CARACAS: Socialist President Hugo Chavez said Friday the $900 billion being spent by the US government to bail out failing financial companies dwarfed his bill for nationalizing a big chunk of Venezuela’s economy.
Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil, also found himself agreeing with Republican US presidential nominee John McCain, calling him “comrade” for criticizing America’s financial system. McCain has called Chavez a dictator.
Chavez said the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression was the crash of “neo-liberal” capitalism, and showed his “21st Century Socialism” was the way forward.
In recent years Chavez has nationalized a string of energy, telecoms, and heavy industry companies as part of a drive to turn the OPEC nation into a socialist state, spending about $12 billion from an oil boom in the process.
As part of its rescue plan to prevent the market turmoil infecting the wider economy, Washington this month announced it was seizing control of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a cost of $200 billion. “They have criticized me, especially in the United States, for nationalizing a great (telecom) company, CANTV, that didn’t even cost $1.5 billion,” Chavez said at a ceremony that included representatives of US oil company Chevron.
“The United States has spent $900 billion, four times what Venezuela produces in a year, to try to boost the troubled finance system and housing market,” Chavez said.
US government intervention had generally failed to prevent the crisis deepening and this week 158-year-old Lehman Brothers collapsed, the federal government bailed out insurers AIG, and Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America.
The debt paper issued for doing many of the deals now undermining the banks had always really been worthless, quipped Chavez, who said they could get maybe a few pennies back by recycling it.
Venezuela itself holds up to $300 million in paper linked to bankrupt Lehman Brothers, media reports said.
Chavez referred to McCain with the socialist greeting “comrade” in response to his comments that financial markets had become casinos.
Chavez, a close friend of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, said the market turmoil vindicated his criticism of “neo-liberal” capitalism.
Honduran grievance
Meanwhile, Honduran President Manuel Zelaya said US apathy toward deepening poverty in Honduras forced the longtime Washington ally to turn for help to Chavez. Zelaya said rising food prices began hitting Hondurans hard six months ago and he asked the local business sector, the United States and the World Bank for help.
