The Past Week: March 29-April 4, 2009 (Hugo Chavez Takes Over Food Producers, Sounds Off on the G-20; A Government Bailout Special; “The Reluctant Ones”

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

As the  G-20 circus brought out the whole gang in London, Hugo Chavez was doing his thing in Iran.

Chavez had this to say about the G-20 summit:

Venezuela’s Chavez: Capitalism Must End

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday ridiculed the G-20 summit’s attempts to deal with the global financial meltdown, saying that capitalism is in crisis and must end. Chavez criticized the G-20 nations’ pledges of more than a trillion dollars for lending to struggling countries at Thursday’s summit in London, calling it “the same medicine that’s killing the patient—a trillion dollars … more money for a bottomless pit.”

SNIP

The IMF and the World Bank are “tools of imperialism” and must be eliminated, Chavez said.

MORE

Well, he has a point…But does this mean that he’s no longer Obama’s “best buddy” since Obama is part of the Obama Borg?

Meanwhile, a couple of weeks ago, Chavez took steps to deal with Venezuela’s economy during this global economic crisis:

Chavez trims budget, adds debt to counter crisis

(SNIP)

Chavez, who won a referendum last month allowing him to stay in office as long as he keeps winning elections, is popular for spending oil revenues on health and education programs for the poor majority.

During 10 years in office he has nationalized much of Venezuela’s economy including major oil projects as part of his drive to build a socialist state.

On Saturday, he cut the 2009 budget by 6.7 percent to $72 billion, raised the minimum wage 20 percent and increased planned government financing to $16 billion from $5.6 billion. And he increased a sales tax to 12 percent from 9 percent.

(SNIP)

Economist Luis Vicente Leon described the package of measures as moderate but said the government was gambling crude prices would recover later this year.

“These are not truly deep measures, they don’t attack the fundamental problems of the economy,” Leon told Reuters.

Faced with Latin America’s highest inflation, Chavez has in recent weeks increased pressure on business to lower prices by taking over farms and rice mills and threatening to nationalize the country’s top private employer, which makes food and beer.

What do you think of that last part?  When does Obama go after the food supply?

***

The next two items courtesy Kenosha Marge:

***

A couple of weeks ago we learned that Evan Bayh has put together a group of “pragmantic Democrats.”  Then there are the Blue Dogs:

Centrist Dems: Dogged If They Do, Dogged If They Don’t

By Froma Harrop

There’s trouble around the Democratic campfire. The party has the White House and solid congressional majorities. But what it doesn’t have is everyone on the same page, strumming the same chords, singing the same tune.

Liberals who kept the fires burning during the long Republican reign now fear that moderate Blue Dog Democrats will thwart their much-delayed dreams. Elected from purplish parts of America, the Blue Dogs are fiscal conservatives who regard expensive new programs with a wary eye.

What’s a liberal to do? First, recognize that the Blue Dogs are the reason Democrats have such nice majorities. They are why the dreams are even on the menu. Second, concede that the Reluctant Ones have a point.

(MORE)

“The Reluctant Ones”…has a certain ring to it, yes?

***

THE PAST WEEK

*By American Lassie

Saturday Sanity: The Antidote to the Madness (April 4, 2009) Spring Winds; Squirrel Wars; Bees Invade Feeder; Wounded Butterfly; Sunrise Over the Organs; Slick Lounges Around

Non-Stop Campaigning Here in NM-CD2 By Bill Richardson’s Hand-Picked Freshman Rep Harry Teague, Who’s Splitting His Votes Pro/Con on Obama Policies

Iowa Gone Wild With Nazi Reference at Public Hearing (Listen to the Audio) as New Yorkers in CD-20 Test Obama’s Popularity

Canada Follows the U.S. Terms for GM/Chrysler; Harper Still Worrying About the “Eased” ‘Buy-American’ Clause in Stimulus Package

Closing Out Women’s History Month With Dr. Mary Schweitzer, Ground-Breaking Molecular Paleontologist, and a Special T. Rex

*China, the Treasury, and Real Estate (As in the New World Trade Center); Cross-Pollination:The New America Foundation/Council of Foreign Relations

The Past Week: March 22-28, 2009 (A Split in Russian Political Forces as Putin Weakens; The Voice of Korea, North Korean Propaganda Outlet; G-20 Protests Begin; A Prescient Wish for a Bush Successor ca. 2006; X-Rated Google Earth)

