Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

[President Chávez outlined new economic policy for Venezuela, designed to protect the national economy from the effects of the global economic collapse. These new policies neutralise all the arguments and predictions of the opposition economists and their media.]

Chávez Sweeps Away Budget Predictions of Venezuela's Opposition

March 23th 2009, by Arturo Rosales - Axis of Logic

The so called "economic adjustment package" announced by President Chávez on Saturday was predicted by the opposition media to look something like this:

Devaluation of the local currency, the Bolivar by some 40%
A 400% increase in the price of gasoline
28% tax on the purchase of new vehicles
25% increase in gas and electricity prices
Freezing of the minimum wage
Cutting social programs
Reintroduction of the tax on all bank transactions
An increase of 10% in VAT (purchase tax) taking it up to 19%

In other words, the opposition predicted a traditional neoliberal package of measures designed to shore up government coffers and stop the country "falling off the cliff" at the expense of the public. Not surprisingly, the measures they predicted would have followed a capitalist model.

In Venezuela the word "package" harkens back to the 1989 economic package imposed by the then Pérez government on February 27th of that year which sparked countrywide riots and looting and almost overthrew the regime. Thousands were slaughtered in the streets as the Pérez government used fully armed troops to quell the rioting and protect the sacred cow of private property.

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