(CNN) -- In the wake of his decision to devalue Venezuela's currency, President Hugo Chavez on Sunday said he would put the military on the streets to ensure that business owners don't raise prices.
Speaking on his weekly television program, "Alo Presidente," Chavez railed against merchants who re-price their items in reaction to Friday's announcement that the Venezuelan bolivar currency, which had been fixed at 2.15 to the U.S. dollar since 2005, was devalued to 4.3 to the dollar. For food and medicine, Chavez announced a second fixed exchange rate for these "necessity" goods at 2.6 bolivares to the dollar.
"I want the national guard in the streets, with the people, to fight speculation," Chavez said, calling re-pricing a form of robbery.
A devaluation makes foreign products relatively more expensive for domestic consumers, discouraging imports.
Chavez showed a photograph in a newspaper of consumers in long lines over the weekend to buy goods, fearing that the sharp devaluation could result in higher prices.
The president blamed such lines on "teleterror," saying that opposition media outlets were fueling a panic.
"At this moment, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to raise the prices of anything," Chavez said.
He encouraged people to publicly denounce businesses where prices increase and threatened to expropriate businesses that do.
The government would transfer ownership of such businesses to the workers, Chavez said.
Hugo continues his march on the Path of Fail. Putting soldiers on the street to monitor prices means things are becoming pretty bad.
EDIT: added the link.
Last edited by The Minx on Sun Jan 10, 2010 10:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
You know the troops may be able to stop merchants from "repricing" but simply having troops on the streets won't stop those merchants from going out of business because of that.
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
For shame, frigid. The laws of supply and demand are made up as excuses by the evil capitalists. Venezuela is undertaking a bold Socialist People's revolution where such things are not applicable.
PS: neither will handing the businesses over to the workers make any difference, one way or another. Not raising prices means lower real wages for the workers, I wonder how he'll manage to rhetoric his way out of that little point.
I also love how he rants about the opposition media for trying to start a panic by reporting the truth.
Rather par for the course with him Minx, do a search on him on this board and you'll find I've made him something of a hobby. This guy declared Halloween to be an American attempt to spread terror across the planet, threw out some missionaries who were working in the bush accusing them of plotting his death, repeatably nationalized any news network that made negative comments about him... I can go on and on and on... I think I just did.
Still he's used the oil wealth to amass a nice little army, although frankly I have no damn idea what he could do with it. It's an army that would do very well, fighting across the plains of Europe or Australia or so on. In the mountains and thick jungle that make up Venezula's borders? Not so much. Nor would they be a good defensive force. My guess is he just like Russian toys.
My only problem here is he's bankrupting a nation that doesn't have to be poor. Venezuela could be so much better then this.
"it takes two sides to end a war but only one to start one. And those who do not have swords may still die upon them." Tolken
The laws of supply and demand are made up as excuses by the evil capitalists. Venezuela is undertaking a bold Socialist People's revolution where such things are not applicable.