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Comment by glymor | Hacker News Reader

He's moving the gold because:

* He's worried that sanctions etc could freeze it

* He want's to be able to sell it without being clear about it (so he can buy the next election or make a personal nest egg with it).

Venezuela's bonds moved 50 basis points on this so the markets are obviously worried that the gold's going to start evaporating once it's under his control.

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Rumors are that Chavez wants to confiscate/socialize the venezuelan gold industry => http://blogs.ft.com/beyond-brics/2011/08/20/venezuelas-gold-...

Foreign companies that would lose their mines would very likely try to get hands on the gold that's located outside of Venezuela (with a court order etc)...

The correct term is nationalization. As far as I'm aware, there have been many nationalized foreign companies in Venezuela but the owners are getting paid. Given that I haven't heard anyone complaining, the prices are probably fair. So, this is very far from confiscation.

That is so far from my general impression of the matter, I had to do some news searches to make sure I wasn't taking crazy pills. Fortunately, it seems I wasn't. "Companies are very afraid."[1] Here[2] we have a company whose oil rigs were "nationalized" because they refused to do more work until they were paid the $49 million it was owed. Another article [3] indicates that Exxon-Mobil and Conoco-Philips might get paid for their assets four years after nationalization.

[1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/12/nationalizat...

[2] http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/24/us-venezuela-natio...

[3] http://www.stockmarketsreview.com/extras/venezuela_to_compen...

The alternative is something like South Africa and Botswana where the worlds largest gold and diamond resources were stolen, and are still being stolen by a small clique of individuals connecting Durban, Belgium, New York and London, and the same wealth was used to support a number of minority governments in Africa and Asia, some of which are very popular with the right wing. I hate communists as much as the next person, but you've got to have perspective.

You've got to be kidding. Chavez "nationalizes" to take over companies and presents the move as taking from the rich to give to the poor. Castro did something similar with American companies like The Hilton when he came into power, as do virtually all socialist dictators. The owners of those companies are far from content. It's just utter ignorance to even state that.

50 basis points = 0.5% http://abstrusegoose.com/389

50 basis points = 0.5 points, not 0.5%. Points are cumulative percent is multiplicative.

Oh, I see. So if you gain 150% and then lose 100%, you're at 0 because losing 100% leaves you with nothing. But if you gain 150 points and then lose 100 points, you're still at 50 points. Right?

Yup :)

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