Hugo Chavez, Australia's 'snowfield socialists' and 50 arrested butchers

How much more inspiration can our Leftists here take from the great Chavez? Two years ago a collective of our snowfield socialists - including the ABC’s Phillip Adams, propagandist John Pilger, the Greens’ Kerry Nettle and Kevin Rudd’s nephew Van Thanh Rudd - begged Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez to come teach Australians a lesson: Every country has its own traditions and culture and has to find its own solutions, but what Venezuela has been able to achieve in so little time will be a source of inspiration and ideas for many in Australia. Since then this “source of inspiration and ideas” been teaching our closet totalitarians lots of lessons, such as how to shoot students, close down critical TV stations, arrest political opponents , create an energy crisis and foster corruption. But Chavez has not stopped there in inspiring our Left. He has now unleashed soaring inflation on his nation, and arrested nearly 50 butchers to stop it: Chavez has been in high-level meetings with his economic team all weekend to address the (inflation) problem, after consumer-prices data Friday showed a shocking 5.2% climb in April. The rate was the highest monthly jump in years, and brings 12-month inflation to 30%, the highest in the region… Even before Friday’s inflation data, the government has been trying to combat speculative merchants. Nearly 50 butchers were arrested and jailed in recent weeks for allegedly charging more for their cuts of beef than the government allows. The butchers claim the prices they pay for sides of beef have shot up, forcing them to pass on those costs to the customer. Critics say Venezuela’s inflation problem, which has been a thorn in Chavez’s side throughout much of his 11 years in power, is a result of the socialist economic system his government has been setting up. The government has nationalized scores of private companies, and sometimes entire industries, bringing more and more workers onto the government payroll. In doing so, productivity rates have declined sharply, and shortages of many foods, including milk, bread and sugar, are common. Andrew Bolt

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