"Consumerism is an irrational capitalist model." - Hugo Chavez. The would-be largest Venezuelan gold mine admitted that the permitting process has stalled at the office of Environment Minister Yubiri Ortega, a man by Crystallex's own admission is a man against foreign companies extracting the country's natural resources. The company has placed its hopes in the newly appointed minister of basic industries and mining, Rodolfo Sanz, to "walk into Chavez's office and say, 'Issue it.'" KRY executives characterized Sanz as being "a tough, non-nonsense businessman who will make things happen one way or another...he's not the man who will sit on the file." Chavez is not generally a business-friendly man but the Venezuelan leader would be silly not to at least allow KRY to build the mine and then spuriously hike taxes as he did to far larger, multinational corporations. So far, he appears content to rather have it sit and contribute absolutely nothing to the economy. Moving more troops and tanks to the Colombian boarder in support of a cocaine dealing Marxist movement appears to be a higher priority for him. Venezuela already is suffering food shortages and Colombia is a major supply of food and other goods to Venezuela. Business savvy or business silly?