I have a few posts backed up, I will release them over the next two days. Here is the first on poverty by the person that I believe understands the subject best in this country.
The Poverty
of his head (Really a pun on the fact that the Minister of Finance’s name is
Head in Spanish) by Luís Pedro España
Let’s
clarify at once that the title has nothing to do with what some believe to be a
type of poverty. We want to refer to what was the intervention of Rodrigo
Cabezas, Minister of Finance, at the annual meeting of the IDB in Guatemala on
March 20th… There, the Minister of Finance pointed out that
poverty was reduced in three years from 80.1% to 39.4% and established a goal
of “zero” poverty for 2021.
These
numbers correspond to those calculated by the National Institute for Statistics
(INE). According to the last published numbers (1st. semester 2006)
poverty was at 44.5%. Those presented by Cabezas at IDB, are supposed to refer
to preliminary numbers for the second semester of last year. Thus, for Cabezas’
count, during 2006 the rhythm of reduction of poverty in Venezuela was
almost 5 percentage points (a reduction in one semester of 250,000 poor homes!)
thus the Minister was being overly cautious with his estimates of “zero”
poverty in 14 years. At this “rhytm of winners” Dr. Cabezas, your goal should
be reached in 2011.
If
the estimates of poverty of the Minister of Finance were true, and not simply
an instrument for propaganda, then, simply, the problems of Venezuela would be
over in very little time, which would leave the Government, sociologists and
philanthropists without any other occupation than that of exporting the
Bolivarian revolution to planetary dimensions.
The
statistics of INE, those used by the Minister are not false, it is only that
the Government uses them in a false way. The point is not whether less than 40%
of the Venezuelan homes have 1.2 US$ per person per day to eat, or if they have
US$ 2.5 per day for the rest of their needs. Obviously not, because on top of
that it is not enough, one thing is the norm to interpret reality, the other to
make reality the norm. Understand, with Bs 4,000 per day, you don’t eat and
another Bs. 4,000 are not enough to live on. The reality of poverty is much
more complex that the poverty line and reducing it to this statistical
indicator, no matter how true, is a lie, is a fallacy.
The
truth is that today more than half of Venezuelans, more or less the same as ten
years ago, 57% to be exact, are dragging a deficit of capacity to forge
themselves a dignified lifestyle. With an average income of Bs. 800.000 per
month a month, there is no way for the families to compensate their immense
deficit in education, health, housing and transportation. No matter how much
family income has increased, that is not sufficient to live without stopping
being poor. If the Government tackled the problem of poverty in that maner, it
is probable that it will disappear, but only in its head.
The Devil's Excrement 
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