Hugo has gotten economic guidance from this famed Colomia University socialist.  It is no coincidence that Hugo was invited to speak at this bastion of liberalism in between anti-U.S. tirades at the U.N. last year...  

www2.gsb.columbia.edu/faculty/jstiglitz/download/papers/2007_Role_of_State.pdf -

"While Russia’s privatization has highlighted the problem, confl icts over

the fairness of natural resource privatizations and contracts are endemic

around the world. In the case of Russia, it was Russians stealing money

from their own country; in most other cases, those extracting the resources

are foreigners, which only heightens the tensions. Governments have been

toppled because of this problem—as in Bolivia—and the sense of outrage

has given support to populists, like Chavez in Venezuela. The ordinary citizens

see rich Venezuelans and foreign companies benefi ting from their

wealth, but none of the wealth seems to trickle down to them. Chavez’s

ability to renegotiate old contracts, to get better terms for his country, simply

reinforced the belief that, in the past, they had been cheated."