The Devil's Excrement

Reporting on the Devil’s Excrement gets tiring and Chavez and his buddies make it even more tiring.

Take for example Globovision. Can I be surprised at the harrasment? Certainly not. The raid on Zuluaga’s home because of the stuffed animals was something out of the Marx Brothers or Peter Sellers movie. I mean, a country with over thirteen thousand homicides, 20% of which are committed by the cops themselves, but the Government finds the resources to have 100 heavily armed cops, intelligence police and soldiers to raid the home. We have yet to see any of these “environmental Prosecutors” around Maracaibo Lake, looking at the problem there.Now, THAT is a real environmental problem! But no time for it.

Or take the new Electoral Bill. How many times can I have the energy to write about a new manipulation of the Law that can give Chavez’ PSUV an edge? But then, the Bill is ready and we hear they have backtracked on it, because they realize there is a loophole: If the opposition unites, THEY could get the majority in the National Assembly without having a majority of the votes. A charade, just another one.

Even the Vergatario cell phone seemed too silly (imbecile?) to even mention, let alone write a post about it.

But then tonight, the Health Ministry comes out with one of those creative bursts that the Chavez Government is well known for: They prohibit a product that I have seen in dozens of countries “because it contains a susbtance that could be harmful to the population”.

I am not talking about a new pharmaceutical product or an imported Chinese root, I am talking about a product which I believe was launched in most of the world before Venezuela and that as far I have been able to determine, it represents a marketing move by the manufacturer.

I am talking about Coca Cola Zero!!!

Yeap. As of right now that product is banned without telling us what is that mysterious component that may damage our brain, or sex life, or skin.

This is simple harassment of a multinational. Nothing else to it. It’s a revolutionary pose.

Kids get poisoned regularly by products given to them at public schools. Nothing happens.

PDVSA is giving away UHT milk that is about to expire, because they purchased too much. Nothing happens.

All over the country you can buy vitamins, “natural” products  and pharmaceuticals that are not registered  or approved and are certainly smuggled into Venezuela. Nothing happens.

But the Minister gets this idea of screwing with a large multinational, now, that has sex appeal! That sounds revolutionary! That really makes headlines.

That is the true parody our poor country is living today. There is little that is good. A lot that is bad. Many things that are ugly, but the Government is worried about Coca Cola Zero!

Personally, I take offense. While I have not had my first Coke Zero in Venezuela (They had yet to phase out Coca Cola Light), I consider myself an addict of Coca Cola Light. In fact, in my family the running joke is we drink so much Coca Cola because we are missing a piece of DNA that does not allow you to digest food and Coke compensates for it. It even has a name: “Octaviosis”. Well known  genetic disease.

So, robolutionaries:  don’t mess with us! We might get really mad!

Here is Rafael Ramirez’ explanation of why the oil service companies were nationalized:

“These activities were in he hands of third parties that would tell us: If you don’t pay me my invoice ..then i I will leave with my boats and my ships and let’s see how your produce oil”

Of course, he does not say that PDVSA had not paid these companies for six to none months and even a year in some cases. When PDVSA does not pay the workers of these companies, or does not invest in maintenance, then the boats will stay, but theyw ill not even float. He also says that these companies will be paid book value because they were nationalized, not “purchased”.

Oh, I see!

Robolutionary logic at it’s best.

The new Minister of Science and Technology Jesse Chacon gave some interesting numbers the other day when he announced that from now on the corporate contributions to science will be centralized and decided at FONACIT. Since Chacon has no clue as to what he is saying someone is feeding him numbers. Let’s see some of them. First, he said that Venezuela’s expenditure per capita in science and technology is the highest in the world at something like 2.86% of GDP, which I will approximate to be 3% for simplicity.

He then said that Venezuela had six thousand-plus scientists, a number that I find somewhat exaggerated, but I will believe Jesse for once and use it.

Well, if you say GDP is 200 billion US$ (it’s higher), then 3% of 200 billion US$ is 6 billion US$, which means that each of those scientists, whose publications dropped by 15% in 2008, had the Government spend 923,000 thousand dollars on them. That’s high anywhere. I remember that number at Bell Labs, the best funded research lab in the world twenty years ago was US$ 2.5 million per scientist per year. There has been inflation, but it has not been so much and these were the best scientists in the world in Physics, Chemistry, Materials and Computers.

