Stabilizing the Venezuelan Economy

Jeremy McDermott of the Telegraph:

Mr Chavez last month won a referendum allowing him to stand indefinitely for re-election. With that now achieved the Venezuelan leader, who has vowed to turn his South American nation into a model Socialist state, is now taking some unpopular decisions needed to stabilise his floundering economy.

Sort of like Yasser Arafat's condition has stabilized, I suppose. But I agree: Mr. Chavez is indeed well along the way to turning Venezuela into a model Socialist state.

Mr Chavez is seeking to ensure that his core support, the poor, can still fill their shopping baskets with food.

That's rich, Jeremy.

"If any industry wants to ride roughshod over the consumers, with a view to getting better dividends, we are going to act," said Carlos Osorio, the national superintendent of silos and storage.

That's the attitude, oh Glorious National Superintendent of Silos and Shortages..er...Storage.No one should have any self-interest in producing food: The National Will, embodied in Hugo Chavez, is sufficient reason.

Production quotas and prices have now been set for cooking oil, white rice, sugar, coffee, flour, margarine, pasta, cheeses and tomato sauce.

Apparently white rice can only be sold at around half the cost of production. It is the National Will. Nonetheless, the parasitical rice growers evade their social responsibilities by converting regulated white rice into unregulated flavored. Hugo, Embodiment of the Nation, will likely soon put an end to that, and white rice shall flow thru the streets, too cheap to bother growing.

Just wait until The One starts taking advice from The Embodiment. Our floundering economy, too, shall stabilize.