way toward explaining why President Hugo Chávez is likely to be re-elected on October 7th,” Weisbrot noted.

Since 2004, when the economy had recovered from the 2002-2003 recession, poverty fell by nearly half and extreme poverty by 70 percent. This measures only cash income, and does not include such gains as the provision of health care to millions of Venezuelans, or the doubling of college enrollment, with free tuition for many students.

The report finds that Venezuela’s debt service burden on both foreign and domestic debt is relatively modest, and unlikely to lead to financing problems in the foreseeable future. Even if oil prices were to crash temporarily, as they did in 2008-2009, Venezuela has room to borrow and pursue a stimulus program. The current program to ease the country’s housing shortage produced 147,000 new homes last year. This is comparable to building 1.6 million homes in the United States, and has served as a stimulus to Venezuela’s economic recovery. Another 100,000 homes have been completed this year, of 200,000 more planned.

“Based on Venezuela’s ability to pay its public debt, and looking forward, Venezuela’s government bonds are almost certainly under-priced,” Weisbrot noted.

With a current account surplus (6.6 percent of GDP over the past 12 months), $24.6 billion in reserves, and most forecasts showing higher real oil prices in future years, Venezuela is unlikely to run into balance of payments problems. Venezuela’s ability to borrow from China at low interest rates provides added insurance. The report also notes that inflation has fallen to a 13.7 percent annual rate over the past three months, and has been declining while economic growth has been accelerating.

During the recovery from Venezuela’s previous recession, which was brought on by the oil strike of 2002-2003, the IMF repeatedly underestimated economic growth by gigantic margins of 10.6, 6.8, and 5.8 percentage points for the years 2004-2006.

“A country that is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil has a lot of room for experimentation,” Weisbrot said. “With reasonable macroeconomic policies and public investment, Venezuela’s economic growth could continue for many years to come.”

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7313

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publicati ... 012-09.pdf
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Re: Latin America

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LA Times | Fear factor could tip Venezuelan election, analysts say
Most polls still give the edge to President Hugo Chavez, but challenger Henrique Capriles continues to gain ground. Some voters say they're afraid of retribution if they support the opposition.
But voter anxiety could skew the results. Chavez has warned of civil war if he loses. On Friday, a newspaper quoted a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, an activist Chavista faction, saying his group would defend a Chavez victory "with lead."

"We are prepared and well armed."

The fear factor helps explain the rapid decline in recent weeks of the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, in black-market trading to as much as 12 to the dollar, or nearly three times the official rate. The weakening indicates that many are seeking "safe haven" dollars as a hedge against uncertainty, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist at the IESA think tank in Caracas.

According to the independent poll, nearly half of Venezuelans questioned believe that political violence is likely in coming months, especially if Chavez loses, because they think that he won't cede power peacefully. A smaller percentage believes that they will lose their jobs and social welfare benefits if Capriles takes office.

Moreover, half of those polled think the national electoral commission that supervises all voting, known by its Spanish abbreviation, CNE, safeguards Chavez's interests. That could explain why one-third of Venezuelans don't believe their vote is secret.
Asked to comment on the high numbers of foreign news media in Venezuela to cover the election, Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, head of the Democratic Unity coalition of opposition parties, said it was not necessarily a good sign.

"When small countries like ours become interesting, sometimes it is for the wrong reasons," Aveledo said.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

Image

He won again, as expected. With nearly 55% of the vote, with a 81% turnout. No one can say the victory was not fair and democratic. No matter how much he is hated in the capitalist power centers, he is the choice of all those Venezuelans who have benefited from his social programmes. For once, the poorer citizens hold power and are capable of preventing the rich oppressors from dominating a democratic country. For once, the majority really rules. A lesson to be learned all over the world, including in Europe and in the US.
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Re: Latin America

Post by noddy »

