Notes on Hugo Chavez

So Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has kicked. Not at all an expert on South American politics, but since when has that ever me from opining.

-First off, thanks to Chavez for illustrating what an actual Socialist looks like. His government seized all kinds of industries, oil, steel, and so on. He spent massive amounts of money on programs for the poor, built hospitals and schools and heaped all kinds of rhetorical abuse on capitalism. Obama hasn't done any of this. Obama is not a Socialist. Chavez is a Socialist.

-A good way to judge how someone stands on Chavez is to see what they call him. "Dictator" and "Strongman" seems to be the preferred title of the haters. His formal title was "President." He really was elected, so "dictator" seems an ill fit. But was pretty nasty in his suppression of opposition. I think we need a new category of leader (Putin in Russia is another) of guys who genuinely win elections, but cheat all the norms of democracy such a free press.

-On foreign policy, the funny thing about Chavez is that his famous antagonism was waged entirely at the level of rhetoric. He called W. "the devil" and railed against the US in general. But the US was Venezuela's main buyer of oil and still is, we were never going to draw guns on each other. Without all the bombast, Venezuela would join the large club of countries that just are, not allies, not enemies, just trading partners.

-The political scientist in me always finds Battles of Succession to be fascinating. Who rules? The chosen successor? Rivals within the movement? Long shut-out opposition?

Big Beer vs Small Beer

One Possible Future

Via LG&M, may I direct your attention to a fascinating article on the state of competition between the super-mega-conglomerate beer makers and the army of craft breweries.

The vast majority of the American beer market is in the hands of just two players: Anheuser-Busch who has about 47% of the market and MillerCoors which has 30%. The Justice department has sued to prevent Anheuser-Busch from buying up Mexico's Modelo, the marker of Corona and other brands, which who give them another 6% of the market. Over 50% of the market in the hands of A-B would be a total disaster. My God, Bud Light Lime. Total crap product sold to the public with boobs and sappy horse commercials. Plus, the bigger they get the more they can set prices, which means we all pay more for the bad beer.

But small craft breweries, employing a novel tactic called "brewing good beer" are growing rapidly. They should make up 10% of the market in a couple of years. So big beer is doing all they can to crush small beer, represented in the story by Boston Beer Company, the biggest of the small. Big beer is creating brands that look like micro-brews, like Shock Top and Blue Moon, but ain't. They are using their distribution muscle to push small breweries off the shelves of your local connivance store. They are just going to buy out the little guys.

The fight for beer worth drinking is on! We shall fight them in the corporate boardrooms! We will fight them in the courtrooms! We shall fight them in the brewpubs! I shall will do my part (sip). Will you?

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