The CSM has an interesting piece on the oil industry in Venezuela and the fact that production appears to be on the wane, despite the official numbers: Venezuela’s oil model: Is production rising or falling?.
It also discusses how nationalization of natural resources, such as we have recently seen in Ecuador and Bolivia probably aren’t smart economically–a lesson that should have already been learned (cue Santayana).
While not directly what he was talking about, this makes me think of an excellent post by Matthew Shugart on the distinction between “leftist institution-builders” and “militant institution-destroyers.” Care to guess which category Chávez belongs to?
The whole post is quite interesting in the context of the current facile fascination that some of the in the press have had of late with the “wave” of “leftists” winning election in Latin America.
May 30th, 2025 at 11:08 pm
WAY CRAZY….
Treasury Secretary John Snow Resigns
May 31st, 2025 at 3:15 pm
Northern Latin America, in the news.
Poliblogger reacts to the reaction to Alvaro Uribe’s latest electoral romp, 62% of the vote in a multi-way race. Compassionate conservatism works and remains tremendously popular … in Colombia. Maybe if Bush’s opponents did more than…