Dez: This is Dez Morgan here welcoming you all

back to a new episode of Down to Business

English.
Skip: And this is Skip Montreux. Thank you all for
downloading us today.
Dez: How have you been Skip?
Skip: Hmmm. Good and bad I guess. I took a few
days off from work last week.
Dez: That sounds good.
Skip: Yes it was really nice not to have to do
anything, but at the same time I came down
with a bit of a cold so it wasn't the greatest
holiday.
Dez: You have to take the rough with the smooth I
suppose.
Skip: I guess that it is true. Speaking of taking the
rough with the smooth, or as I would say, the
good with the bad, one country that has been
having to do that over the last few years is
Venezuela.
Dez: That is certainly true. Some things have
improved while others have gotten worse and
things are really set to change now.
Skip: You mean now that President Hugo Chavez has
recently passed away?
Dez: That is precisely what I'm referring to, and thats
our topic for today.
Skip: So lets do it. Lets get D2B...Down to Business
with Venezuela; where is it today, how did it get
there, and what does the future hold in the post
Chavez era?
Skip: Dez, as our regular listeners know, you have
spent some time in Latin America in the past.
Dez: That's right. I've spent time in Panama and
Argentina to mention two.
Skip: How about Venezuela? Did your travels ever
take you there?
Dez: No, unfortunately they didn't, but Ive certainly
heard good things about the nature and the
friendliness of the Venezuelan people and, of
course, Ive heard a lot about Hugo Chavez,
especially his dislike for ex-US President Bush.
Skip: I'd say dislike is putting it very mildly. His
hatred for George W. Bush is pretty legendary.
He even went as far as calling him the devil in
a speech at the United Nations. But lets back
up a bit. Could you tell us about Chavez's
history and how he became president of
Venezuela.
Dez: Sure. Chavez was initially a Lieutenant Colonel
in the Venezuelan army and was jailed in 1992
for his part in an attempted military coup or
uprising. He remained in jail until 1994 when
he was freed by the newly elected president,
Caldera. Caldera had pledged to release
Chavez and his co-conspirators if they agreed
not to return to the military.
Skip: Was that one of Caldera's campaign promises?
Dez: That's right. Chavez was a very popular gure
in the country.
Skip: Well that sounds like a reasonable request.
Dez: After being released from prison, instead of
returning to the military, Chavez elected to go
into politics and subsequently gained a lot of
support from the countries poor, nally winning
Down to Business English
063 - The Life & Times of Hugo Chavez
Record Date: March 30, 2013
www.downtobusinessenglish.com
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From Tokyo Japan and Abu Dhabi, UAE, this is Down to Business
English. Business News to improve your Business English.
With your hosts Skip Montreux and Dez Morgan.
the election in 1998. Chavez true to his word
set out on a range of reforms to improve access
to health, food, social security and land for the
poorest in society.
Skip: He sounds like a true socialist.
Dez: Yes he certainly was and he became a close
friend of Cubas Fidel Castro.
Skip: And I bet the US liked that.
Dez: I think we can safely say that they didnt.
Anyway returning to 1998, Chavez rst focused
on domestic policy with the reforms mentioned
earlier and at that time was fairly friendly
towards the US. In fact he was a fairly regular
visitor to Washington.
Skip: Didnt he get ousted from power in 2002 or
2003?
Dez: It was 2002 and yes he was ousted by members
of the old order before being reinstated 48
hours later. Chavez felt that the long arm of
Washington had assisted in the coup.
Skip: And had it?
Dez: The US government has always strongly denied
any involvement but its a fair guess to assume
that they knew of the coup beforehand and
didnt feel the need to warn Chavez that it was
coming.
Skip: I see. So Chavez was back in power and not
very happy with the United States.
Dez: Yes, and it was from this point that he became
increasingly politicized and started to speak out
against the US and its policies in Latin America.
To maintain support he increased his social
programs to help the poor.
Skip: But Dez, even if social programs are benecial,
they are generally quite expensive and
Venezuela is not a rich country. How could
Chavez afford these programs?
Dez: That's a very good question Skip. Don't forget
that Venezuela is the second largest oil
producer in the region, only just slightly below
Brazil. And oil prices were pretty high at the
time Chavez returned to power.
Skip: So the country had money coming in?
Dez: It did and it certainly spent it too. Minimum
wages were increased and some people began
to have a better life. But problems started to
come up when Chavez began appointing
people loyal to his cause to positions in the
state run oil company.
Skip: You mean that loyalty was a more important
qualication than knowledge in the oil
business?
Dez: I do. If we look at oil production in Venezuela,
you can see that it peaked in 2001 and has
been slowly declining ever since, mostly
because of mismanagement and a lack of
investment.
Skip: That is quite the contrast to corporate oil
companies like Exxon or Shell which saw huge
growth during the same period.
Dez: That is a good observation. With Chavez
spending so much on social programs, little
was left for reinvestment. Chavez also did other
things with state oil that didn't help the bottom
line.
Skip: Oh, for example?
