Chavez says mall to be expropriated in Venezuela

[chucktaylor]

Source: Yahoo Finance

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez ordered construction halted on a major shopping mall in Caracas on Sunday, saying the government will expropriate the unfinished building.
The Venezuelan leader said it would be out of line with his government's socialist vision to allow the new Sambil mall to take up precious urban real estate -- and that unbridled consumerism isn't his idea of progress either.

---cut---

Consumerism has flourished in Venezuela in recent years, with the economy awash with cash and windfall oil earnings rolling in. Malls are often packed, and new shopping centers have been sprouting up quickly.

The president did not say how much the government might pay the mall's owners in compensation.





Read more: http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081221/lt_venezuela_expropriated_mall.html?.v=6

[MADem]

1. ,,,

:rofl:

The hulking concrete and brick structure takes up an entire city block and according to the Sambil Web site was to include 273 shops.

"We're going to expropriate that and turn it into a hospital -- I don't know -- a school, a university," Chavez said to applause during his Sunday television and radio program, "Hello, President."

Constructora Sambil, the company building the mall, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. It operates Sambil malls in cities across Venezuela, including another vast shopping center in Caracas.

"How are we going to create socialism turning over vital public spaces to Sambil?" said Chavez, who has nationalized Venezuela's largest phone company, electric utilities and oil fields.

The president also has urged Venezuelans to shed their materialism and their taste for designer clothes, sport utility vehicles, Scotch whisky and plastic surgery.

Gee, I suspect that will go over like a lead balloon. What's under that building? Some nice OIL, perhaps?

Something stinks...and it's bigger than Hugo's halfassed, un-thought-out, ideas.

[Pavulon]

2. I guess negotiations broke down

someones envelope was a bit light. Guess all the relatives he juiced will have to drive a bit further to shop.

[MADem]

3. Oh, you CYNIC!!

Your scenario is probably closer to the truth than my "oil field under the mall" one!!!

Let me revise and amend, and jump on your bandwagon!

[thunder rising]

4. Then where does this fit in? "with the economy awash with cash and windfall oil earnings rolling in"

I wouldn't mind Chavez bashers except they never have any proof. Just a dislike of a South American leader that will not abide American interests. If that's not a polite FU, then I don't know what is.

[Pavulon]

5. As hugo continues to be a joke

and pain in the ass under the obama administration I think a bit of poking ( google npr chavez family) never hurts.

Hope that oil keeps on falling. Maybe he can give away some more product. Hugo is on record for 100 a bbl oil.

Lets see what happens when it hits 25. He may have to move to geneva.

[iconicgnom]

8. "and pain in the ass under the obama administration". yah. sure. you betcha.

I'm sure George W. Bush agrees. I'm sure this is a REAL problem for the USA.

Wait a sec, I'll get back to ya after I go buy that Hummer. And oh yah, after I do a bit more to "support the troops".

Hey, maybe we can blow the fuck outa Venezuela next. Those assholes.

That'd be too cool.

[harmonicon]

9. nice to call the legitimately elected leader of another country....

... who is an inspiration to millions of others around the world "a joke". How would you feel about people calling president Obama "a joke"?

[Pavulon]

19. Kill John Stewart now

I am sure Obama will never be on the ass end of political satire..

[chucktaylor]

6. Yes, the "awash with cash and windfall oil earnings " was the part that got me.

Spending that is a bad thing?

[lostnotforgotten]

14. When The Economy Collapses In The US We Will See The Same Here

It has already started to happen in a small way with poor people squatting in foreclosed homes.

[Pavulon]

18. We sell more than oil.

they do not.

[w4rma]

26. At least they export more than they import there. They even manufacture things in that country. (nt)

[Pavulon]

28. no not really, Brazil yeppers

they sell business jets and such, but nothing that cant be made somewhere else on a cheaper dollar.

VZ are oil exporters, that it.

