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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Venezuela: Six more years?Hugo Chavez is reelected for another 6-year term as present of Venezuela. In this country however it's hard predicting whether he'll stay for exactly six more years; his term may become longer or shorter. In fact, it will be surprising if he leaves office peacefully exactly six years from now. This regime is too much dependent for survival on factors that frequently change like international oil prices, and also on something nobody can predict, e.g. what will happen in Cuba when Castro is dead. President Chavez loves poor and hates rich people, Robin Hood sort of. In power he takes money from the rich and give it to the poor, exactly as all rich nations do. When in Sweden or Germany or France or Italy they heavily tax the rich however, they don't do it to get United States upset; progressive taxation after all is part of modern life, if you have more you'll pay much more to society; in fact, it's society through market and state through laws and regulations that help rich people make and keep their assets. Venezuelan president is therefore wrong trying to heal some social problems using foreign policy rhetoric. Poor people in his country need better education and healthcare because they are human beings, period. It doesn't matter if anyone outside Venezuela likes it or not. The same story goes with Sweden or Germany; they tax rich people because society wants it, not to offend foreign governments. Venezuela is blessed with huge oil reserves and oil is very expensive nowadays. Chavez is trying to use this manna healing as many as possible social problems and this is good. Part of money goes to Cuba supporting dying regime against possible social unrests. This money is money that doesn't go to people in need in Venezuela. This country is still too poor helping all poor people in the world, which are too many. Giving less money to its own people needs strong ideological explanation. Here the 'evil' foreign empire comes into existence. People must know why they can't get all money they need and deserve. This is reason why current regime needs belligerent foreign rhetoric. With so much petrodollars it's hard assessing real impact of Chavez's economic policy. The results of this policy however are far from bright pictures most sycophants describe. Consider this, governmental budget as we can see is on red, meaning government spends more than it can afford spending, meaning it still borrows against future revenues. Income distribution is better than 3-4 years ago, but generally not better than 8-10 years ago. In fact, if we eliminate from the balance shrinking incomes of the rich, in fact the poor are hardly better financially than they have been 10-15 years ago. Average incomes don't move up despite tens of billions of petrodollars, meaning these dollars are going somewhere else, e.g. buying weaponry or hiring foreign military advisors. United States now propose a sort of 'armistice' to Chavez, but it seems he isn't predisposed to accept the offer. In essence this proposal will legitimize Chavez's regime as far as he doesn't interfere with matters that clearly stand outside his internal policy. Chavez probably sees this as a sign of American weakness, which may probably be true for this particular moment, but even because of this it will be a good policy not to reject the offer. Oil prices go up and down, and Cuban regime survival is something that ultimately doesn't depend on cheap oil exports from Venezuela. Chavez however seems dependant on his own anti-American rhetoric. Once put in motion it's hard to stop it and focus on real social problems like poverty. It's even more difficult designing alternative economic policies that don't depend on oil exports.
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See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Venezuela.
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