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Hugo Chavez Spearheads Raids as Food Prices Skyrocket

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  • Hugo Chavez Spearheads Raids as Food Prices Skyrocket

    Hugo Chavez Spearheads Raids as Food Prices Skyrocket
    Published: Friday, 18 Jun 2010 | 5:18 PM ET
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    By: Reuters

    News Headlines


    Mountains of rotting food found at a government warehouse, soaring prices and soldiers raiding wholesalers accused of hoarding: Food supply is the latest battle in President Hugo Chavez's socialist revolution.


    Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says government-led raids of food markets will reverse exploitation of the poor, whom he needs for political support.
    Venezuelan army soldiers swept through the working class, pro-Chavez neighborhood of Catia in Caracas last week, seizing 120 tons of rice along with coffee and powdered milk that officials said was to be sold above regulated prices.

    "The battle for food is a matter of national security," said a red-shirted official from the Food Ministry, resting his arm on a pallet laden with bags of coffee.

    It is also the latest issue to divide the Latin American country where Chavez has nationalized a wide swathe of the economy, he says to reverse years of exploitation of the poor.

    Chavez supporters are grateful for a network of cheap state-run supermarkets and they say the raids will slow massive inflation.

    Critics accuse him of steering the country toward a communist dictatorship and say he is destroying the private sector.

    They point to 80,000 tons of rotting food found in warehouses belonging to the government as evidence the state is a poor and corrupt administrator.

    Jose Guzman, an assistant manager at a store raided in Catia, watched with resignation as government agents pored over the company's accounts and computers after the food ministry official and the television cameras left.

    "The government is pushing this type of establishment toward bankruptcy," said Guzman, who linked the raid to the rotten food scandal. "Somehow they have to replace all the food that was lost, and this is the most expeditious way."

    Wasted Food

    Much of the wasted food, including powdered milk and meat, was found last month in the buildup to legislative elections in September. The scandal is humiliating for Chavez, who accuses wealthy elites of fueling inflation and causing shortages of products such as meat, sugar and milk by hoarding food.

    "They are not going to stop us in the plan, which is to give the people what is their right," Chavez said Friday during the inauguration of a supermarket chain the government bought this year from French retailer Casino.

    Food prices are up 41 percent in the last 12 months during a deep recession, government figures show, despite the government's growing network of state-run supermarkets that sell at discounts of up to 40 percent and are popular with his poor supporters.

    South America's top oil exporter, Venezuela imports about 70 percent of its food and analysts say the economic hardships could give the opposition a boost at the ballot box—although most expect Chavez to retain a reduced parliamentary majority.

    Fighting back, Chavez says he is in an economic war against the "parasitic bourgeoisie" that tries to convince Venezuelans that socialism does not work by twisting facts and taking advantage of honest mistakes.

    "They know where we are headed, we are going to take from the Venezuela bourgeoisie the hegemony of dominance in this country," Chavez, who calls himself a Marxist, said to applause from supporters on his TV show on Sunday.

    He has also revived threats to take over the country's largest private food processor, miller and brewer, Polar.

    The president rushed to give public support to Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez, who as the boss of PDVSA is also responsible for food unit PDVAL, over the case of the rotting food.

    Two former PDVAL managers have been jailed in the scandal, but that has not stifled opposition charges of government incompetence.

    A string of expropriations and buyouts of companies during the last couple of years means the government now controls between 20 percent and 30 percent of the distribution of staple foods.

    "We are bringing order to prices," Trade Minister Richard Canan told Reuters during the Catia raid. "There are traders who are taking these products to the black market ... That is a crime and our government will continue to target these stores."
    Copyright 2010 Reuters.
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Down with free market! The rich is gouging the poor! Capitalism doesn't work! We must have more regulations!
    "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

    Comment


    • #3
      Big Brother is watching you, gunnut, be careful...
      Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

      Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by bigross86 View Post
        Big Brother is watching you, gunnut, be careful...
        Don't worry, I have my tin foil hat on already.

        By the way, shouldn't it be "aluminum" foil hat? Who uses tin foil these days? Did we ever use tin foil?
        Last edited by gunnut; 21 Jun 10,, 22:17.
        "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

        Comment


        • #5
          Tin hats won't help you where you're headed. Off to room 101!!!
          Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

          Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by gunnut View Post
            Don't worry, I have my tin foil hat on already.

            By the way, shouldn't it be "aluminum" foil hat? Who uses tin foil these days? Did we ever use tin foil?
            Yeah, aluminum replaced it for cost reasons.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Doomarias View Post
              Yeah, aluminum replaced it for cost reasons.
              Does it work as well as tin at blocking out unwanted scanning of our brain waves by the gubbermint?
              "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

              Comment


              • #8
                It will work, but not as well as the vintage tin stuff. That's just how it is. If you want quality you're gonna have to pay for it.
                Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

                Abusing Yellow is meant to be a labor of love, not something you sell to the highest bidder.

                Comment


                • #9
                  I'm glad Chavez is cracking down on these capitalist monkeys. It's getting so the average venezuelan family can't even afford their chicken feet.
                  "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    highsea,

                    It's getting so the average venezuelan family can't even afford their chicken feet.
                    that's a delicacy in dim sum
                    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by astralis View Post
                      ...that's a delicacy in dim sum
                      Is that a suburb of Caracas? :P
                      "We will go through our federal budget – page by page, line by line – eliminating those programs we don’t need, and insisting that those we do operate in a sensible cost-effective way." -President Barack Obama 11/25/2008

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by astralis View Post
                        highsea,



                        that's a delicacy in dim sum
                        “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

                        Comment

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