Comments on: Brad DeLong on Venezuela

By: The Pedant-General

The Pedant-General — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:32:18 +0000

no more ridiculous that the rule enforced by the left that any leftist manifesto to be applied in only one nation magically makes it right wing.

By: john b

john b — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:43:55 +0000

Perhaps leftist governments have that special penchant for it.

Hmm. In order to classify Chavez’s populist-nationalist, Iran’s religious-fundamentalist and Nigeria’s socially-conservative, kleptocratic-with-lip-service-to-free-markets governments as “leftist”, you need to make some pretty ridiculous steps of logic..

By: The Remittance Man

The Remittance Man — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 09:36:21 +0000

Well they could always export hotties to make up the deficit.

Ooops, no they can’t. According to Hugo they are all turning into porkers.

By: Bob Piper

Bob Piper — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:53:06 +0000

Interestingly, he blames the medium term problem on… demand rising very rapidly both because of new projects propelled by the state and because rising income for the poor has unleashed a mad consumption splurge–tvs. air conditioning in every room, etc

Wicked commie bastards. Why can’t they just keep the poor impoverished like generations of US-backed bastards have done.

By: Niall Smith

Niall Smith — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 19:40:08 +0000

Stuff like this always irritates me.

De Tocqueville made the point that great natural resources can be a recipe for a disaster and that was in 1835. If memory serves.

He wasn’t even an economist.

By: dearieme

dearieme — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:33:30 +0000

It is the convention in some circles to refer to the notorious Economist and Censor as Broad DeRound, which I take to be an unflattering girthist allusion.

By: Dennis the Peasant

Dennis the Peasant — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:28:42 +0000

Oh course, Dickie would argue that the core problem is Venezuela’s far-too-low taxation rates.

If Chavez instituted a Tobin tax, this would all go away.

By: jameshigham

jameshigham — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:06:45 +0000

Perhaps leftist governments have that special penchant for it.

By: Wolfie

Wolfie — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:55:11 +0000

What? There are corruption shortages in Nigeria?
Only yesterday one of their senior businessmen emailed me offering a most generous commission to assist his most trustworthyness in exporting TEN MILLION DOLLARS.