But let’s look closer. A tenured scientist in Venezuela makes less than Bs. 100,000 a year (US$ 46,000 at the official rate of exchange). So, given that scientists say there is no money for research, we have to say like Luis Herrera: Donde estan los reales? (Where is the money?).

Because the Minister himself gave the Locti numbers for universities and said all universities received 336 million Bolivars from Locti or barely US$ 156 million, for all universities!. Given that most research in Venezuela is done at the universities, you have to wonder where the rest of the money went. IVIC I don’t believe has a budget of more than US$ 30-40 million, Intevep barely does anything, so the whole thing is quite mysterious.

But the most dangerous part is that Chacon seems to suggest that the money is not well distributed, because Universidad Central is the top beneficiary, followed by Universidad Simon Bolivar and Universidad Catolica in fourth place. The Minister then asks (In El Nacional, June 4th. page C-3) how can Simon Bolivar which does not have the diversity of laboratories that exists in other universities receive so much money?(The only one missing from the top list is Universidad de Los Andes)

Well, I don’t know the answer off the bat, but how about that at Simon Bolivar, more Professors have Ph.D.’s or do research? Or higher academic standards? Or tougher to get tenure? Just to name a few possibilities. And he also attacks Universidad Catolica wondering what the hell does that university spend Bs. 45 million (US$ 20.93 million) in science for? Maybe the Minister should have found about what that was before making statements to the press. I wonder how much the Armed Forces University gets, Chacon did not mention it, but we all know its budget was increased in 2009 as the other university’s budgets were reduced, despite the low academic evel of UNEFA.

But, of course, I bet that in the US$ 6 billion the Government included the payment for Satellite Simon Bolivar (US$ 400 million), which while rotating in orbit, it does not quite fly and nobody knows if it came with a warranty or not. Of course, that satellite was neither science nor technology. So, you wonder what other misnomers are included in Chacon’s numbers.

Spying equipment? Firewalls to filter the Internet one day?

Who knows, but clearly the former Lt. was placed there to destroy oligarchic science, the same one that on the same day, last Thursday, celebrated at Fundacion Polar, the achievements of five Venezuelan scientists*, who do research, publish and are well known internationally for their high quality work, but none of which has a clue as to where their million bucks a year is.

Clearly, the revolution has no use for them.

(*One of which is a relative of the author)

After ten years in power you would think that Hugo Chavez would have at least learned a little bit about how the world works. But it is clear that he while he does not like capitalism, there is no concrete alternative behind his vaporous XXIst. Century Socialism.

As an example, I was quite dismayed when I first saw the financial report for Electricidad de Caracas for 2008. While I was quite sure that the company would go downhill fast after its nationalization (It was already deteriorating due to the freeze in tariffs), I was surprised at the speed at which the destruction of value in the company is taking place.

Not that I really understand the financials anyway. I mean, a company that sent a press release talking about its shareholders meeting took place on May 31st., can’t be too careful about its financials either. It ahs since been fixed, but I keep a copy as a souvenir of the robolution.

Reviewing the financial statements, the first thing that surprises you is that despite energy sales being the same, price per GWH being roughly constant, revenues for the company went down from US$ 1.01 billion in 2007 to US$ 851 million, a 15.7% drop which as far as I can tell has no reasonable explanation. But this is  a revolution, so I move forward and I find that “operational expenses” went down from 681.4 million US$ to 648.8 million US$, surprising given that the number of workers went up from 2816 to 3427, an increase that seemed to have little impact, I guess the revolution is stingy with the “working” people.

I finally get to the capitalist line and find that Electricidad de Caracas went from earning 60.8 million in 2007 to losing US$ 140.4 million in 2008. It turns out that margins, which had been in the upper 30%+ range, dropped to only 23.75% last year. But even more worrisome, margins dropped to only 15.07% in the last quarter of 2008.

Why you may ask?

Well, a number of reasons. First, Electricidad de Caracas had to increase its purchases of electricity by 25% in 2008, no explanation given. But even more interesting it also includes the cost of buying back a bond expiring in 2014 at an outrageusly high price and issuing a new one almost three times larger (including corruption profits for both).

But then Chavez says that such concepts as profits are simply a capitalistic invention and are irrevlevant. Except that Electricidad de Caracas, which had revenues (i.e. energy sales) of only 851 million dollars, owes US$ 681 million dollars (in US$) of the new fangled-corruption bond and has to come up with at least US$ 55.8 million every year to pay the interest, together with investment, maintenance and the like. At the rate they are going by 2010, there may not be money for either.

