Is Hugo Chavez good for the U.S? Will his Anti-Big Biz make it to the States?

Krazy -"Between Big Business and the Government, you are getting the shaft from the government more.
I'd concentrate on them before backing anything Chavez is doing. We need less Socialism not more."

Krazy - "Low Orbit: I have a number of ideas, but most of them stem from getting the nationalized money back into the hands of the average joe."

Hugo Chavez's platform for winning his election was on exactly what your previous quotes stated, "getting the Nationalized money back into the hands of the average joe." the only difference that I can see is that it is ok if it happened in the US but it isn't ok becuase it happened in Venezuela with American companies.

Who knows, maybe Hugo Chavez is doing a good job for his country and maybe he sincerely believes that he can be the modern day Robin Hood for Venezuela. What we do know is Hugo knows how to deal with American AKA "International" businesses who try to take too much.

Everything has checks and balances in this world, and big business/big oil just got checked by Hugo Chavez and Venezuela.

Corporate welfare costs much, much more than regular welfare. Think about this: an individual receives between 400 to 600 dollars a month. Corporate welfare bailouts cost ??? per bailout. Also there are alot of programs for businesses to market themselves, for example, which are government supported. Also, at least 50% of our budget goes for military.

See URL:
www.warresisters.org...

And we all know about the military buying I-bolts for $50,000 each, and the $25,000 toilet seat. This money goes to defense contractors, arms traders and who knows where else, but it's an extremely bloated budget and the bottom line is that it is OUR money, the taxpayers, that is being spent so freely.

Japan got into alot of trouble in the '90's because they bailed out all the corporations that were going bankrupt. If I was head of a corporation and I knew that I could spend however much I wanted to, knowing that my corporation would be bailed out by the government, that's not much incentive to run my company on a budget, is it?

Hugo Chavez is looking to reduce the unnecessary spending in the federal budget. He is also redistributing land that was way into bloated proportions, something like 90% of Venezuela land was owned by 5% of the population (the wealthiest sector), but wasn't being used for anything, just sitting there. He has redistributed the land, and now there is more land to grow food, raise livestock, etc. and the people who lost their land had a reasonable program so that they didn't lose too much money. One of the stipulations was that if the land wasn't being used, it should be turned over to the government, who in turn would give it to the peasants or it would be used for agriculture, etc.

Sounds to me like Hugo is a pretty savy businessman. I like that he doesn't go to extremes, he tries to create a win-win situation for everyone. Will he have an impact on U.S. businesses? Well, I think he is about to, having dealt with the multinational corporations who were eating up Venezuela's resources without much recompense for Venezuela; now he is about to ask for euros instead of dollars for oil. This should be interesting to watch.

Low Orbit: How many times has the platform and the practice been different in politics. I don't put much on what folks say to get into office.

However, what he has done does not seem to mesh with what you said. He has stopped planned privitization of industry and created massive socialistic programs.

That sound like giving the money back to the average joe? The main difference, is that I suggest simply returning the money and not taking any more, rather than to keep taking it and distribute it again as he sees fit.

Same idea, but one is Capitalism and one is Socialism.

I have not decided if I think he is good or bad overall.