Chavez: U.S. takeovers dwarf my nationalizations

[Judi Lynn]

Chavez: U.S. takeovers dwarf my nationalizations

Frank Jack Daniel
Reuters North American News Service

Sep 19, 2008 17:14 EST

CARACAS (Reuters) - Socialist President Hugo Chavez said Friday the $900 billion being spent by the U.S. government to bail out failing financial companies dwarfed his bill for nationalizing a big chunk of Venezuela's economy.

Chavez, who calls capitalism an evil, also found himself agreeing with Republican U.S. presidential nominee John McCain, calling him "comrade" for criticizing America's financial system. McCain has called Chavez a dictator.

Chavez said the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression was the crash of "neo-liberal" capitalism, and showed his "21st Century Socialism" was the way forward.

In recent years Chavez has nationalized a string of energy, telecoms, and heavy industry companies as part of a drive to turn the OPEC nation into a socialist state, spending about $12 billion from an oil boom in the process.

As part of its rescue plan to prevent the market turmoil infecting the wider economy, Washington this month announced it was seizing control of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac at a cost of $200 billion.

"They have criticized me, especially in the United States, for nationalizing a great (telecom) company, CANTV, that didn't even cost $1.5 billion," Chavez said at a ceremony that included representatives of U.S. oil company Chevron.

"The United States has spent $900 billion, four times what the Venezuela produces in a year, to try to boost the troubled finance system and housing market," Chavez said.

U.S. government intervention had generally failed to prevent the crisis deepening and this week 158-year-old Lehman Brothers collapsed, the federal government bailed out insurers AIG, and Merrill Lynch was bought by Bank of America.

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