Chavez: Give Us Your Technology, Build The Right Cars, Or Leave!
Hugo Chavez, incompetent manager of the Venezuelan kleptocracy, er, Bolivarian Revolutionary state, has decided outside car makers just aren’t pulling their weight:
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez has told car companies they must share their technology with local businesses or leave the country.
Mr Chavez gave the ultimatum to Toyota, Ford, General Motors and Fiat during a public address.
If the demand isn’t met, he said: “I invite you to pack up your belongings and leave. I’ll bring in the Russians, the Belorusians, the Chinese.”
Chavez’s homegrown auto industry is building cars that remind one of the ’50s (you’d think they’d sell well in Cuba – oh, wait, they have no money either). Obviously, the control freak in charge of Venezuela would love to have the technology Ford, Toyota or even Government Motors could offer his industry. So he’s decided they can just “share” their technology or leave.
And one more thing:
Mr Chavez attacked Toyota in particular, saying it was not producing enough four-wheel drive vehicles, which are used for public transport, and ordered an investigation.
Mr. Command Economy has decided that Toyota just doesn’t understand his market.
Of course his own domestic auto industry, the one he “commands” managed all of 135,000 vehicles last year. Why? Because of the bangup job he’s done running the place:
Currency controls in Venezuela mean the industry is struggling to get enough money to import parts and pay off debts.
So if he can’t actually produce them domestically, he’ll threaten and hector the existing one’s to save his rear-end or invite in a bunch of others to do so. Sounds like a typical socialist paradise to me.
~McQ
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All of those companies need to cut and run right now – secretly get as much technology out as possible, get their people out, and be happy all they lose is their plant and equipment.
Other companies should take the warning and get out (or not go in).
I wonder if Chavev noticed that they still drive those US cars (circa 1958) in Cuba.
Paul, these companies should have pulled out of this market long ago.
Any company continuing to do business Venezuela is now on notice. The government’s message is this: either submit to our will now or in future, or we will nationalize you.
The one silver lining in all of this is that for those that believe in free markets and free people, we can watch yet another real-world example of a country self destructing while it pursues collectivist policies.
And it feels good to be proven right…
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It is gonna be fun to watch when the people of Venuzeula finally have enough of this clown and hang him on a meat hook.
We’ve been waiting for that to Happen in Cuba for years now. I’m afraid it might not happen in Venezuela.
Sounds good. What better vehicles for an aspiring Commie than ones produced by other Commies and former Commies?
Yeah, is that like…a threat? Seriously?
The plant assembles cars from kits. Welding and nut tightening aren’t high technology. The cars are not some left over from the fifties either.
Chavez may well expropriate the plant but he won’t get any concessions to transfer technology. What he’ll get are two thousand workers on the government payroll in a enterprise that will bleed money. Leave Chavez alone. His own policies will get him out of office quicker than anything the US government can do. The only card he has to play is anti-Americanism. We should simply ignore him and let nature (and Chavez’s economic policies) run their course.
As usual I am confused. Since Government Motors is owned by the Feds and the head of the Feds is TAO (aka Obama) and the world loves the USA now that TAO is President, this implies that Chavez did not get the memo? Didn’t Chavez and TAO share the love a few months ago, do the fist humping thing?
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McQ – So if he can’t actually produce them domestically, he’ll threaten and hector the existing one’s to save his rear-end or invite in a bunch of others to do so. Sounds like a typical socialist paradise to me.
Sounds like Imeme to me. Oh, wait…
I have to disagree with those who said this is fun to watch. It’s heartbreaking to watch because it’s real people involved who will have to live with the misery. Chavez is controlling the press (helloooo, liberals?) and the people have been lied to for their entire lives about how economics works. They may understand on a local level about supply, demand, and their own economic behavior, but it’s not irrational to believe people pushing communism “for the people” that those big businesses, which are as far removed from their daily experience as any government run industry, are motivated by greed and out to get them. The people who ought to know better (and most probably do, may they burn for eternity in hell) are the ones telling the lies.
No, this is not FUN to watch.