Ahrcanum

Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez seized a food and rice processing unit owned by Cargill, one of the US’s largest privately-held companies and is taking aim at Polar- Venezuela’s largest private company.

Venezuelan citizens  have faced shortages of white rice sold at a low government-set price in recent weeks, while stores have ample supplies of parboiled rice which is not subject to price controls.  Venezuela’s rice millers association blames the shortages on insufficient supplies of the grain, while the Chavez government says the mills are deliberately producing small quantities of white rice in order to skirt price controls. http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre52405l-us-venezuela-chavez-cargill/  

Polar has two distinct divisions.  On the one hand it has a biotechnology and development division and on the other hand, makes the popular brand, Polar Beer, and it tastes pretty damned good in my humble opinion.  Polar is a rice based beer and Venezuela is the third-largest buyer of U.S. rice. No wonder Chavez is going after Cargill- it’s all about the beer! 

“In the field of agricultural biotechnology, Polar is working on transgenic rice and maize.  Rice is transformed to increase resistance to the white leaf virus. Polar’s interest in the rice and maize projects is to improve productivity, since the company is the largest national buyer of maize, and a major one in rice and malted barley. ” http://www.biotech-monitor.nl/3205.htm .

Blogging from Venezuela,  http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2009/03/cargill-and-polar-to-be-looted-by.html says that “The Polar thing came just as Polar announced it would go to court.  So Chavez, who owns the courts, and as the thug he is, replied by threatening to take it all.” 

Polar also has a 38 per cent share in the largest Venezuelan bank. Chavez will now own and nationalize the oil, electric, steel, cement, telecommunications, food, beer and the money in the bank for his citizens to not only starve to death but now die of thirst.  Chavez must have drank too many Polar beers in recent weeks to take over an American manufacturing plant.   According to UPI, he also ordered the military to take over the other rice mills as well.   

Chavez’s nationalizations appear to be publicly supported but periodic shortages of basic goods have hurt his popularity in recent years.  To ensure his continued power as president, Chavez changed the rules so that he can run again in the next election.  Hey, wait a minute, who was that Congressman who is trying to pass a law to eliminate term limits for the Office of Presidency here in the U.S.?   U.S. Representative José E. Serrano represents the 16th Congressional District of New York – the Bronx, that’s who. https://ahrcanum.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/obama-to-serve-as-president-forever-constitution-changes/  H.J. Res 5 would repeal the 22nd amendment- follow the bill which is in committee here  http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=hj111-5.

Already with a struggling economy, the one thing citizens of Venezuela must  have really enjoyed, was sitting down with a cold Polar beer on a hot sunny day.  Really now, what is Chavez going to serve the Cubans and Russians when they come again for diplomatic talks?  I wonder what Obama has in store as a repercussion, if anything.  Imagine if another country like say, oh – I don’t know, Japan just showed up on US Soil and took over it’s car manufacturing here.   “Obama, you take care of your business and I’ll take care of mine. Don’t mess with me, Mr. Obama,” Chavez said recently. http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=18326  He didn’t even bother to call him President Obama.  So much for props.

On a clear day sitting on Aruba’s beaches you can almost make out the smog coming from Venezuela.  Pretty soon you are going to see people making a bee line on boats for the beaches if- for nothing else, a cold Balashi beer instead of a Polar.  Brewed in Aruba,  Balashi’s malt is imported from Scotland while the hops hail from Germany. http://www.balashi.com/balashi/BBeer.htm 

Somehow I don’t see Obama and Chavez sitting down over any beer, anytime soon.  Maybe Obama will see fit to offer Cargill some bailout money instead. Maybe Obama is following in Chavez’s footsteps nationalizing the banks, the automotive industry, and who knows what else is next. 

Best bet, let’s stop importing Venezuela’s oil and exporting our rice to them.  We’ve heard lots about Oil for Food in Iraq, http://www.heritage.org/research/internationalorganizations/bg1748.cfm, let’s hope this isn’t the start of Oil for Rice and that Obama never nationalizes our beer.  Ooops, the famous American Budweiser beer is no longer an American company anyways.  It is owned by InBev of Belgium.

 Cheers and God Bless America.