Venezuela’s economy shrank 4.5% in the third quarter, so the country’s boss is going to change how gross domestic product is measured: “We simply can’t permit that they continue calculating GDP with the old capitalist method,” he said in a televised speech to members of his socialist party. “Capitalist calculations,” the president said, don’t take into account socialist-style economic activity – such as visits to subsidized medical centers in which money doesn’t change hands. Nor, he says, does capitalist methodology adjust for a government’s decision to cut oil production to support prices, as the Chavez regime has done. Those awful capitalists were likewise responsible for the 2.4% contraction in Venezuela’s economy in the second quarter. One would almost feel sorry for the President if his socialist calculations weren’t so utterly flawed and his government so unfriendly to investors and entrepreneurs.
November 20, 2009
Americans should stop subsidizing Chavez with their huge cars and overheated houses and start ignoring him. Or maybe it’s just a vast wingnut conspiracy to prop Chavez up just so as to have something to talk about?