POST SCRIPTS

productive sectors have been thwarted. Nationalization has been used to castrate companies from any profitability. After the usurpation of the national oil company PDVSA, the only enterprise that could barely afford it, next in line were the telecommunications and utilities but Chávez did not stop there and continued on to the cement and iron industries. None can really survive. ** Lands have been confiscated and artificial price and wage controls are imposed on everything. Food shortages suddenly spring up and, not surprisingly, people are hoarding. There is virtually no investment in infrastructure and deterioration is evident everywhere. ** To bolster the regime, services are given away and at a time of sky high oil prices, gasoline sells for 2 to 5 US cents a liter, less than 20 cents per gallon. ** The Venezuelan currency -- the Bolivar -- just shed three zeros to become Bolivar “fuerte.” The official exchange rate is 2.15 Bs to a dollar but nobody in the country seems to buy that…(it) dropped to as low as 6.5…more realistic rate would probably be seven or more. ** The country’s economic predicament may not be the worst part. Even more palpable is the prevalent social animosity. Chávez has directed such a venomous attack on the productive middle class that it has led to a counter-reaction. ** But what is far more worrisome is the hatred that now exists both ways between the poor and the middle classes, a hatred mostly generated by the incendiary Chavez rhetoric.

Sound at all familiar? This describes the basic direction and method of the democrat party: control and regulation of the private sector, taking of lands, inciting class envy, “giving” services away. It's more difficult to achieve "the ends" because of our Constitution but we are being pressed continually toward a "powder keg" situation here in America.

Please vote wisely in November.