Comments by hourcadette

Some American filibusters tried doing just that around 1850... you can read Robert G. Caldwell's "The Lopez Expeditions to Cuba",

http://www.baldoralumni.com/collection/Lopez_Expeditions_to_Cuba_1848-51...

a very well written thesis of 1915 from Princeton.

What I can't understand, and would appreciate if someone could explain, is if "The average monthly wage is 454 pesos, or $19", as is stated in the next article in this special report, how can the per capita GNP be $5400 as seen in this article's graph, when of course, 12 months times $19 a month is only $228.

Rotary is open by invitation to and encourages participation from people from all walks of life. Since 1989 it opened its doors to women. When it started its program to eliminate polio, it set a goal of achieving this by 2005, which was the 100th anniversary of the founding of Rotary.

Religious zealots are increasing in power and popularity the world over... witness such disparate groups as the ones in Israel, in the Moslem world (especially in those countries associated with the Arab Spring), and the Tea Party in the USA. It is not a localized phenomenon.

I am attracted to the Chinese writing system to be promoted as a universal written language ... so that all of us who speak in different languages would be able to travel to any part of the world and understand street signs and other basic instructions, and also would be able to communicate many, many ideas with any educated person without needing translators.

See.. http://www.investmauritius.com/Newsletter_Nov11/article5.html

Apparently the African country of Mauritius "has developed an enabling legal services environment" which will give legal foundation to this project in Honduras.

Chavez has received various billion dollar loans from China and Russia. By placing assets there, it may be part of a deal as a way of leaving collateral for future loans when he needs cash.

A fine article. The Economist makes you feel you are ringside at a decisive moment in European history. It is terribly exciting.

The moment is to be savored ... a long lasting, terribly repressive regime led by a megalomaniac has been forcibly evicted by its own people. The Arab Spring's roots were much deeper than anyone had imagined. The tide has turned for the Arab world whose people have shown their rejection of dictatorship.

At the time that the 2010 stimulus package was being discussed, Krugman of the NYTimes advocated a much larger stimulus. Time seems to have proved him right.

From now on,raising the debt limit is always going to be an opportunity to blackmail the administration (this one and future ones) into agreeing to the most disagreeable things. Obama has made a major mistake in letting this be a negotiable item. Given the dire consequences of not raising the debt limit, he should have simply refused to even consider negotiating.

This man is no Christian. There is no Christian jihad. Thou shalt not kill is one of the Ten Commandments. Christ taught us to turn the other cheek. Love thy neighbor as thyself.

The state of the country has been very troubled lately ... electrical black outs have affected large areas, public roads are a shambles after months of continued rain, there are shortages of basic food items like cooking oil and wheat flour, rampant inflation is creating havoc with people's budgets, the notorious drug trafficker Makled with links to leading government officials has recently returned, and public security continues its downward trend. The surprise is that the opposition, in particular their members of congress, have not been better able to take advantage of the government's troubles to make much of a dent in the popularity of Chavez's government.

DSK must have thought that the $3000 a night suite was a full service hote.

So sad. Another death toll for Venezuelan democracy.

Note: this decree has the strength of law due to the Enabling Law approved by the previous pro-Chavista Congress last December, which gave Chavez special legislative powers for 18 months, supposedly to help people made homeless by heavy rains at that time.

@Cloudwarrior

Unfortunately I am one of those to be included in "the average Venezuelan that has to live in a country where guys like venezuelan_economist have power". His insulting nature is a copy of Chavez's way of speaking about the oppostion, which is one reason why public opinion is so polarized.

There are a lot of myths about Venezuela that have been propagated by Chavez: before he came to power... there already was free education through the university level, free health care at public hospitals and public clinics, and many social programs for adult education, job training and special food and clothes handouts for poor families who had their children in school.

The democratic governments that began after the overthrow of Perez Jimenez in 1958 where initially very socially orientated and did a much better job than Chavez has done to reduce illiteracy, build public housing, build other infrastructure and open up the education system to the vast populace. The best public universities were greatly expanded at that time, attracting professors from all over the world. For many years, Venezuela was a showcase of a successful democracy in Latin America.

It didn't take long however for corruption to seep in, it was unchecked and continued growing over the years, to the point that the two major political parties were self serving and forgot that their main focus should have been the country itself.

In that sense, someone like Chavez, who was totally opposed to these major political parties, could have represented a good correction. However he himself has a love affair with Cuba and Castro and a communist agenda and has been slowly and progressively destroying the product of free enterprise, along with economic and political freedoms. There are tremondous parallels with Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe, a once rich country that has been totally destroyed under the premise of a "democracy".

My deepest sympathies to Cloud_warrior and SAEB - you have tried to reason with a fanatic ... but he doesn't respond to reason - he has been thoroughly brain washed.

In the new National Assembly, the representatives of the opposition are being terribly cowed. The gallery, for the public, is limited to partisans of the government who proceed to jeer every time an opposition deputy tries to intervene, and cheer wildly every time a Chavista has anything to say. The opposition media is not allowed to be present in the National Assembly, so that all the cameras are strictly controlled by Chavez people, taking every opportunity to put the opposition deputies in a bad light. And the opposition deputies are constantly being insulted, being called liars and criminals, for having the bravery to describe some of the faults of the government. It is a mockery of civility.

Very surprising... New Zealand enjoys a very good reputation in general. You expect that a country with high living standards would be able to sustain a 6.3 level earthquake with minimal loss of life and material damage. Not good for its engineering reputation!!

Considering Chavez's incredible strong popularity after 12 years in power, Venezuela will probably have Chávez as presidente for a good many more years. He is a tremondous campaigner, is tremendously active, and has a very large, hard core of fanatic supporters, and there is really no one in the opposition on the horizon who can measure up to his rhetoric and popularity, so do not expect anyone to better him in the next presidential election in 2012. The main worry is his efforts to turn Venezuela into a new Cuba, i.e., setting up a prototype Communist country, with a ubiquitous repressive regime, which totally wipes out people's political and economic liberties. If there is any rationality in life, given this electoral result, and seeing what is happening now in Cuba, it does give hope that he will not be able to go the whole route. Nevertheless, he has always been a couple of steps ahead of the opposition, and has always found a way to surmount any obstacles thrown his way, so there is no guarantee that he will not come back with some measures to overcome this new barrier, i.e., a non-complacent National Assembly.