But then, just to assure us that the robolution has no clue, the Head of Corpolec tells us that the only reason Electricidad de Caracas lost money was because those damned capitalists were not investing. Except that there is no evidence whatsoever that anything has changed. According to the financial statements, there was no change in operating expenses, no increase in capital equipment, so Mr. Hipolito has no clue.

But it gets worse, he actually says that because of this operating costs were above normal, but they were actually smaller by 1.99%! and until the revolution says so, if the number is less than, it means that it was smaller. Of course, then we are told that some Spanish Group will build a new plant for US$ 2.1 billion. I guess this plant will go right next to the Trans-Amazonic pipeline. By the way, what ever happened to that?

What is clear, is that this capitalistic concept that there is no such thing as a free lunch is still alien to XXIst. Century Socialism. At the rate EDC is going, in two or three years, it will no longer be able to service ts debt, let alone invest in the future. Sound familiar? It’s the PDVSA model, except there is nothing to nationalize  here to push the collapse forward into the future.

And since we are talking about PDVSA, the absence of a model or a plan other “than Hugo wishes to do something”, was ratified this week when it was learned that capo di tutti capi Hugo Chavez, had given a Russian consortium some tracts of the heavy crude oil field Carabobo I. You may say, nothing wrong with that, he is the President after all, no?

Except that PDVSA opened a bidding process last year, inviting all oil companies in the world, to participate in these projects of which they would be allowed to own up to 40%. The process was to have been culminated in April, but you know, we did have a referendum that distracted us, so it had been postponed till August 14th.

So, the other 18 oil companies which paid US$ 3 million to participate in the process are asking themselves what they have to do to get ahead in the line.  Easy, join the buddy group, its like the mafia, but among nations, the Brazilians did it, now the Russians, what are they waiting for? It will help if nobody complains in your country, just ask the Argentineans.

But what this shows is that the concept of an economic model for XXIst Century Socialism is simply oxymoronic. There is none, beyond a plan to have oil prices be higher in the future.

The rest will depend on whether (or not) the moods are whims of Don Hugo Corleone Chavez favor you or not.

After ten years in power and a tripling of homicides, nothing defines the Chavez Government’s incompetence more than the statement from the Minister of the Interior and Justice Tareck El Aissami:

“20% of crimes are committed by policemen”

Truly the Law of the Jungle.

End of post.

Long ago, after finishing my graduate work, I had a very naive view of the world. I guess spending years sweating in a lab to complete a thesis limits the time that you can devote to the world. And if you dominate your field, you think history or politics has to be much simpler than something involving technological know how.

At the time, I innocently believed the world was divided into two groups: Sensible and fairly educated people, on both the right and the left, who cared about human rights and a small legion of uneducated thugs, mostly with a military background who found human rights annoying and an obstacle to their goals. It was simple, I had never personally met anyone in the first group who did not spouse or defend human rights.

Then, it was maybe 1983, when I went to a conference in Argentina, Mar de Plata to be more specific. There, in the peace and quite of an academic coference and the refreshing ocean air of that city, I heard of the horrors of the military regimes in that country. I met 20 year old kids who had been jailed, tortured. I heard of their friends, dissapeared. I heard of the story of Antonio Misetich, the famous Argentinean scientist, arrested, fired and despite assurances to the US Government that he would be well treated, dissapeared. His crime? He had a sister involved with groups actvely opposing the Government.

But if the stories shocked me, what absolutely blew my mind was a speaker, name forgotten, describing the horrors, the dissapearances and the tortures, closing his talk by addressing those in the audience who collaborated with the regime, those that held official positions, passed information to the Government and were quiet in the face of the most abominal human right abuses Latin America had seen in decades. He asked them openly and loudly: How do you expect me to say hello to you in the halls of the university? How do you expect me to support your promotion? How do you expect me to support your funding?

Afterwards, talking to people, they even pointed out some of their colleagues who knew, who helped, who participated. It was truly shocking and an eye opener.

Later, I came to see more clearly, that in the end human rights tend to be mostly secondary. Everywhere. The end tends to always justify the means. Ideology also tends to prevail in the face of the tough choices that come with political responsibility and choosing between success or the respect of the most basic rights that people deserve to have.