Dez: Well, he started to provide oil to Cuba in
exchange for trained medical staff and teachers,
further reducing revenue. Another example was
in an attempt to embarrass the US government,
he used Citgo, a Venezuelan owned but US
based company to provide low cost heating oil
to poor areas in the United States.
Skip: Really. You know, one question I have always
had about Chavez was that he was re-elected
several times on the strength of his popularity.
But didnt Venezuela once have the same law
as the US. where a president could only serve
two terms in ofce.
Dez: It did but Chavez held a referendum in 2009
that repealed the term limit on The President
and state governors thus allowing him to run for
ofce again.
Skip: So in total, Chavez was in power in Venezuela
for just over 14 years.
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063 -Hugo Chavez
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Dez: Thats right.
Skip: So what does the country's economy look like
today? Is it better now than when he rst
became President.
Dez: In some ways yes, and in some ways no. Most
certainly, life for the poor has improved but
Chavez tended to micromanage situations
rather than having overall policies. The result is
that the economy is in a bit of a mess. Ination
is very high due to currency devaluations,
crime is particularly high and corruption is
widespread across the government.
Skip: And in your opinion Dez, what does the future
hold for Venezuela?
Dez: Thats a difcult question. For each election
Chavez and his party won the majority was
smaller and smaller, so its not certain whether
a Chavez supporter or an opponent will take
the role of President in the future.
Skip: But what is certain, I would think, is that
whoever takes the job of President, wont be
able to do it with as much charisma as the late
President Chavez.
Dez: That I believe is almost certainly true.
Skip: Well Dez, shall we?
Dez: Yes indeed lets get D2V...Down to Vocabulary.
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Skip: I will start things off with the noun coup. A
coup happens when another group, often the
military takes power in a country by force. In
the story Dez said that Chavez was jailed in
2002 for his part in an attempted military coup.
He was a member of a group that tried to
takeover the country by force.
Dez: Thats the more general use of coup, but in
business when a company unexpectedly takes
over leadership from another its described as a
coup. Do you remember the Sony Walkman?
Skip: I sure do. Almost everyone had one, followed
by the discman as CDs became more popular.
Dez: I think that it is fair to say that the iPod was a
major coup for Apple.
Skip: Oh, that is a very appropriate example Dez.
Apple completely took over the market leaving
everyone else far behind.
Dez: My rst word is the noun co-conspirator, which
I think I need to break down for you. A
conspirator is a person who makes plans in
secret to do something that is often illegal and
t he prex co means t oget her. So co-
conspirators are people who work together to
make an action.
Skip: You mean like when members of the board at
Apple met in secret to remove Steve Jobs from
the position of CEO, way back in the 1980s
before he reappeared in 1996 to lead the
company to glory.
Dez: Wow that is such a Skip example. Anyway in
the story I talked about how Chavez and his
partners or co-conspirators were not allowed
back into the military after they were released
from prison.
Skip: Moving on, I have the expression to be true to
your word, which means to make a promise
and stick to it, something many politicians
seem to nd hard to do. In the story Dez said
that Chavez was true to his word when he
acted on the promises that he had made to the
poor before being elected.
Dez: Theres been a lot of criticism of President
Obama, especially in his rst term when some
people felt that he promised he would bring
hope and change to America, but wasnt true
to his word and didnt really deliver either of
those.
Skip: I think he found out how difcult it was to get
things done in Washington.
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063 -Hugo Chavez
Dez: Probably. Next I have another word with a
prex the noun mismanagement. This is a fairly
easy one to gure out, management is
organization and mis means to make a mistake,
so mismanagement means to organize
something badly.
Skip: You mean like those years when you were in
charge of one of the departments in the college
where we worked?
Dez: Yes, t hat i s a very good exampl e of
mismanagement, but I would rather not expand
on that experience.
Skip: I was there so I can understand why.
Dez: Anyway, in todays story I discussed the
mismanagement of the Venezuelan oil industry
by Chavez and the people he appointed to
work in the state oil company.
Skip: And a further example would be how the board
mismanaged Apple while Steve Jobs was away
until he returned and ...
Dez: Yes, thanks Skip, thanks. I think we all know
how that sentence nishes.
Skip: Oh, Im sorry. Our nal word today is the
political term referendum, which means when
the government asks the people to vote on a big
decision rather than deciding it themselves. In
the story Dez talked about the referendum that
Chavez held to allow him to stay in ofce. In
other words he got the people to change the
law for him.
Dez: And here is an example which is NOT related
to Apple, and that would be the referendum
that is going to happen in 2014, where the
Scots will vote on whether they want to be a
separate country from the UK.
Skip: Really? I didnt know about that. Do you think
Scotland will vote for independence?
Dez: I dont know but I guess if they feel its to their
advantage they will.
Skip: That is why they are having a referendum, no
doubt.
Dez: Sure is. And thats about all we have for
vocabulary today.
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Skip: Thanks for todays story Dez. I certainly learned
a few things about Venezuela and Hugo Chavez
that I previously didnt know.
Dez: My pleasure Skip. And I hope everyone
listening found it benecial as well. Take care
everyone see you next time.
Skip: Bye everyone.
Dez: Bye.
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063 -Hugo Chavez