Venezuela reduces inequality the most in Latin America

[Peace Patriot]

Venezuela reduces inequality the most in Latin America

Caracas, 30 Ago. AVN .- Whereas Latin America is the most unequal continent in the world, Venezuela is the country that has reduced the inequality index the most in the region, a situation endorsed by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), said the President of the National Institute of Statistics (INE) Elías Eljuri during a program broadcast by Venezuela"s state-run TV station Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).

“Venezuela is the leading country in Latin America," stressed Eljuri as he mentioned that Venezuela"s Gini coefficient is 0.39.

The Gini coefficient serves to measure the inequality of wealth distribution, a value of 0 expressing total equality and a value of 1 maximal inequality.

"Uruguay follows Venezuela with 0.44, Costa Rica's is 0.47, Colombia"s 0.58, Chile"s 0.52 and Brazil"s 0.59," explained the INE president.

Translated by MinCI

11:01 30/08/2010

http://www.avn.info.ve/node/14289

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This stat on Venezuela does not surprise me, since I have kept up on the vigorous efforts of the Chavez government to reduce poverty, and its successful reductions of poverty by half and extreme poverty by 70%--facts acknowledged even by the U.S. controlled/funded Millennium Project.

But you gotta wonder about Chile and Brazil having Gini coefficients like Colombia's, with Brazil's even being a point worse. I have read elsewhere that Colombia has the worst rich/poor divide in Latin America. And the poor in Colombia furthermore are suffering under a brutal fascist government, with the Colombia military and its closely tied rightwing paramilitary death squads murdering thousands of trade unionists, human rights workers, teachers, community activists, journalists, political leftists and poor peasant farmers, and displacing 5 MILLION peasant farmers from their lands with state terror. (About a quarter of a million of them have fled into Venezuela!)

Anybody have thoughts on this? Other stat sources to contribute? Brazil as bad as--even a bit worse--than Colombia?

Could it be that enough poor people have been killed/displaced in Colombia to skewer the numbers? The dead don't count? Maybe the displaced don't get counted either? I've also read that many of Colombia's displaced small farmers don't register as displaced for fear of government reprisals. Add those to the half a million total who have fled into neighboring Venezuela and Ecuador, and that's a lot of people whom the government (rather notorious for lying) would have an excuse not to count or report on, as to incomes and other poverty indicators.