The Scanner-Politics: March 25, 2009 (G-20; Glenn Beck’s “The One Thing” Segment on the Dollar [Video]; “The Big Takeover”; Al Gore Releasing New Book on Election Day 11/3/2009; Augie the Dog Sends a Deposit to the U.S. Treasury)

~~By InsightAnalytical-GRL

We looked at the upcoming G-20 meeting in yesterday’s post (See: The Scanner–International Edition, March 24, 2009: Say Goodbye to the Dollar? China, Russia Proposing a New World Currency for “Non-Credit” Based Economies, Echo G-20 Agenda of Expanding IMF; China Will “Consider” Buying IMF Bonds; 10th China Develpment Forum Underway), and lo and behold, a few times during the day, I began picking up some items on the TV discussing the meeting, which will be held in London April 1-2.

I caught a few moments of Shepherd Smith on FOX during the afternoon, interviewing a woman who ticked off all the reasons why the dollar wouldn’t be replaced as the world’s reserve currency at the meeting. The discussion was in the context of how it would affect the U.S. economy and how complicated it was, and that’s why it wouldn’t happen. China’s worries about its investments in U.S. Treasury bonds was mentioned and their desire for the dollar to be dropped as the reserve, but the EU was supporting the U.S. There was absolutely no mention of Russia and its release suggesting what China suggested.

Apparently, Glenn Beck wasn’t so circumspect during his morning radio show or his FOX TV show later in the afternoon.  I didn’t hear either but my mother said he sounded EXACTLY like what we had written in our post yesterday.  Since I had printed it out for her to read, she knew what was in it.

Well, what he opined wasn’t EXACTLY what we wrote about, but he touched a whole bunch of bases in giving a general “history” of how we have gotten to where we are today.  It’s like “From Biggest Lender to Biggest Borrower 101.”  Apparently Glenn Beck and IA are on the same page, at least on this one topic.  That’s a bit weird for us, since I think Beck is pretty insufferable, to say the least, but I think the “The One Thing” segment he did yesterday evening was pretty darned clear. This is a very short segment, so do watch it all! (Note: I had trouble inserting the video from the FOX site, so I found it on YouTube. The “title” comes from FOX, however.)

The One Thing

— By Glenn Beck

The incredible shrinking dollar: Where’s the outrage?

***

A big hat tip to Uppity Woman who posted about the story by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone which actually comes out and talks about the “revolution” that is underway courtesy the big insiders.  Go to Uppity Woman to catch some of the excerpts of note.

And here’s the direct link to the piece:

The Big Takeover

The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

***

Well,  just in time for the 2009 election is…Al Gore, who issued a press release yesterday about a follow-up book to An Inconvenient Truth.  I loved the film and got a copy of the book as “payment” for my efforts in the not-so-long-distant past at a certain Chicago-based website that went crazy last May.

From the blog, Al Gore:

Our Choice March 24, 2009 : 1:07 PM

From the Press Release:

Today Vice President Gore announced that his next book, Our Choice, will be published by Rodale in the US and by other publishers internationally on November 3, 2009. Picking up where An Inconvenient Truth left off, Our Choice utilizes Mr. Gore’s forty years of experience as a student, policymaker, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur and activist to comprehensively describe the real solutions to global warming. A co-recipient of the Nobel Peace prize in 2007 for his environmental work, Mr. Gore continues to make sense of the pressing issues we face and Our Choice will unquestionably inspire and rally those ready to fight for solutions that were deemed impossible only a short time ago.

I was really ticked when the guy who delivered those stirring speeches about the press and the Constitution during the Bush years turned around and chose to endorse Obama instead of remaining a statesman for the world by staying neutral–the same Obama who took all that money from Exelon and rewrote a nuclear safety bill to please his donors and the Republicans.

So now, Gore will inject himself into the 2009 elections as all the PR push for his book in the period leading up to its Election Day release.  He’s been pretty quiet since the Inauguration and hasn’t talked about energy policy at all, although he’s supposed to be some sort of adviser to the Obama Administraiton.  Elections for governor will be held in Virginia (where Terry MacAuliffe is currently running for the Democratic nomination) and New Jersey (where Democrat Jon Corzine may be facing re-election troubles).  Frankly, I view this “book business” as manipulative and cheesy. And so damned obvious…

***

Finally, on a lighter note…

Augie the Dog and his owner make a statement of sorts about money.  I think it’s appropriate that the bag displayed near the end of the video will be going to the Treasury…Follow this  link and enjoy!