The Devil is Coming for Chavez

Thursday, December 11th, 2008 7:20 pm by Neal

Hugo Chavez — the Socialist dictator holding Venezuela hostage — is about to learn the hard way that Socialism never lasts. Check out this article from Investor’s Business Daily, Chavez Steps Into ‘Devil’s Excrement’:

But even on a price roller coaster, oil companies survive by investing in new production when prices are high, and subsidizing production when they’re low. The state of Alaska also does this. Gov. Sarah Palin emphasized to IBD last summer that in managing Alaska’s oil bonanza, her priority was “saving for a rainy day.”

Petro-states dominated by state-owned oil companies employ no such strategy. In booms, their revenues overwhelm their economies, driving out small, non-oil businesses and leaving oil as the only game in town. They also tempt governments to become dictatorships. Flush with oil cash, rulers can slash taxes for their supporters, who will demand even less transparency and accountability.

But it never lasts, and the hangover when prices fall is always ugly. “I call petroleum the devil’s excrement. It brings trouble,” as Juan Pablo Perez Alfonso, once Venezuela’s oil minister, famously said in 1975. “Look at this lunacy — waste, corruption, consumption, our public services falling apart. And debt, debt we shall have for years.”

The sad thing is that Venezuela’s Chavez has learned nothing from history.

Read the whole thing to find out why the thug Chavez is about to learn a painful object lesson in economic reality. Or, as the article concludes,

He’s not likely to last in these conditions any more than the other strongmen thrown out in Venezuelan history. The irony is that he sold his revolution on faith in socialism.

In reality, it was an ungodly faith in high oil prices. With oil prices falling, the devil is coming for his due.

And the day he’s gone, we’ll be celebrating in Southchild-party style!

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