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Chavez is attempting to deploy the State against the elite banking class, most states are deployed by and for the elite banking class. looks like the US media has done a good job getting all sides of the sheep paddock baaing in unison.
Every story I have seen about Chavez goes like this:
Sensational headline playing on all the stereotypes and fears of the american/western public which then evaporates under sober factual analysis. Public as with most issues rarely bothers to look at the sober analysis.
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Hmm. The "elite banking class". Interesting.
From the [censored]
New York Times:
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The major threat to the economy comes from the exchange rate. Oil caused the bolívar to be overvalued. Farms and factories are in trouble. They can’t export and must compete at home with products imported at the official exchange rate, which is now about a third of the market rate. And so the country is awash in artificially cheap imported products, from basic foodstuffs, like Brazilian cooking oil, to fancy cars. “Our productive capacity is too weak to create jobs,” Petkoff says. “But we consume like a rich country."
The disparity between the official exchange rate (2,150 bolívars to the dollar) and the black-market rate (6,200 bolívars at press time) has created a new class known as the Boliburgesía. Bankers, traders, anyone who works in finance or commerce, can get very rich manipulating the exchange rates. Buy all the imported whiskey and Hummers you want, is the message. Live a life of wild excess. Just don’t try to produce anything.
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An Inconvenient Truth to the class struggle message, no?
Edit: Another Financial Times Article. Title:
Bankers Get Rich From Chavez's Revolution