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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
I guess nobody has a problem with him ramrodding the idea of changing electoral policies in his country to keep him in power for years beyond what would normally be consitutional?
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Chavez is bringing about changes that our own State Dept. documents and shares with us....from it's website:
Quote:
http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/v/57234.htm
Venezuela (11/05)
.ECONOMY
....Central Bank-held international reserves increased from U.S.$21.39 billion in January to U.S. $23.91 billion in November 2004, after growing U.S. $6.6 billion in 2003.....
...There is considerable income inequality. The Gini coefficient was 0.618 during 2003. According to private sources, the percentages of poor and extremely poor among Venezuelan population were 74.6% and 39.3%, respectively, in 2003.....
http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/v/73479.htm
Venezuela (03/06)
....ECONOMY
....Central Bank-held international reserves increased to U.S.$30.4 billion at the end of 2005. The reserves would have been higher, but the BCV transferred $6 billion to the National Development Fund (FONDEN) during the last quarter 2005, as directed by the Central Bank Law (July 2005).....
.....There is considerable income inequality. The Gini coefficient was 0.514 during 2005. According to private sources, the percentages of poor and extremely poor among Venezuelan population were 67% and 35%, respectively, in 2005......
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35766.htm
Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs
February 2007
.......Central Bank-held international reserves increased to over U.S.$36 billion at the end of 2006. The reserves would have been higher, but the BCV transferred $6 billion to the National Development Fund (FONDEN) during the last quarter 2005, as directed by the Central Bank Law (July 2005) and an additional $4.3 billion in 2006....
.....There is considerable income inequality. The Gini coefficient was 0.45 during 2006.
According to government statistics, the percentages of poor and extremely poor among Venezuelan population were 33.9% and 23.2%, respectively, in 2006......
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....If Chavez keeps on at the rate he is going, they'll be no "poor" and "extremely poor" people living in Venezuela...and income there will be distributed more equally than it is in the US....I'm betting that our State Dept. will be reporting that stat....by next spring....but if there is a "liberal" media, in the US, why aren't they touting the dramatic economic improvements that our own US State Dept. is reporting are occurring, these last three years, in Chavez's Venezuela?
Yes, his actions go against the political-economic philosophies of US republicans and libertarians.....but wholesale destruction of the bill of rights is happening now in the US, but the bottom 150 million are not experiencing a more equitable distribution of income, or of wealth, here....are they?
Chavez, IMO, has taken measures that have already, and will continue to save large numbers of potentially lost lives that stemmed from the catalyst of extreme poverty and the desperation that such poverty triggers in people who arrive at a place where they feel that they have nothing left to lose....
...the man is bringing about needed changes, peacefully.
If there is no economic justice, is the justice that exists without it, relevant?