I know there are mad Chavez threads but it looked important:
http://www.reuters.com/article/world…5AS2E920091130
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday he could nationalize private banks for refusing to lend to the poor and for failing to sufficiently aid in the country’s development.
In his weekly television show, Chavez said the purpose of banks was not to enrich a small group of people but to help the development of the country, including extending housing credits.
Addressing himself to "all the country’s private banks," he rhetorically asked: "You want me to nationalize the banks?"
"I have no problem with that because the banks don’t want to extend credit to the poor, they don’t comply, they don’t want to comply with the bank’s purpose for existence."
Speaking during his weekly TV show "Alo Presidente," he added: "I’m telling the country’s private bankers, ‘he who slips up loses, I’ll take over the bank, whatever its size."
In power for a decade, socialist Chavez has nationalized broad swathes of the economy since 2007, including the country’s biggest telephone, electricity companies and $30 billion in projects to extract crude from tar-like sands.
Chavez said the banks’ role "should be to collect funds and savings to help aid the country’s development by making loans, extending credits for housing."
Despite the rebound in oil prices from last year, OPEC member Venezuela’s economy in the third quarter contracted 4.5 percent compared with a year earlier.
It was the second straight quarterly drop and local economists said Venezuela was now in recession even though the government has not formally said that.
Chavez Sunday drew no explicit link between any specific bank and the country’s economic ills.
Four small banks were put under state administration on November 20, out of concerns including their credit portfolios.
The banks accounted for about 6 percent of the country’s deposits. Ten other banks account for 70 percent of deposits.
Chavez spoke Sunday for six hours in his show broadcast from a black bean farm recently nationalized in the central state of Lara. He sat behind a table strewn with books, documents and maps.
His banking nationalization threats on Sunday appeared to be broader in scope than his well-publicized warnings in recent years to nationalize Spanish-owned banks in Venezuela.
He repeatedly threatened to seize Spanish bank subsidiaries in Venezuela unless Spain’s king apologized for telling him to "shut up" in November 2007 at a regional summit where Chavez branded a recent ex-Spanish prime minister a fascist.
The only major private bank, foreign or Venezuelan, to fall into state hands under Chavez was Spain’s Banco Santander unit Banco de Venezuela, sold in July for $1.05 billion.
In his "Alo Presidente" show on Sunday, Chavez spoke on themes as diverse as land reform, Roman Catholicism and elections in Uruguay and Honduras.
Addressing the banking theme, he said unnamed bankers "do not want to comply with the function for which a bank should exist (such as) that is in the law."
"This is occurring right now with a group of private banks. That’s a demonstration that those private banking sectors don’t want to learn, they don’t want to accept that there is a constitution … and that there are laws."
Chavez, however, made no mention any laws or constitutional provisions which may be being breached.
The government’s November 20 banking move, labeled an "intervention" but not a nationalization, applied to four small banks — Banco Confederado, Banco Canarias, Banco Provivienda and bolivar Banco.
Finance Minister Ali Rodriguez then said the move stemmed from concerns about credit portfolios, problems explaining the source of funds and failure to comply with some obligations.
On Friday, a court acting on prosecutors’ request banned travel abroad of 16 executives — eight from Confederado, six from Provivienda and two from bolivar Banco.
Chavez said if it were up to him, he would have jailed the 16 executives due to flight risk. "They have (their own) light aircraft and private airports and (can) leave."
He said he ordered the nation’s chief prosecutor to investigate why a state bank, Banfoandes, deposited "a giant amount of resources in private banks."
"How is it that state resources, which belong to the people … end up being placed in private banks?" he asked in his broadcast. "This is counterrevolutionary."
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From what his strong-man rhetoric is saying, he is applying pressure to the interests within what he believes are salvageable institutions satisfactorily functioning the way they are that may threaten the interests of the public at some point. He is making it too personal, I think, simply stating he could nationalize the banks with a wave of his hand is a show of overly centralized authority (where are the workers during all this? but then again he inherited a capitalist state, not a socialist government). Then again he does say "if it were up to me", showing a ceding of power to alternative legislative forces, and the source isn’t exactly a goldmine for marxist societal analysis . I’m still somewhat ambivalent but this article shows interesting and somewhat revealing components of his leadership.
The Zabalaza Books site has just been updated with 8 new pamphlets, 6
On the 26th of September this year a gang of heavily armed men launched an attack on the shack-dwellers movement, Abahlali BaseMjondolo, and organisers of the Kennedy Road Development Committee in the Kennedy Road settlement outside Durban. Members of the community spontaneously organised themselves in self-defence, and two people were killed in the clash. Thousands have been forced out of the township. After police stepped in to stop the self defence, the attackers systematically demolished the homes of AbM and KRDC members – with the police and local ANC leaders present! The political rivalry in KwaZulu Natal has exploited ethnic sentiment and tensions that emerged during the Jacob Zuma election campaign. There is a good case to suggest that African National Congress (ANC) in and around Kennedy Road is using ethnicity to mobilise local residents against popular social movements such as Abahlali.. The Kennedy Road attackers shouted slogans such as "The AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the AmaZulu." 13 people – all associated with Abahlali, and all Xhosa – have been arrested in connection with the murders, even though they were not the perpetrators of the attack, but its victims. They are facing false murder charges and have been held for two months without bail in the notorious Westville prison. Recently, a similar situation has arisen in Pemary Ridge, another settlement in the area, where key activists continue to receive death threats and remain in hiding after a police attack.