Chavez Seizes Cargill Food Plant

Hugo Chavez has seized Cargill's rice mill in Venezuela. It was the only rice mill Cargill had in Venezuela. Cargill is a United States privately held company, one of the largest at that. The company thought it would be safe from Chavez's recent rash of seizings because it did not make the type of rice that was at dispute in the others. The type of rice that was in dispute was/is basic rice subject to government price controls. Unfortunately for Cargill, Chavez is taking over the plant because it does not produce that basic rice.

Hugo Chavez went down this road of nationalization with oil and energy. The effect was the predictable deterioration of these industries. Undoubtedly, this will be the same result for food production. This should also have even more of a chilling effect of foreign investment if any company happened to miss what they did to the oil companies.

More at http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/05/chavez-seizes-american-food-plant and http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090305/ts_nm/us_venezuela_chavez_cargill_3.