In today’s extremely unsettled financial climate, one can hardly blame Venezuela or its erratic leader, Hugo Chavez, for deciding to bring home the gold.

Oil-rich Venezuela also has the world’s 15th largest gold reserves, most of them squirreled away in Bank of England vaults. Now, Chavez has authorized the return of Venezuela’s gold to Venezuelan soil, fearing that, at some juncture, any overseas assets could be frozen and seized by foreign authorities, as has been done with those of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The clownishly villainous Hugo Chavez has long worn the mantle, once borne by Cuba’s Castro, of America’s official enemy south of the border. His country and regime are now embroiled in a series of international litigations for Venezuela’s nationalizing of certain foreign assets — a Canadian gold mine at Las Cristinas and an American mining operation at Las Brisas, for example. Chavez is obviously worried that Venezuelan gold and liquid assets abroad could be seized and held as collateral.

Like the clichéd stopped clock that twice a day reads the correct time, Chavez’ militantly socialist regime appears to be doing a prudent thing, albeit for the wrong motives.

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Photo: Hugo Chavez