The New York Times admits defeat!

Well, not really.

But they do point out that runaway government spending and good intentions are not enough to keep a country on sound footing, which given the general tone of their editorials was like seeing a halogen worklight in the bowels of Carlsbad Caverns.

Hugo Chavez is half celebrity, half demon in the world. He is proudly anti-American, wanting to create a coalition of like-minded South American countries to oppose the "Imperialist" United States. He enjoys calling th ePresident "The Devil," and wears proudly on his sleeve what many government-can-do-so-much-good people secretly believe.

But his country is in trouble. The government doing many things means the government has to spend a lot of money. With government spending growing by 50% a year, inflation is over 20% and rising. Price controls "intended to help the poor" are leading to shortages (which is precisely what any Economist would tell you would happen, as I mentioned often during my rants against price gouging laws). Instead of addressing the problem, Chavez blames the suppliers (sound familiar?) and threatens to nationalize their industries, too.

Seizure of formerly privately-owned oil fields and natural resources means that private investment in the country is dropping (also predictable - why invest billions if the end result is going to be taken by force), and the government - big as it is - simply cannot replace that flow of capital.

Chavez dodges the inflation issue (which really, really harms the poor) by introducing a new currency, worth 1,000 times the standard currency. Imagine how bad things would have to be here if the government addressed price levels by ramping up circulation of the $1,000 bill because $1 bills had become so useless and cumbersome.

I liken it to Halliburton moving its offices to Dubai. If you tell private industries that they are evil, tax them into the ground, and make them out to be the incarnation of evil on the face of the earth, eventually...

They will leave.

And you'll be screwed.