South Dakota Politics: Hugo Chavez’s Three Minute Shower

Poking fun at Hugo Chavez is like shooting a really fat fish in a pretty small barrel, but, hey, it's Sabado, so why not? Here is what life in Venezuela is like, from Newsweek:

Venezuelans are inured to a certain amount of economic dysfunction. They already suffer some of the worst traffic jams on the planet, thanks to heavily subsidized gasoline, which goes for the petropopulist price of about 17 cents per gallon. But lately the privations have become severe, due in large measure to waste and economic mismanagement. Eggs and milk are hard to find. The government is scrambling to replace medicine imported from Colombia. Despite vast domestic stores of natural gas, Venezuela must pipe in gas from Colombia because it lacks infrastructure and cash to mine its own reserves.

The droughts that drained the reservoirs of hydroelectric plants—and provoking rolling blackouts in homes and factories—recently led Chávez to scold Venezuelan "elites" for such indulgences as air conditioning, switching on the lights in the bathroom, and loitering in the shower. "Some people sing in the shower for half an hour," he reportedly admonished his ministers at a cabinet meeting. "What kind of communism is that?"

Excellent question. Here's another: what kind of government has a policy on singing in the shower? Answer: a socialist one. That's also the answer to a lot of other questions, such as 'what kind of government turns oil and gas reserves and lots of hydroelectric resources into a power shortage?

Wedged between the Andes, the Amazon rainforest, and the Caribbean, and swimming in crude oil, Venezuela ought to be an energy powerhouse. It boasts one of the largest hydroelectric power matrixes in the world. But it has been plagued by electrical failures, including a half dozen nationwide blackouts since 2007. Now homes in some rural areas are dark for four hours a day, and steel mills have had to get by with reduced electricity and water.

Drought is the immediate cause, but the real culprit is a collapse in investment in infrastructure, despite the flood of petrodollars from Venezuela's oil fields. A 2,200-megawatt power plant currently in the works would help, but the $4.6 billion plant touted to begin operation next year, won't be ready before 2014. Worse, the infrastructure failures have come as Chávez has tightened state control over the Venezuelan economy by seizing private energy and utility companies in the name of the Boliviarian cause.

All this explains why Venezuela is threatening to go to war against Colombia. The Colombians are vaguely amused. Venezuela has a toy army. Colombia has a real army. If Colombia were to really go to war against Venezuela, it would be over before Chavez finished his shower.

Nothing serious here. Just a bit of Saturday fun.