A new Reuters story this weekend details the mounting problems in Venezuela for everyone's favorite deranged socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez. Those problems include:-"Mountains of rotting food" at government warehouses (some 80,000 tons) that has gone unused through government mismanagement.
-Massive, soaring inflation (food prices are up 41% in the past year alone), which has been hitting hard the state-run supermarkets that Chavez has foisted upon his subjects (errrr, people).
-To replace the putrid, wasted food in the government warehouses and to supply the state-run supermarkets, Chavez's regime has resorted to sending in army troops to raid private wholesalers and to seize their food supplies.
-Chavez is also threatening to next take over the country's biggest private food processor, miller and brewer -- Polar company.
-Amidst all of these problems, he faces criticism of government incompetence from opponents, who allege that these various problems show "the state is a poor and corrupt administator" of a country's food supply (who could have ever imaged that?).
Now, I had been wondering why I hadn't recently seen too many Twitter blasts from ole Chavez (yes, I added him on Twitter just for laughs, although dude always tweets in Spanish and I have to try to translate the crap!). Now, it's clear why he's been more quiet -- he apparently has a lot more important things occupying his time than blasting out propaganda over the Net. But aren't all these calamities almost enough to make you feel a tiny bit sorry for Mr. Roly Poly Man (wink to Donovan Leitch)?
Well maybe not, but Chavez is not left without options down there. Methinks he might consider hitting up some of his Big Hollywood friends to float him a little (actually, a big) loan or donation to help prop up the Venezuelan food stores. After all, I'm almost certain that Danny Glover, Sean Penn and Oliver Stone would be more than willing to buck up for the cause. And if that proves ultimately inadequate, Vladimir Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are always just a phone call (or Tweet, as the case may be) away!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37786852
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