Another shining example of the threat of state capitalism--to its subjects
Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 12:04AM 
A WAPO story noting the extent of hard times that Chavezism has brought to Venezuela:
Every day for the past three months, government-programmed blackouts have meant the lights flicker and go dark in a city that once bustled with commerce. And Fifth Street, with its auto parts stores and car repair shops, has ground to a halt.
"We just stop," said Jesus Yanis, who paints cars. "We don't work."
Neither does the rest of Venezuela, where a punishing, months-old energy crisis and years of state interventions in the economy are taking a brutal toll on private business. The result is that the economy is flickering and going dark, too, challenging Venezuela's mercurial leader, Hugo Chávez, and his socialist experiment like never before.
No matter that Venezuela is one of the world's great oil powers -- among the top five providers of crude to the United States. Economists say Venezuela is gripped by an economic crisis that has no easy or fast solution, even if sluggish oil production were ramped up and profligate state spending were cut.
Chavez's continues to brag up his "21st-century socialism," but it is simply not delivering the goods, even with the high oil prices of the last few years.
But this is the typical performance of NOCs, or national oil companies: "The oil industry is pumping 20 percent less crude than in the 1990s and is saddled with debt."
It produces less because it refuses the investment that must accompany the foreign technology, and it's saddled with debt because, in true rentier fashion, the government treats it like a piggy bank--and this little piggy (Chavez) has been greedy.
The more Venezuela is characterized by electricity blackouts, the more it comes to resemble its great model--Cuba.
