The Devil's Excrement

Yesterday, President Chavez in his customary un-Presidential style, accused someone and asked the General Prosecutor to investigate him, in this strange concept Chavez has of division of power. The target this time around was banker Nelson Mezerhane who also happens to be one of the owners of Globovision, the only TV station that still dares show the daily protests around Venezuela.

Of course, there is no separation of powers in Venezuela. Chavez has made sure that nobody moves unless he tells them to. The Bolibourgeois bankers could do what they wanted until something happened, Raul Baduel was his main general and savior, until he opposed him, Miquilena was his putative father until he was no longer Chavez decided to be a putative orphan.

Thus, on Saturday Chavez ordered the General Prosecutor to investigate Nelson Mezerhane, much like he ordered the Judge in the Eligio Cedeño case to get a 30 year sentence for letting the banker go. He is in charge of everything as long as it is convenient for him, if not, it is somebody else’s fault, as in the case of his friendly revolutionary bankers that raped the banks they owned for years, but somehow Chavez who knows who is being wire-tapped, followed and who is conspiring in Venezuela, was not aware that billions were being robbed by his robolutionary buddies right in front of his nose. He should read this blog or at least get a summary every week, let’s not get presumptous.

I any case, Chavez seems to have been irked by his arch enemy Mezerhane saying something in local newspaper El Mundo last week. Specifically Chavez accuses Mezerhane of saying that the campaign against his bank was “created and organized by people related to the Government. Except…

Mezerhane never said what Chavez said he did…

You can read what Mezerhane said right here in Spanish:

Reporter: Is the Government included in this attack (to his bank)?

Mezerhane: I can not say it is the Government, there are people linked to it who have done their job.

Reporter: Laboratories involved?

Mezerhane:There are active laboratories that have created rumors and banks are places of confidence. If people start creating rumors, it is understandable that people will say “something is happening here”…

As to the first question, it is no secret that Jose Vicente Rangel, alias “Marciano” has been after Mezerhane’s bank for quite a while. And Rangel was Vice-President, Foreign Minister and Minsiter of Defense under Hugo Chavez, so he can definitely be “linked” to the Government.

In fact, Jose Vicente has been “rumoring” about Mezerhane’s bank for quite a while. Last June he wrote: “In the banking sector there is increased worries about what is happening in a bank with serious problems, whose owner appears involved in destabilizing adventures”

Funny that Rangel was only worried about banks which can be considered to be more on the side of the opposition, but failed to mention a single Bolibourgeois bank in that note, despite all of them being bankrupt already.

Interesting also, that when Petkoff says something about bank runs in general, he gets a formal letter from the Prosecutors Office about creating panic, but Rangel seems to be immune to such threats. Oh well! such is the life in a Dictatorship!

In fact, Rangel, once again last week said that “soon a bank that has been having problems and the sale of which was frustrated recently would be intervened soon”. Everyone knows which bank Rangel is referring to.

That is precisely what Mezerhane is also referring to, we all read it and Petkoff noted it. And so did Jose Guerra in today’s La Razon, who said that Rangel wants to drive Mezezrhane’s bank into bankruptcy, now that the forced sale of the financial institution has been aborted by the crisis.

So, Mezerhane said what everyone knew and you can bet that Chavez made no mistake when he made his accusation. Basically, the autocrat/Dictator has set his sights on Mezerhane and his bank. And any attempt by Mezerhane to clarify the situation is simply useless.

I mean, can it be more clear than this, Chavez said:

“This is grave and irresponsible…more so when it happens to be the President of a bank, which besides this, has had grave problems”

Talk about irresponsible! The President of a country, in the middle of a banking crisis, saying a bank with 3% of the market has been having “grave problems”. This is simply changing the name of the bank to Banco Doomed!

Sorry, Mr. Mezerhane, no matter what you say, argue or implore, Hugo is out to get you and so is Rangel. Given the state of law and order in Venezuela, there is simply nothing you can do. Your days and those of your bank are numbered.

And I imagine the fanatics and PSF’s will come and say I am the one responsible for creating the run on the bank.

Do you mean more people read me than watch Alo Presidente? Or more than read Rangel’s Marciano column

Until then, there is only one reckless, irresponsible and ignorant person in Venezuela:

Mr. Destruction himself: Hugo Chavez!

You have to wonder how stupid people can be to cheer Hugo Chavez in Copenhagen telling them about saving the planet. If any Government has been completely negligent about the environment it has been the Chavez revolution, which has subsidized both gasoline prices and cheap cars for the rich. Gasoline remains at 4.4 US$ cents per liter at the official rate of exchange, 1.6 US$ cents at the swap parallel rate(For those that use gallons, we are talking 6.1  US$ cents at the parallel rate per gallon or 16.6 US$ cents at the impossible to get official rate), a suicidal subsidy to the well to do, which only encourages waste, emissions and more damage to the environment.

But give credit to the silly and idiotic left, that can make heroes out of Chavez in an environmental conference or Mugabe at a Human Rights Forum.

As Juan in Caracas Chronicles put it (or in the new website)
“This gasp-inducing pileup of ironies and contradictions can only be interpreted as a joke. Hugo Chávez came into the global warming summit and made a big hot mess of it. Thankfully, at least some of the world’s newspapers took note and shunned him.

The rest of the delegates – at least the ones looking for progress on this issue – should do the same.”

And Juan almost covered everything when he published the data showing how Venezuela happens to be the largest emitter per capita of CO2 in Latin America, just so that there are now doubts about Hugo’s non-green credentials. Because this was not always this way. In the 70’s physicist Freeman Dyson’s studies on CO2 emissions in the world (looking for a link) showed Venezuela to be one of the few countries reducing net emissions via the CONARE project, a reforestation project which planted billions of pine trees, which in some cases covered 60-70% of some states (I had not even heard of CONARE recently)

And to complete the demonstration of the non-green nature of the Chavez non-revolution, this data taken from here (Thanks to @jesuspi for providing it via Twitter):

Venezuela’s emissions are not only increasing, but the country had the HIGHEST rate of increase not only in the region, but in the whole world, with a 14.2% increase between 2006 and 2007. In the region Venezuela almost TRIPLES the increase of Argentina which was second.

So, add the environment to Venezuela’s record breaking statistics in crime. In the case of crime, it is suffered mostly by the poor, where homicides concentrate, in the case of emissions, it is suffered equally by all via pollution, but it is all done to subsidize the well to do, in another bizarre and contradictory aspect of this strange revolution.

And the fanatics and idolizers cheer on, as the Venezuelan people suffer the consequences of the abysmal environmental record of the Chavez revolution.