Chavez Gets the Gold Mine, You Get the Shaft

Things continue to go south down south:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s government will take over and nationalize La Cristinas, the biggest gold mine in the country owned by Canada’s Crystallex, Mining Minister Rodolfo Sanz said Wednesday.

The move is part of leftist Chavez’s socialist agenda that calls for nationalizing Venezuela’s natural resources. Over the past year, he has taken over the electricity, oil, steelmaking, cement and telephone enterprises

“This mine will be seized and managed by a state administration,” Sanz said in a statement.

Kudos to the socialists for using the word “seized” instead of some friendly-sounding euphemism. The only other thing to say is, if Chavez manages his shiny new gold mine as well as he’s managing everything else he’s stolen in Venezuela, it won’t be long before they can’t even dig rocks out of that hole.