Venezuela Reduced Poverty by 50%, Affirms Eclac
By CORREO DEL ORINOCO INTERNATIONAL 8/28/11
(SNIP)
The (Economic Commission for Latin America andthe Caribbean)
ECLAC report, entitled Social Panorama of Latin American and the Caribbean, states on page 13 that in 2002 poverty in Venezuela reached 48.6 percent, while in 2008 it dropped to 27.6 percent, which represents a 43 percent decrease.
Extreme poverty was reduced from 25% to 7% during the past decade, a dramatic change. The reduction in poverty is a result of a number of strategies implemented by the Venezuelan government to fight against social exclusion by boosting social programs known as “missions”, promoting the organization of community councils and nationalizing companies that pave the way for employment opportunities.(SNIP)
The most effective social programs in Venezuela have been in the areas of education, healthcare, job training and food subsidies that have aided the reduction in poverty. Medical attention is free and universal throughout Venezuela, with hundreds of new and advanced clinics built by the state during the past decade. Quality education is guaranteed at all levels, free even during university and post-graduate studies.
Thousands of new schools have been built by the Chavez administration along with hundreds of new accessible universities. Job and skills training programs have enabled thousands of Venezuelans not just to enter the work force but also to build their own cooperatives and small businesses, many receiving low-interest loans from the government. Subsidized supermarkets, known as Mercal, PDVAL and the Bicentennial Markets, have ensured access to affordable foods for all.
The Venezuelan government invests 60% of its annual budget in social programs to guarantee the well being and prosperity of its people. According to ECLAC, the investment is paying off.http://venezuelanalysis.com/http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/COI78.pdf(my emphasis)
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This kind of stimulus is what is needed in the U.S.: the government guaranteeing jobs, providing job training combined with loans to small businesses, providing free medical care for all and free education to the limit of the student's ability, and other means of putting money into the hands of ordinary people and of creating hope and optimism. (Venezuelans rate their country one of the best in the world, on both democracy and their personal well-being and prospects for the future).
These are the right things to do--ethical, moral, humanitarian, progressive--and are also the best thing to do economically. Venezuela consequently had astonishing sustained economic growth (10%) from 2003 to 2008, despite every attempt of the rightwing and the Bush Junta to destroy the Chavez government, and when the Bush Junta-instigated worldwide depression hit, Venezuela, like other leftist-run countries in South America, which all reject Washington's austerity-for-the-poor/good-times-for-the-rich economic policies, had the wherewithal to ride it out, and, crucially, did NOT cut social programs. They and other leftist-run countries are therefore recovering much faster than the U.S., England and Europe.
It's not rocket science. It's COMMON SENSE that, when the rich are hoarding their money--after looting everything in sight--the government MUST ACT to create jobs and a future for the society. The U.S. instead is doing the worst things possible, for instance, permitting MILLIONS of government workers--teachers, emergency workers, fire fighters, police, clerks, secretaries, park rangers, environmental inspectors, food inspectors, librarians, museum staff, scientists, medical personnel and others TO BE FIRED, along with MILLIONS of firings and outsourcings by private industry. This is NUTs. This is not a society; it is a jungle in which the rich eat the poor. And it is unworkable. The U.S. economy is
dead in the water. In circumstances like these, the government MUST create jobs and it MUST put money in peoples' hands. It MUST!
I've never seen anything so stupid in my lifetime as the current economic policies of the Obama administration and the Scumbag Congress, following the Bush Junta's utter wreckage of the economy with tax cuts for the rich, two wars, huge military budgets, deregulaiton and all manner of malfeasance and treason. We desperately needed an FDR and instead got someone with both hands tied behind his back, hostage to the banksters, multinational corporations and war profiteers, and a Congress that is
even worse! While Chavez and the Left in South America are drastically
reducing poverty, the Bush Junta followed by this hogtied president and Scumbag Congress are CREATING POVERTY--and holding back the tremendous potential creativity and productivity of our people!
And, frankly, I think we have yet to see the maximum STUPIDITY that Diebold/ES&S voting machines can produce. That's something else that is not rocket science. You simply DO NOT permit a far rightwing-connected, private corporation to 'count' all the votes with 'TRADE SECRET' code, as is happening here in the "land of the free, home of the brave."
This is the
expectable result of private, corporate vote 'counting': the corrupt rich and their corrupt government taking your every last dime, in every way they can--from tax cuts for the rich, to oil wars-by-fiat, to looting social programs, to their betting against you being unable to make your mortgage payments, to godawful,
escalating charges for medical care, credit, insurance, tuition, food, gas, water, electricity, permits of every kind, 'parking,' crossing bridges, taking trains and buses and everything else in this world that you and your family need to live. A looting expedition by the rich such as the world has never seen! They DON'T CARE if you can't live. They've now got a lock on the voting results and until we break that lock and restore vote counting that everyone can see, those who DON'T CARE are going to continue rigging things for THEMSELVES, until our society FAILS, as it has done in every society where the rightwing gets too much power to serve the rich, and as happened notably in Latin America in prior decades through the 1990s, and here in the 1920s. Untoward rightwing power destroys society itself.
As I said, it's not rocket science. Venezuela has one of the best--most honest, transparent, above-board--vote counting systems in the world. That is why they have cut poverty in half and we are
creating poverty.
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