And then came Chavez, who revealed to me how marginal human rights can be across our Continent. I saw how despite the most overt and absurd violations of human rights in Venezuela, it did not matter in the end. Foreign politicians care more abour their future than about principles. Foreign Governments care more about commerce than about rights. Diplomats are educated to walk the middle ground, not stepping on anyone’s toes, no matter how bad things might get.

Things like the Holocaust became easier to understand, as well as my own country’s history, recent and long past. Respect for human rights turns out to be a rarity, not the norm. Most people, given the chance, will look the other way, be silenced, justify the unjustifiable.

And as we have fewer and fewer rights in Venezuela today, while Lula and many others laugh and joke with Hugo Chavez, and Insulza says little about everything that has been going on in Venezuela, I see the cynical nature of Governments, politicians and people in general. Not only do they stay quiet in the face of the obvious, but the OAS, an organization representing mostly democratically elected countries, decides to suspend Cuba’s ban from that organization, revoking the resolution from 1962 that expelled Cuba from that organization.

Little has changed in terms of human rights since 1962 in Cuba. people are still shot for crimes against the state which do not involve even injuries to other human beings, people can’t freely leave the country, people are repressed. But these political geniuses, now collaborators in my mind, decide to give Raul Castro a chance. And he accepts it and in his own words, says there are no conditions attached, laughing at the fools that revoked the resolution.

It is indeed a terrible and sad day, when supposedly educated men and women, are capable of leaving their principles and most basic human nature aside in order to achieve their political goals or make a gesture to satisfy the crowds watching your every movement or gain an electoral advantage.

The message sent to Latin American politicians, present and future is quite clear: You don’t have to worry. The OAS democratic charter is just a piece of paper. We will look the other way as far as human rights is concerned. We have no morals. Anything goes in Latin America. We are not ready to defend and respect the human rights of our people.Human rights be damned

It is a terrible day. They should all be ashamed.

So revolutionary and counter revolutionary la-la-land exhaled a collective sigh of relief when the four day disappearance of the Dictator was finally explained. Simple, the CIA and an 81 year old man had cooked up a very precise plot to launch a rocket against the Cubana de Aviacion plane that was to take him to El Salvador.

But wait! Why did he not show up for four days? Why did he concede defeat in his quest for his four day Alo Presidente Marathon? Come on! Even the Guinness Book people were here in Caracas to monitor Chavez beat Fidel’s record. Oh! Could that be it?

But how does the rocket plot explain the four day hiatus?

And since we are talking about the rocket, why did Maduro say it was Alejandro Peña Esclusa and now Chavez says it was the CIA and Luis Posada Capriles? You have to give credit to the CIA, in this era of gadgets and technology, they went with an octogenarian with experience. That’s what’s called an equal opportunity employer.

I imagine when you want to shoot down a plane with a rocket like that, those that want to do the shooting (and get paid for it), do like when Chavez asks Wall Street investment banks to give him proposals for new bond issues: They come one after the other with fancy notebooks and presentations and the best proposal wins.

I can imagine Posada showing up like Giordani, with his viewgraphs written with indelible ink, no colors, and everyone at the CIA scrambling to find a viewgraph projector. But then Posada gave a kick-ass presentation and some jerk at the CIA who is getting fired today gave him the green light.

I also wonder if Posada himself was going to hold and aim the rocket launcher. It’s been pretty hot down in Maiquetia these days, just ask Wolfram. Why didn’t they use Jack Bauer? He could have come up with twelve working plots in 24 hours.

And you have to accept that Barack and Hillary are quite devious, no? They played the nice guys in Trinidad, while at the same time they were giving the CIA the green light to go kill Hugo. Truly amazing how sneaky these democrats have turned out to be. I wonder if Bill  knew about it. Or Monica, for that matter.

But the only thing I don’t understand is why Maduro said it was Peña Esclusa. I guess Maduro is very patriotic and preferred a Venezuelan-made plot versus this highly sophisticated US-rocket launcher-including-octogenarian plot.

So now we can all sleep assured that Chavez is protected from the malevolous Empire and that the revolutionary Government keeps the population informed at every step of Chavez’ whereabouts with the transparency that characterizes other Dictatorships/Autocracies. I mean, where is Fidel? Where is Kim Il-Sung?

But we know where our Hugo is and was…

Or did we?