Soundbites all over the place:
Former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner returned to the City of Buenos Aires yesterday to celebrate the birth of her former friend and ally, late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. In an event held in the Instituto Patria (IP), the recently inaugurated Kirchnerite think tank, Cristina remembered Chávez, who died in 2013 and would have turned 62 yesterday, but also spoke about why, in her opinion, her Victory Front (FpV) party lost against President Mauricio Macri’s Cambiemos in the last elections. She hinted at Argentines being swayed by media conglomerates and other interested groups that don’t have the people’s best interest in mind.
Over in Philly, Nancy Pelosi was deploring white men who “voted against their own economic interests”
Because we all need to be condescended to.
One has to admit that Evita III is at least consistent.
The record shows that Hugo’s policies were a disaster even before the drastic drop in the price of oil since 2014. In 1998, the year Hugo was elected, the export price of Venezuelan oil averaged around $10/BBL. In 2013, the export price of Venezuelan oil averaged around $100/BBL.
During this time of oil price bonanza, Venezuela’s per capita income, measured by GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2011 international $) increased by 15.1% from 1998-2013. By comparison, the per capita income increase from 1998-2013 for the underdeveloped countries of Latin America and the Caribbean’s was 31.3%, for upper middle income countries was 112% [Venezuela is in this category – hard to believe today], and for the world 44.3%.
In spite of an oil price bonanza, Chavista Venezuela’s economic performance was decidedly below average. What Chavismo and the left has forgotten is that if you want to distribute more, you need to have more to distribute.
Evita III keeps on defending Hugo. At least she is consistent. Like the Bourbons, she has forgotten nothing and learned nothing.
World Bank: World Development Indicators
And Chavez increased the economy’s dependency on oil, too.