[lostnotforgotten]

29. Non-Responsive

eom

[Pavulon]

33. Guess he fixed the hill slums? no, bought migs

and ak's. VZ is 3rd world and its economy is far worse than ours. Hopefully the people will not suffer, well suffer more.

Is that responsive? You can not compare our economy to theirs, does not work that way.

[High Plains]

53. Right. We sell weapons and pop culture.

[MADem]

44. You're saying President Obama is going to take over malls and turn them into...

I don't know...a school, a hospital...or something?

I doubt it.

Someone didn't pay a bribe--that's why that whole thing went down.

[davidinalameda]

7. where are the St. Hugo apologists?

:shrug:

[harmonicon]

10. Hugo Chavez needs no apologists.

[davidinalameda]

13. usually the pro-Hugo crowd have posted by now

throwing their usual crap around like monkeys in a zoo

[iconicgnom]

16. aw, you're such a sweetie!

[davidinalameda]

25. my cats think so

[iconicgnom]

30. Your cats no doubt have as acute a sense of irony as you.

[harmonicon]

17. no crap throwing here from anyone but yourself

I don't need to come up with a load of b.s. to explain a reasonable man's actions like you seem to need to come up with to dismiss them. Viva Hugo.

[iconicgnom]

11. I dunno, probably where the "St. Obama" folk hang out. n/t

[lostnotforgotten]

15. Apologists For What - For Not Liking Your Brand Of Capitalism That Has The US Near Bankruptcy

If denouncing trickle down economics makes one a Chavez apologist, then so be it,

[EFerrari]

12. Damn that dictator! Why can't he support conspicuous consumption like our torture president?

Damn you, Chavez! Now I'm going to be up all night thinking about that poor shopping center!

[Boojatta]

20. If the space is used to sell porn in plain paper bags, then the

consumption won't be conspicuous.

[EFerrari]

23. Especially if consumers wear the bags after they're finished with their snack. n/t

[Bacchus39]

21. just think of how many people would have worked there...

and consider the building is essentially finished.

[w4rma]

27. I didn't know that people don't work in hospitals. (nt)

[Judi Lynn]

22. What a nightmare if they turn it into a hospital, for chrissakes!

Where are their values? :shrug:

[Bodhi BloodWave]

24. Its quites interesting to see

how some people seemingly have an urge to twist reality to be able to demonize or mock the democratically elected leader of a country just because they don't understand him.

[devilgrrl]

48. Or affordable housing - imagine the horror!

:scared:

[paulk]

35. I've never called Chavez a dictator

but what do you call the President of a country who can unilaterally close down the construction of a private enterprise?

I can't think of any democracies where something like this would be possible...

[Occulus]

49. Define eminent domain.

I could see exactly this being done in the US if there is a clear need for a public hospital in that location.

If we had our priorities straight.

But no; in the US, we wipe out entire neighborhoods already rich in culture and history (and never mind the fact that people already live there) and make way for "public" buildings- like a certain stadium in Texas.

:grr:

[toopers]

31. Does anyone here believe in individual rights . . .

and private property rights? Or does everything we have really belong to the state?

[GSPowner]

47. it sound s like some people don't believe it or rather do not truely understand this right

[bitchkitty]

32. Hugo stole Christmas!

The People really needed that mall. Designer clothes, expensive toys and plastic surgery will save the world.

[Judi Lynn]

34. Taking Property : Bush's landgrab -- and the New York Times'

Taking Property
Bush's landgrab -- and the New York Times'
Jonathan Rauch | July 29, 2002

In The New York Times the other day, columnist Nicholas D. Kristof took George W. Bush to task for "grabbing land for a new baseball stadium in Arlington for his Texas Rangers baseball team." Actually, "took to task" is a bit of an understatement. Kristof described Bush's activities as "a sordid tale of cronyism, of misuse of power, of cozy backroom money-grubbing -- a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality." He called Bush's dealings appalling. "Even Kazakhstan," he said, "would blush at such practices."

