quarta-feira, junho 02, 2004
Why Is Bermuda Richer Than Venezuela?
Artigo na TechCentralStation.
In Bermuda, the only government enterprise is the postal service. There is no central bank. Bermudian dollars and U.S. dollars are interchangeable. For that reason, we have never heard of capital flight in Bermuda and economic analysts place it at about the same risk range of Singapore, where democracy is still in its infancy, but where people enjoy total economic freedom, meaning that the market functions freely and advances at a high speed in a globalized economy.
The value of the Venezuelan currency, the bolívar, was fixed at one gram of gold from 1879 to 1961. The "democratic" governments, starting in the 1960s, have destroyed the value of the bolívar, with exchange controls and a devaluation of 60,445% in the last 43 years. The average inflation in Venezuela is 20% vs. 2% in Bermuda. A low inflation rate is one of the best measures of government respect for property rights.
The rule of law that reigns in Bermuda fosters individual freedom; a non-interventionist régime, with minimum regulations, and a legislative assembly that doesn't forge and promulgate new laws all the time offers great incentives for savings, for investments and to create new job opportunities.
(...)
President Chávez is using every trick he has learned from his mentor Fidel Castro to avoid a recall referendum of his presidency. The latest trick is that his government controls the software company that will design electronic ballots and record votes for Venezuela's new election system. A decision was taken to scrap the country's 6-year-old voting machines, which is seen as a maneuver to manipulate votes. Since Chávez controls the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Electoral Council, and the oil income, democracy in Venezuela is a figment of Chávez's imagination.
In the real world, the so-called "wild capitalism" of Bermuda, with its high respect for property rights, is a lot less savage than the corrupt "Bolivarian" revolution of President Hugo Chávez, which now embraces almost every evil Simón Bolívar dedicated his life to fight.
posted by Miguel Noronha 3:20 da tarde
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