45% is an odd definition of majority.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

noddy wrote:45% is an odd definition of majority.
Can you prove that the 19% who did not vote were against Hugo Chavez?... Following your reasoning, no government in any western country has the support of "the majority". In fact, Hugo Chavez has done better than most leaders in those countries, and has a clearer mandate than any of them. But maybe you think that 45% of 81% is more than 55% of those same 81%...
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Re: Latin America

Post by noddy »

Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:45% is an odd definition of majority.
Can you prove that the 19% who did not vote were against Hugo Chavez?...
id guess they dont care who has the position and ignore the government.
Endovelico wrote: Following your reasoning, no government in any western country has the support of "the majority".
exactly.
Endovelico wrote: In fact, Hugo Chavez has done better than most leaders in those countries, and has a clearer mandate than any of them. But maybe you think that 45% of 81% is more than 55% of those same 81%...
i can do math, i only struggle with pretty prose, i think 55% of 81% is 45% and therefor shaky ground to get all carried away with a mandate because your plans are not approved by somewhere between 36% to 55% of the population... its all sounding 50/50 at best to me and not a resounding approval of his approach.
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Dollars as a Hedge??? Ferfal Factor........

Post by monster_gardener »

Typhoon wrote:LA Times | Fear factor could tip Venezuelan election, analysts say
Most polls still give the edge to President Hugo Chavez, but challenger Henrique Capriles continues to gain ground. Some voters say they're afraid of retribution if they support the opposition.
But voter anxiety could skew the results. Chavez has warned of civil war if he loses. On Friday, a newspaper quoted a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, an activist Chavista faction, saying his group would defend a Chavez victory "with lead."

"We are prepared and well armed."

The fear factor helps explain the rapid decline in recent weeks of the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, in black-market trading to as much as 12 to the dollar, or nearly three times the official rate. The weakening indicates that many are seeking "safe haven" dollars as a hedge against uncertainty, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist at the IESA think tank in Caracas.

According to the independent poll, nearly half of Venezuelans questioned believe that political violence is likely in coming months, especially if Chavez loses, because they think that he won't cede power peacefully. A smaller percentage believes that they will lose their jobs and social welfare benefits if Capriles takes office.

Moreover, half of those polled think the national electoral commission that supervises all voting, known by its Spanish abbreviation, CNE, safeguards Chavez's interests. That could explain why one-third of Venezuelans don't believe their vote is secret.
Asked to comment on the high numbers of foreign news media in Venezuela to cover the election, Ramon Guillermo Aveledo, head of the Democratic Unity coalition of opposition parties, said it was not necessarily a good sign.

"When small countries like ours become interesting, sometimes it is for the wrong reasons," Aveledo said.
Thank you VERY Much for your post, Typhoon.
many are seeking "safe haven" dollars as a hedge against uncertainty, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist at the IESA think tank in Caracas.
Dollars as a "safe haven" :?: :shock: With Obama, Bernanke Head of the Federal Reserve QE2 and all !!!

WOW! Things must be bad in Venezuela........

Dollars might be a temporary hedge to buy a plane ticket if you are thinking about leaving....

If planning on staying in country, I would suggest durable staples as a better hedge: cans of beans, corn, chicken soup, vitamins, shotgun shells, triple antiibiotic and anti-fungal ointments, batteries, whatever your meds are........

Fuel for your propane powered stove...........

Ferfal can give better advice than me........ Argentina went through some bad but survivable stuff not so long ago

http://ferfal.blogspot.com/
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

noddy wrote:i can do math, i only struggle with pretty prose, i think 55% of 81% is 45% and therefor shaky ground to get all carried away with a mandate because your plans are not approved by somewhere between 36% to 55% of the population... its all sounding 50/50 at best to me and not a resounding approval of his approach.
The fact is that more people (1.3 million more people) have expressly stated they were in favour of Hugo Chavez policies, than against. In my book that's a majority, and it gives Hugo Chavez a clear mandate to pursue his social policies.
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Re: Latin America

Post by planctom »

Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:i can do math, i only struggle with pretty prose, i think 55% of 81% is 45% and therefor shaky ground to get all carried away with a mandate because your plans are not approved by somewhere between 36% to 55% of the population... its all sounding 50/50 at best to me and not a resounding approval of his approach.
The fact is that more people (1.3 million more people) have expressly stated they were in favour of Hugo Chavez policies, than against. In my book that's a majority, and it gives Hugo Chavez a clear mandate to pursue his social policies.
Yes, I´m anti - Chavez but he clearly won.
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Elections and Incompetent Clowns with Guns

Post by monster_gardener »

Endovelico wrote:Image

He won again, as expected. With nearly 55% of the vote, with a 81% turnout. No one can say the victory was not fair and democratic. No matter how much he is hated in the capitalist power centers, he is the choice of all those Venezuelans who have benefited from his social programmes. For once, the poorer citizens hold power and are capable of preventing the rich oppressors from dominating a democratic country. For once, the majority really rules. A lesson to be learned all over the world, including in Europe and in the US.
Thank you Very Much for your post, Endo.
No one can say the victory was not fair and democratic.
Really???????????

Did you neglect to read Typhoon's post just above your's??
Chavez has warned of civil war if he loses. On Friday, a newspaper quoted a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, an activist Chavista faction, saying his group would defend a Chavez victory "with lead."

"We are prepared and well armed."
Just wondering how fair and democratic an election it would have been here in Uz if in 2004 and 2012 Chavez's fellow Incompetent Clowns, Bush the Weally ;) Incompetent & Choom Man the Dog Eater Who Golfs A Lot Obama had warned of Civil War if they lost and had armed militias that threatened to defend Bush's or Obama's victory with lead.....
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Re: Latin America

Post by noddy »

planctom wrote:
Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:i can do math, i only struggle with pretty prose, i think 55% of 81% is 45% and therefor shaky ground to get all carried away with a mandate because your plans are not approved by somewhere between 36% to 55% of the population... its all sounding 50/50 at best to me and not a resounding approval of his approach.
The fact is that more people (1.3 million more people) have expressly stated they were in favour of Hugo Chavez policies, than against. In my book that's a majority, and it gives Hugo Chavez a clear mandate to pursue his social policies.
Yes, I´m anti - Chavez but he clearly won.
all good, i perhaps should have kept my cynicism at small percentage mandates out of this.. it will certainly be interesting to see how he handles the next few years.

im glad your happy with your socialist victory endo :)
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Venzuelan Mandates

Post by monster_gardener »

Endovelico wrote:
noddy wrote:i can do math, i only struggle with pretty prose, i think 55% of 81% is 45% and therefor shaky ground to get all carried away with a mandate because your plans are not approved by somewhere between 36% to 55% of the population... its all sounding 50/50 at best to me and not a resounding approval of his approach.
The fact is that more people (1.3 million more people) have expressly stated they were in favour of Hugo Chavez policies, than against. In my book that's a majority, and it gives Hugo Chavez a clear mandate to pursue his social policies.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Endo......
it gives Hugo Chavez a clear mandate to pursue his social policies.
Maybe.......

And maybe for those who disagree to get out while they still can before Chavez goes Castro like his buddies up North ;)

And maybe for Venezuela to have a civil war........ :shock:

Chavez himself has been known to do that........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3 ... mora:_1992
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Re: Latin America

Post by Enki »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... elebration

Hugo Chavez tore down the statue of Columbus and renamed the day to 'Indigenous Resistance Day'.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Typhoon »

Reuters | Venezuela's Chavez revels in convincing election win

Annual inflation in Venezuela is currently running at about 26% symptomatic of historical populist mismanagement in S America.
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Re: Latin America

Post by Ibrahim »

WSJ comes out for Pinochet. Sure, he tortured and killed political opponents, but he's not Chavez.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 18294.html
Thanks to Hugo Chávez, the legacy of Chile's Augusto Pinochet as the only Latin American military dictator in modern times to voluntarily give up power through the ballot box is preserved this morning. Pinochet looks like more of a hero than ever.
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Gardener Kings & Dictators

Post by monster_gardener »

Ibrahim wrote:WSJ comes out for Pinochet. Sure, he tortured and killed political opponents, but he's not Chavez.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087 ... 18294.html
Thanks to Hugo Chávez, the legacy of Chile's Augusto Pinochet as the only Latin American military dictator in modern times to voluntarily give up power through the ballot box is preserved this morning. Pinochet looks like more of a hero than ever.
Thank you Very Much for your post, Ibrahim......

