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posted by cmn32480 on Friday April 21 2017, @07:54AM   Printer-friendly
from the this-is-why-they-can't-have-anything-nice dept.

http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/20/news/gm-venezuela-plant-seized/index.html

General Motors says it will immediately halt operations in Venezuela after its plant in the country was unexpectedly seized by authorities.

GM described the takeover as an "illegal judicial seizure of its assets."

The automaker said the seizure showed a "total disregard" of its legal rights. It said that authorities had removed assets including cars from company facilities.

"[GM] strongly rejects the arbitrary measures taken by the authorities and will vigorously take all legal actions, within and outside of Venezuela, to defend its rights," it said in a statement.

Authorities in Venezuela, which is mired in a severe economic crisis, did not respond to requests for comment.

It was not immediately clear why authorities seized the GM plant. Huge swaths of Venezuela's economy have been nationalized in the years since former President Hugo Chavez rose to power. Under Chavez, who took office in 1999, the state took control of private oil, telecommunications, energy and cement businesses.

President Nicolas Maduro has continued the tradition, while blaming the United States and its companies for Venezuela's economic and political problems.


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  • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday April 21 2017, @06:05PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Friday April 21 2017, @06:05PM (#497513)

    Thanks for saving me the typing.

    I would have added that Chavez spent the oil money without anticipating that the Bush depression would crash the record-high prices (driven by the Bush bubble propping China, and the Bush wars) dramatically. It takes a lot of education to distribute oil profits to people, while having them understand that you need to take that away during bad times.

    Most of that money came from the US, which was always very happy to deal with the Big Bad Evil Socialists for cheap oil, while trying to undermine them to reduce the oil cost, fail the idea that money can be shared with the poor, and prevent Chavez's oil diplomacy (with Cuba and others).

    So now, as is usual (Iran...), the US media is happy to portray Venezuela as having failed and Maduro as a dictator, and conveniently forgetting to mention that this was not a black-and-white situation.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @06:15PM (#497519)

    Right the man who stole public property through use of force, banned opposition from politics, dissolved constitutional law-making body, took away people's rights to own guns and now is proclaiming he will distribute guns to supporters is not a dictator in a romantic sense, only a text-book definition of one.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @06:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2017, @06:47PM (#497528)

      More reading comprehension failure

      conveniently forgetting to mention that this was not a black-and-white situation.

      Cause that part kind of matters.