Reply #105: If the people elected in a democratic government don't serve the public's best interest... [View All]

[Solon]

they aren't going to stay in power that long. Sure they want to win elections, but its HOW they do it that matters. Venezuela, being an open democracy is no different than any other Democratic government, if the people at top don't serve the public good, and this includes Chavez, then they can be removed from office. According to the Venezuelan Constitution, the people don't even have to wait till the next election cycle to remove Chavez from office, if they wanted to do it.

As far as my assertion about forcing them out of business, if the Venezuelan government competed, openly with private companies in the same industry, those cannot compete against the government, the government has far too many advantages, including, as I mentioned before, operating at below cost, which would undercut any prices any private company could offer.

As far as competition giving customers a choice, you do have to realize that the Government of Venezuela isn't buying up all the contractors, at least their prices are negotiable, instead they are buying the provider of a raw resource, a resource that actually doesn't vary that much in quality or quantity from company to company. Indeed, it would be construction contractors, rather than, for example, home buyers, who would directly order the cement for their various projects.

As far as your last question, again, it has little to do with whether Venezuela can afford the cement, or compete on bids from foreign buyers. They want to do the fiscally responsible thing, which is to make sure the cement is used domestically first, before any foreign buyers can bid on it. This isn't an unusual practice, many nations require domestic national resources to be used first in their nations, and only allow surpluses to be exported. The fact is that the Venezuelan government could spend twice as much money by competing in bids for the cement than producing it themselves. It seems to me that they are trying to save the taxpayers some money.