Wealth Redistribution Hugo Chavez Style

Luis Miranda
The Real Agenda
March 8th, 2013
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According to Guillermo Chochez, a former Panamanian Ambassador to OAS, Chavez has been dead for at least 7 days after he was disconnected from respirators. Chochez cites Venezuelan government sources, which he said he could not reveal because he gave his word as a journalist that he would not.

According to all Socialists, Marxists and Communists, their ideology is better than others because what it was at its core is the proper redistribution of wealth. They explain that the rich must pay their share in taxes to support the poorest and that the government must be the sole giver and taker to promote social justice.

Hugo Chavez’ death is certainly not news now. But perhaps the news is the way he went about redistributing Venezuelan wealth to himself and his family. That’s right, if corporate Fascism is well-known by its goal of amassing power and stealing everything else later in back door, under the table, secret dealings, Marxists, Socialists and Communists are easily identified with hoarding resources for themselves.

As it turns out, Hugo Chavez’ death leaves Venezuela worse than it was back in 1999, when Chavez came into public light. The country is more divided than ever, and current vice-president Nicolas Maduro has deployed police and military to the streets as a preventive measure in case riots break out. But behind all the spectacle composed by social network reactions from friends and foes, people lose the opportunity to know another side of the Bolivarian Revolutionary’s way to do business.

Much like the Castro family in Cuba, the Chavez family managed to accumulate billions of dollars in cash that Chavez diverted while in power. According to Criminal Justice International Associates (CJIA), Hugo Chavez stole and redistributed about $2 billion from the country’s oil trade and has left it as an inheritance to his family. CJIA estimates that Venezuela’s former leader amassed a fortune just as oligarchs amass power and control through their monopoly oriented business model.

“The personal fortune of the Castro brothers has been estimated at a combined value of around $2 billion,” says Jerry Brewer, President of CJIA. “The Chávez Frías family in Venezuela has amassed a fortune of a similar scale since the arrival of Chávez to the presidency in 1999,” he added. His assessment is part of a complete report published by CJIA on its website.

Besides stealing $2 billion from the Venezuelan people, Chavez also made sure that his dear friend Fidel Castro and his family received a nice chunk from Venezuela’s oil sales. Brewer estimates that Castro’s loyalty cost Venezuelan’s around $5 billion per year, which includes oil shipments and other resources. That my friends is wealth redistribution Chavez style.

The CJIA President went even further to say that behind the transfer of Venezuelan funds to Cuba and other Chavez’ allies, there is an organized mafia composed by criminal groups which have defrauded Venezuela of about $100 billion in the last 12 years.

The $100 billion extracted by Chavez and his cabal of thugs from the pockets of the Venezuelan people is, however, a penny in the bucket compared to what Republicans and Democrats steal from the American people, for example, or how many millions of dollars in taxes are not paid by international corporations who close back room deals with governments to evade the payment of taxes.

Facebook recently got a tax exemption from the American government that amounts to $429 million. Other powerful political donors to both parties like Google, Apple and Microsoft are also allowed to send their profits abroad, which enables them to evade tax collection. Google alone cut its tax payments by $3.1 billion between 2007 and 2010. Meanwhile, Apple hides $1 billion a week in profits the company should pay taxes on. According to a U.S. Congressional memo, Microsoft uses subsidiaries in places like Bermuda, Singapore and Puerto Rico to save itself some $6.5 billion in taxes.

As it is abundantly clear, neither the Socialist nor the crony Capitalist wealth redistribution style is ‘just’ as supporters blindly believe them to be. While Chavez’ detractors celebrate in his death in abundance, his supporters are surely mourning his departure in equal or worse social and economic condition than they were before Chavez came into power.

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Contributed by Luis Miranda of The Real Agenda.

Luis R. Miranda is the Founder and Editor of The Real Agenda. His 16 years of experience in Journalism include television, radio, print and Internet news. Luis obtained his Journalism degree from Universidad Latina de Costa Rica, where he graduated in Mass Media Communication in 1998. He also holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Broadcasting from Montclair State University in New Jersey. Among his most distinguished interviews are: Costa Rican President Jose Maria Figueres and James Hansen from NASA Space Goddard Institute.

Wealth Redistribution Hugo Chavez Style