Hugo Chavez has died

Iraklis F.C. said:
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Gaddafi had good relations just before the arabic spring, especially European leaders...what do you have to say about this
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A nation trying to use diplomacy is what I call it.

Some people are so stuck to their guns they cannot see anything but their own idea. Diplomacy was tried, but didn't work. If we hadn't tried that first, people would be asking why. Can't win with some people.
 
dacads said:
Media portrayal can never be trusted, get real guys
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lol.

I'm sure all those who call him great have first hand experience of life in Venezuala.

More moronic than "believing" what the media says (and most people read, digest and form an opinion rather than blindly reciting) is people who instantly believe the opposite of what comes from the media with no facts, figures or anything to back it up. They just merely believe that it is false.
 
Iraklis F.C. said:
I just fail to see how Chavez is our enemy because he didnt bent over for cheap oil, if he was good for his people then he was a good man, period. Venezuelans will have the last word..
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He wasn't an enemy to me but I see him as an enemy to Venezuela, not just in his suppression of a free press but for his actions in the interest of Venezuelan people, all his actions ever did was compounded their plight of trying to escape poverty. Hopefully they will elect a government that will fix the outgoings failed economic policy and ensure the core values of healthcare and education to be sustainable and valuable.
 
satchef1 said:
Chavez upset big American money. In his first few years in power he changed foreign oil companies' cut from 84% of the barrel price to 70%, and he also reduced the amount of oil they were allowed to produce. ExxonMobil et all saw a dip in their profits overnight (at a time of unprecedented growth). He used the money the new deal raised to build houses for the poor (replacing shanties), and to provide free health care and education. In turn, this ensured he was a fairly popular figure among the poor (though not universally liked) and utterly despised by the rich immigrant elite who used to run the country. Then he set about reclaiming millions of acres of unused land, requiring landowners to sell it to the poor on the cheap. In response to an attempt to buy it's unused land, Heinz closed it's Venezuelan plantation and sacked all the workers. Chavez then sent the military to repossess the plantation and restore the workers to their jobs.

He upset the oil companies again when it came to heavy oil, proposing a guaranteed (but fixed) $50/barrel price on a 30-year contract. Venezuela would become rich, the oil companies would have a more stable income far from the worries of the Middle East and a vast supply of cheap Venezuelan oil would keep oil prices down. The deal was rejected. If Venezuelan heavy oil stays in the ground, and the US and Britain keep the middle east in turmoil, the price of oil (and oil company profits) will continue to rise.

It's the usual short termism. Venezuela is now China's largest foreign infrastructure investment - they've invested heavily in the country since around 2009, attempting to fix many of Chavez's failed infrastructure projects. As it stands, if Nicolás Maduro wins the upcoming election, it seems probable that the Venezuela's heavy oil will find it's way out of the ground via Chinese companies - it's China that's helping to build the infrastructure needed to make it happen. Time will tell if it will happen under the terms that Chavez wanted - if it does, then expect a steep drop in oil prices in a few years' time.

On the man himself; like every successful politician, he did good things and bad. There isn't a single one of them without blood on their hands. Measured against his peers, he was an idealist and an administrative failure. I do, however, admire his courage and resilience, his dedication to his ideals and principles. It didn't go to plan, but he gave socialism his best shot, and changed the lives of millions in the process (For better or worse? Either way, at least he tried to liberate Venezuela's poor).
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Excellent Post.

RIP Hugo Chavez.
 
No1newts said:
lol.

I'm sure all those who call him great have first hand experience of life in Venezuala.

More moronic than "believing" what the media says (and most people read, digest and form an opinion rather than blindly reciting) is people who instantly believe the opposite of what comes from the media with no facts, figures or anything to back it up. They just merely believe that it is false.
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I find that hard to believe..it's about doing your own research and trying to find out the facts rather than digesting and forming an opinion that has been given from a biased party

Not like anyone "forming an opinion" has had any experiences of life in Venezuala either..
 
No1newts said:
lol.

I'm sure all those who call him great have first hand experience of life in Venezuala.

More moronic than "believing" what the media says (and most people read, digest and form an opinion rather than blindly reciting) is people who instantly believe the opposite of what comes from the media with no facts, figures or anything to back it up. They just merely believe that it is false.
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So which are you? The one who believes the headline news bulletins, the one who assumes they are (mostly) lies, or the one who goes off in search of his own answers?

Trying to work out if Hugo Chavez was a good or a bad man is challenging. There's a lot of information (and misinformation) in both directions. The safest conclusion seems to be that, as far as politicians and revolutionaries go, he wasn't the worst kind of guy. We can look down on some of his actions, but at the end of the day, Latin America is a very different (more turbulent and more dangerous) place than Europe. The elite in the developed world use Latin America, Africa and the Middle East as a playground, always pulling strings for their own game. How does anyone rule in their people's interest in such circumstances without making mistakes?
 
He ruined PDVSA and has ruined the Lake Maracaibo basin..when he nationalised it all maintenance basically stopped an they have been paying the price ever since

My father ran on a fleet of 8 tankers that shipped oil for PDVSA and he saw first hand the environmental damage being done...underwater pipes leak, well heads leak, land based pipelines leak, the mangroves are being choked by the stuff. there have been explosions, regular deaths. Poor training and an attitude form the people running things that they just dont care..and of course regular bribes.. he was asked for 10k usd once or the ship would be held and he would be arrested as about 80 barrels worth went into the water even though it was the terminal workers fault and not the ships deckhands. it seemed even more ridiculous when the amount of oil bubbling up from leaking underwater pipelines carries on unchecked.

Chavez basically sacked all the best qualified engineers and installed his pals who had no idea of how to run things.
dad was running oil from maracaibo up to baton rouge contracted to PDVSA and sometimes the US coastguard would stop them from entering US waters as there was so much oil on the hulls that had been picked up in the maracaibo lagoon

they are now so in hock to the chinese that a a fair chunk of production goes straight to the chinese to repay loans
 
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