Markets quickly send negative message to Chavez

He is probably too low functioning to get the message, but the Caracus stock market fell 18 percent after he announced his nationalization plan.

Several companies who have invested in the area also could be seeing substantial losses including Vorizon Communications.

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... investors sold shares in American, Argentine and Mexican companies vulnerable to the move by Mr. Chávez to take control over entities that had been privatized by previous administrations.

Owners of Venezuelan steel, banking, cement and hotel companies — even the cable car operator that takes tourists to the top of the Ávila mountain here — could be affected by the push toward nationalization, analysts said.

“Chávez is deepening his revolution, but in doing so will he follow the law and compensate the companies whose assets will be nationalized?” said Miguel Octavio, executive director of BBO Servicios Financieros, a brokerage firm, who calculated the costs of taking over companies in the telecommunications, electricity and oil industries, as well assuming their debts, at more than $15 billion.

“It doesn’t seem like the government has thought this project out yet,” Mr. Octavio said.

Tony Snow, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday, “Nationalization has a long and inglorious history of failure around the world. We support the Venezuelan people and think this is an unhappy day for them.”

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Socialism belongs on the ash heap of history and Chavez attempt to resurrect it is simply a power grab for his megalomania.