Well, Pinochet is a member of a rather exclusive club..... Dictators who voluntarily give up power.......

Offhand the only other ones I recall are Cincinnatus the Roman Dictator who went back to his plowing..........

and

Diocletian the Great pagan Roman Emperor who conducted perhaps the worst persecution of Christians recorded.... And then retired to become a Gardener ;) :lol: :lol: :lol:

Maybe Horticulture/Agriculture can have an Auspicious Affect on Autocrats ;)

But maybe not....... Suspect that if there is any effect it may be slow and perhaps only on willingness to retire........ *

Though there are probably/certainly others....

King ;) oops I mean perhaps President Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore.......

And

Joquain Balaguer, the man who saved the trees of the Dominican Republic........

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Balaguer



Why didn't you include the rest of the free part of the article ;) :?: :lol:

Might give some here a "Perfect" ;) reason to wonder if you like to diss only or at least primarily Right Wing Wrong doers..... ;) :lol:
Mr. Chávez "won" the Venezuelan presidential election Sunday by collecting 54% of the vote to 45% for challenger Henrique Capriles Radonski. But he did it with control of all of Venezuela's government institutions and, more important, near total ownership of the Venezuelan economy. This gave the Venezuelan state the power to directly manipulate voter rolls and ballots and ...
Does anyone have a link to the rest of the article...... Strongly suspect it concerned Chavez more than Pinochet ;)


*Come to think of it, a gardener can be close to a king or dictator over the plants and inflict unpleasant fates on the insects, snails, slugs etc. who threaten them.........

Or pardon some......... Recall doing that recently with some black swallowtail caterpillars who were munching on the fennel..... Tried getting them to eat some Queen Anne's Lace/wild carrot but when the Queen Anne's Lace died, it was back to the fennel for the catepillars :| ....
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I'm so happy.

Post by planctom »

This is a great day!
To watch very important and powerful politicians from the left on trial, live, on TV.
Mr. P , You should 've been here!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/10/world ... ystem.html
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Re: Latin America

Post by Jnalum Persicum »

Nastarana wrote:.

AzeriloveIran, to add to your schematic about South American history, the drug trade, a sinful system which is in its own way as morally degrading, spiritually devastating and sociologically catastrophic as was the institution of slavery, seems to have been initiated by Nazis resettled in SA by the secret intelligence agencies of USA, GB and France, in return for collaboration against communism.

.

Who are the drug users in western world ? ?

Western higher middle class and the rich

Notion drug production and transportation and distribution generating trillions of Dollars profit a year is done and in the hand of petty criminals is otter rubbish

America sprayed Vietnam with Agent Orange .. easy to do same with Afghan and Myanmar opium fields .. or .. even better .. buy the crop @ source and burn it .. cost of buying all that crop @ source would be negligible, nickle & dime

but, NO

Meaning

fighting drugs all BS .. a scam to drive up the price for western consumers, maximizing profit

No secret CIA in this to the eyeballs .. now channeling Afghan drugs into Russia to destroy Russia

Iran loses 20+ soldiers every year fighting drug smuggling transiting Iran to Europe .. instead should give safe passage and charge transit fee

Yes, entirely possible, NAZI in South America started this as reward for fighting communism in that space .. Poor "Che Guevara"




.
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Endovelico
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Re: Latin America

Post by Endovelico »

Why Chávez Was Re-elected
Oct 10th 2012, by Mark Weisbrot

For most people who have heard or read about Hugo Chávez in the international media, his reelection on Sunday as president of Venezuela by a convincing margin might be puzzling.

