 Anyway. All right, so let's talk about what makes, what makes Venezuela socialist. Why do I keep saying this is an example of socialism? And we have to be very, very clear about what socialism is to differentiate, for example, from Denmark, which is not socialist, and to place the blame directly on Venezuela when it is. And to identify whether America is moving towards socialism or towards fascism, whether Elizabeth Warren is a socialist, a fascist, or what exactly they are. So it's important that we know what socialism actually is. Now socialism is a form of statism. Socialism is a form of statism. In other words, a political form that places the state above the individual. The individual as a significant individual as just a cog in a machine for the purpose of filling the blank orchestrated by the state. There are lots of different statist regimes, socialism, fascism. The mixed economy ultimately is a statist regime. But socialism is characterized, I think, by two things, characterized by two things, primarily. It's characterized by the confiscation of wealth for the purpose of redistribution, that is massive redistribution programs. The more socialist, the more it confiscates from the wealthy and gives to the poor. And to that extent, the United States has strong socialist elements. The whole redistribution policies of the United States are socialist policies. The whole redistribution of policies in Denmark and Sweden and Norway are all elements of socialism in those countries. But that is not enough to qualify a country for being a socialist country. That is one aspect, which is wealth distribution, wealth redistribution. The second is the collectivization and nationalization of the means of production. The collectivization and nationalization of the means of production. That is state ownership or co-op, collectivized ownership of farms, factories, industry. That is the second feature of socialism and the one that most characterize socialism. Because redistribution also happens at the fascism. The difference between fascism and socialism here is that fascists don't actually nationalize industry. Fascists control industry through regulation, control industry, control finance, control farming, control the food supply, through regulations, not through nationalization, not through co-ops, not through the workers owning the means of production or the state owning the means of production. Like communism, the state owns all the means of production. Socialism, some those deemed most important. So socialism is different from fascism, not in its redistribution as much, although socialists emphasize it more than fascists do, but fascist regimes also redistribute wealth. Socialism is primarily characterized by the state owning or confiscating industry farms and giving it to the workers. So let's see if Venezuela qualifies. From 2000 to 2013, spending, government spending, so another feature of socialism is big government. Huge percentage of the economy is government. So from 2000 to 2013, spending rose to 40% of GDP, 40% from 29%, from 28%, so it grew dramatically. Minimum wage, I actually think minimum wage is more as a fascist thing, but minimum wages were raised six times last year. Now that was in order to try to defeat inflation, which was out of control, but six times last year and it made no difference because the inflation was so large, millions of percent. Venezuela is an economy based now on co-ops, not corporations, not business, private business. In Nomi Klein's book quoted earlier, she writes that Chavez has made the co-ops a top political priority. By 2006, there were roughly 100,000 cooperatives in the country employing more than 700,000 workers. So in terms of co-ops, qualify. Let's see what the record of Venezuela is with regard to nationalization of industry. Nationalization of industry. And again, a lot of times the industry is nationalized and handed over to a co-op, handed over to the workers to run. Well, in the oil industry, the actual oil reserves were actually nationalized before Chavez by a previous government, but the state owns the oil. But in 2007, Chavez government took a majority stake in four oil projects in the heavy crude belt, which was estimated to be worth $30 billion. Exxon and Conoco quit the country and filed for claims against the regime. They just left. France and the Norwegian oil companies received some compensation from the government and also left. In 2008, Chavez's administration implemented a windfall tax of 50 percent for all oil prices over $50 a barrel and 60 percent on oil over $100 a barrel. In 2009, Chavez seized a major gas injection project, Bellamy, to William companies and a range of assets from local service companies. So they took over a bunch of operators in the country. In June 2010, the government seized 11 oil rigs from Oklahoma-based Oklahoma-based American company. In addition, Chavez regime nationalized much of the oil service industry. And again, previous regimes had already nationalized vast elements of the oil. So when it comes to oil, it was nationalized just and it was taken away from joint ventures with global companies. They seized their stake. Probably the most damaging, at least from the perspective of food, the most damaging thing the Chavez regime did was in agriculture. And you could go on and on about this, but just a few. In 2009, Chavez nationalized a rice mill operated by US food giant Cargill. In 2010, it nationalized the world's biggest producer of nitrogen fertilizer. And then it nationalized another company, I can't pronounce the name, local agriculture supply company. It also took control of nearly 200,000 hectares of land that were owned by a British meat company. So all of this was nationalized right? Let's see. In 2005, Chavez began implementing a 2001 law letting the state expropriate so-called unproductive farms or seize land without proper titles, supposedly proper titles, with the Chavez regime viewed as proper titles, and redistributed millions of acres that they deemed idle to boost food production in these rural poverty. But this was all done handed over to co-ops, collectivized farming. We're going to get back to collectivized farming in a little while. Chavez government says repeatedly threatened to seize and process polar, Venezuela's biggest employer in large broo of food processing. So whatever businesses existed have lived under the threat of being seized at any moment.