"Some Chavez Allies Slow to Shed Luxuries"

“Some Chavez Allies Slow to Shed Luxuries”

—December 14, 2007⁴¹⁹

As would be expected, Venezuela’s socialist leaders don’t practice what they preach. The Associated Press reported that some of Chavez’s cabinet ministers were caught living it up in the same way that Paris or Lindsay would (from their supposedly meager socialist government salaries). Chavez’s buddies wear $180 Louis Vuitton ties, $500 Gucci shoes, drive luxury cars, and wear red Tommy Hilfiger jackets (financed by the poor, of course), all while denouncing capitalism.

Justice Minister Pedro Carreno, upon being put on the spot with accusations of hypocrisy, after stumbling, argued, “It’s not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this, that way I could purchase things produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported.” And Luis Acosta, the pro-Chavez governor of Carabobo state, stated last year that authorities can purchase expensive cars without sacrificing their revolutionary ideals. He said, “Is it that we revolutionaries don’t have the right to have a Hummer...? If we make money, we can do it.”