Almost all of the news we hear about him is bad: He picks fights with the United States and sides with “enemies” such as Iran; he is a “dictator” or “strongman” who has squandered the nation’s oil wealth; the Venezuelan economy is plagued by shortages and is usually on the brink of collapse.

Then there is the other side of the story: Since the Chávez government got control over the national oil industry, poverty has been cut by half, and extreme poverty by 70 percent. College enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.

So it should not be surprising that most Venezuelans would reelect a president who has improved their living standards. That’s what has happened with all of the leftist governments that now govern most of South America. This is despite the fact that they, like Chávez, have most of their countries’ media against them, and their opposition has most of the wealth and income of their respective countries.

The list includes Rafael Correa, who was reelected president of Ecuador by a wide margin in 2009; the enormously popular Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, who was reelected in 2006 and then successfully campaigned for his former chief of staff, now President Dilma Rousseff, in 2010; Evo Morales, Bolvia’s first indigenous president, who was reelected in 2009; José Mujica, who succeeded his predecessor from the same political alliance in Uruguay — the Frente Amplio — in 2009; Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who succeeded her husband, the late Néstor Kirchner, winning the 2011 Argentine presidential election by a solid margin.

These leftist presidents and their political parties won reelection because, like Chávez, they brought significant — and in some cases huge — improvements in living standards. They all originally campaigned against “neoliberalism,” a word used to describe the policies of the prior 20 years, when Latin America experienced its worst economic growth in more than a century.

Not surprisingly, the leftist leaders have seen Venezuela as part of a team that has brought more democracy, national sovereignty and economic and social progress to the region. Yes, democracy: even the much-maligned Venezuela is recognized by many scholars to be more democratic than it was in the pre-Chávez era.

Democracy was at issue when South America stood together against Washington on such issues as the 2009 military coup in Honduras. The differences were so pronounced that they led to the formation of a new hemisphere-wide organization — the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, which excluded the United States and Canada — as an alternative to the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States.

Here is what Lula said last month about the Venezuelan election: “A victory for Chávez is not just a victory for the people of Venezuela but also a victory for all the people of Latin America … this victory will strike another blow against imperialism.”

The administration of George W. Bush pursued a strategy of trying to isolate Venezuela from its neighbors, and ended up isolating itself. President Obama has continued this policy, and at the 2012 Summit of the Americas in Colombia he was as isolated as his predecessor.

Although some media have talked of Venezuela’s impending economic collapse for more than a decade, it hasn’t happened and is not likely to happen.

After recovering from a recession that began in 2009, the Venezuelan economy has been growing for two-and-a-half years now and inflation has fallen sharply while growth has accelerated. The country has a sizeable trade surplus. Its public debt is relatively low, and so is its debt-service burden. It has plenty of room to borrow foreign currency (it has borrowed $36 billion from China [pdf], mostly at very low interest rates), and can borrow domestically as well at low or negative real interest rates.

So even if oil prices were to crash temporarily (as they did in 2008-2009), there would be no need for austerity or recession. And hardly anyone is predicting a long-term collapse of oil prices.

Venezuela’s economy does have long-term problems, such as relatively high inflation and inadequate infrastructure. But the substantial improvement in people’s income (the average income has risen much faster than inflation under Chávez), plus gains in health care and education, seems to have outweighed the government’s failings in other areas, including law enforcement, in the minds of most voters.

The U.S. economic embargo against Cuba has persisted for more than half a century, despite its obvious stupidity and failure. American hostility toward Venezuela is only about 12 years old, but shows no sign of being reconsidered, despite the evidence that it is also alienating the rest of the hemisphere.

Venezuela has about 500 billion barrels of oil and is burning them currently at a rate of one billion barrels a year. Chávez or a successor from his party will likely be governing the country for many years to come. The only question is when — if ever — Washington will accept the results of democratic change in the region.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/7343
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