Basically, Chavez is calling Bush a socialist for bailing out the failing financial institutions here in the US by having the US government buy stock in the financial institutions to infuse cash into them.
I'm not a financial genius, and by no means do I think the bailout was a great idea. I think that those financial institutions and their CEOs that played fast and loose in the sub-prime mortgage business and credit default swap markets should suffer the consequences of their risky gambles failing miserably.
The interplay of all that is going on in the economy is above my comprehension and something I am not capable of getting into and analyzing. I do know that there are millions of Americans whose assets have been wiped out because of the collapse of the economy and the collapse of financial institutions. Doing nothing is really not an option, in my opinion. And even with the $700 billion, who knows if it will be enough to keep the economy alive.
But I digress....
Back to El Burro's name calling.
Sure, the US Government is investing in failing financial institutions. But from what I understand the stocks being purchased are not voting stocks. If that is true, in effect the government is solely investing in these companies with less rights than I would if I were to go buy stock in one of these institutions. This isn't a corporate raid, or hostile takeover of these companies. This is designed to be a temporary move to infuse cash and free up the credit markets to get the economy moving again. The purchasing of stock was the prudent decision instead of buying up the bad debt on the books of these companies. The stock is an asset that the government can then sell at a later time to pay back the US Treasury and the American tax payer.
Let's compare/contrast this with what happened in Venezuela with Chavez nationalizing the oil industry.
The Venezuelan government didn't buy out ExxonMobil and others at fair market value for assets invested in Venezuela. Basically, it was take what we offer or take nothing.
The Venezuelan nationalization effort is not an investment effort, it's a move by a thug to syphon off profits from those industries for the good of the Venezuelan government - so that Chavez can bribe foreign governments, and put money in the pockets of Chavez and his cronies.
The Venezuelan nationalization effort is not a temporary move to shore up failing industries. In fact, as evidenced in this blog and many articles, Venezuelan nationalization of the oil industry has actually hurt oil output and potential oil revenues.
And here is the key difference between the two nationalizations (yet I wouldn't really classify the US bailout plan as a nationalization, as it is a temporary measure):
Chavez lauds his nationalizations for allowing the state to refocus companies'
activities on helping the poor rather than creating value for their
shareholders.
And in doing so, Chavez is running those companies into the ground leaving Venezuela worse off than before nationalizing the companies.
Oh well. Delusions again by the one man cantinfla show....
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