What sort of offense, exactly, did Bush commit? "Mr. Bush and the Rangers' owners conspired with city officials to seize private property that would be handed over to the Bush group." The seized property included not only the stadium site but also nearby land that the Rangers planned to sell or develop at a tidy profit.

Such cronyism is indeed "a more pressing threat to American business than outright criminality" because it clouds the very concept of private property. It's a scandal, all right -- the scandal being not that Bush and friends broke the rules but that they played by them. The scandal, in other words, is the rules.

From time immemorial, governments have wielded the power of eminent domain, by which they can take private property for public use, so long as they compensate the owners. Traditionally, "public use" has meant use for roads, airports, bridges, military bases, and other public facilities or services. Toward the middle decades of the last century, however, civic authorities won from the courts the power to condemn land that was "blighted": so rundown or neglected as to amount to a public nuisance. Cities used this power to designate old tenement neighborhoods as "slums," raze them, and build public housing -- one of the great urban-policy blunders of the last century, but that's another story. The Bush-Rangers-Arlington type of landgrab represents a newer sort of phenomenon.

More:
http://www.reason.com/news/show/34630.html

[paulk]

37. you are using Bush's landgrab to justify

the actions of Chavez?

or are you agreeing that "the scandal, in other words, is the rules"?

[Judi Lynn]

38. Slight difference, isn't there?

_Bush's actions benefited himself and a small group of hog investors.

Venezuela's move will benefit many, MANY people in life-sustaining ways, (vital) not ways through which they can become even wealthier (non-vital).

Here's your earlier comment I just saw. You've switched focus suddenly:

paulk (1000+ posts) Tue Dec-23-08 02:07 PM
Response to Reply #12
35. I've never called Chavez a dictator
but what do you call the President of a country who can unilaterally close down the construction of a private enterprise?

I can't think of any democracies where something like this would be possible...

[paulk]

39. eminent domain can be a good thing or it can be abused

but it is usually the result of a process, not the unilateral decision of the leader of a country.

In a functioning democracy it is the people who decide where the benefit is...

and eminent domain is usually a local issue

not a federal one where the President is involved

it seems strange to me that the President of a country would be driving around and just decide out of hand

that a private enterprise will be taken over by the government

that's not my idea of a functioning democracy.

[Occulus]

50. It's funny, though... I've never heard of a case involving eminent domain that didn't

leave me feeling like it was being used for an illegitimate reason. As far as I'm concerned, raising the tax base isn't a valid reason, yet I've heard or read about that excuse several times. It never seems to sit well with me.

I'm sure there are cases where it is used properly, but I never seem to hear about them.

[WriteDown]

41. So we're now supporting eminent domain?

I guess the Kelo decision was the right thing to do afterall. :sarcasm:

[Judi Lynn]

42. Pull your head out, why not? n/t

[WriteDown]

43. I'm sure from all your trips out of the US

that you have excellent perspective though. Its like of like the Neverending Story for you?

[GSPowner]

46. Okay it is okay for the govt to come in and take away your property

if it thinks by doing so it will benefit more people because it has something "better" planned?

[CheCheCheCheYerBooty]

36. We could learn from him

He is taking his country in the right direction. I was down there 4 months ago and swelled with pride with the decisions he has made.

[WriteDown]

40. But instead of being there...

you are here. Seems like you'd want to be somewhere that makes you swell with pride?

[EFerrari]

51. The inability to appreciate something unless it is in the room with you

is a characteristic of very young children and is usually outgrown after the age of two.

[GSPowner]

45. He is taking his country in a direction that is opressive and the policies

will crush private interprise, individual liberties and finally the individual.

What decisions made you swell with pride?

[Judi Lynn]

52. Go ahead and post links to your proof he's crushing enterprise, individual liberty, etc.

DU'ers have been watching Latin American events for years, and would no doubt love to be educated.