The ad above in Sunday’s El Nacional, by Venezuela’s Electric company Corpoelec shows in a very simple manner why we have such a severe electric crisis. According to the ad, 37% of high volume consumers managed to save the required amount, while 67% did not manage it, adding to a whopping 104% of all users!!!!
With such revolutionary math, no wonder we have such an electric mess!!!
(Hat tip: @jesuspi)
The Devil's Excrement 
March 5, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Maybe they outsourced the math to the CNE – they’ve already proven themselves incapable of adding numbers.
March 5, 2010 at 2:23 pm
loroferoz, yo no pretendo conversar como venezolano, es decir, sabiendomelas todas y la siguiente.
si mi punto es equivocado o si no lo he sabido explicar bien (que viene siendo lo mismo), entonces bueno…esta muy bien: Marta Colomina no debe devolver el dinero pagado en exceso, las leyes no le aplican (al menos las de estados unidos), la demanda contra ella es meritless y sobre todo, mis dudas acerca de que tanto de business tiene esta crisis para ella (y otros) son infundadas.
March 5, 2010 at 11:53 am
I wonder if you have realized, miguel diaz, that Marta Colomina’s position is alike to that of Cassandra.
Reality has amply surpassed her warnings about chavismo’s intentions of accumulating power, forging alliances with shady players in the international community, and intervening in the affairs of other countries.
March 4, 2010 at 9:54 pm
Deananash sorry I missed the sarcasm, consider my comment retracted.
March 4, 2010 at 7:53 pm
ErneX:
How about this.
For the past 10 years (not just ten months) does with a higher stake in a debacle have said: El jueves cae, en dos meses no hay comida, el fin esta cerca, no hay gasolina, etc, etc, etc.
On the other side there are alarmistas too: Vienen los yankis, amamanten a sus hijos porque los yankis se van a llevar la leche, el imperio esto o aquello.
Try listening to a Colomina’s program without having the burning sensation to catch the first available American Airlines flight.
Ni tan calvo ni con dos pelucas.
I have not said this is paradise. Did I?
Probably we all need to take a step back and be more intelligent before expressing alarmista’s opinion or requesting breaks.
En definitiva ErneX,
March 4, 2010 at 5:36 pm
Yeah miguel diaz, let’s call “alarmismo” the wild criminality, just to name one thing. Are you suggesting it’s science fiction? give me a break.
March 4, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Miguel Díaz, I Agree with you on your last post, all popular or public figures should have to paid their taxes and if they are richer, more controlled acounting have to have.
Now I look your post with other view. My first impression was that you would tried to take off some responsability from Chavez about what happens.
I do not like Chavez, but allways I paid my tax and ISR in Venezuela. Nor in “4th Republic” nor now I seeing any payoof to doing that, but I am a venezuelan citizen, more if you are discriminated by your own goberment.
At in thge end, I do not want anybody saying to me that I didn’t pay my responsabilities as venezuelan, even if is hard to said that there is a country anymore.
March 4, 2010 at 12:25 pm
A Miguel Octavio, felicitaciones por todo lo que implica tu presencia en Internet.
Aunque no siempre estemos de acuerdo contigo, hay que reconocer tu didactica y el uplifting de la discusion entre venezolanos. Felicitaciones.
Getting back to business.
Yo solo digo que when you choose to be a public figure you uoght to be held accountable under higher standards.
I wonder if Colomina will stand to those higher standards or if she would be a living proof that we are all tramposos e hipocritas.
March 4, 2010 at 10:11 am
Eric Lavoie, it’s called sarcasm.
March 4, 2010 at 8:54 am
Miguel Díaz, you are absolute right
The problem is the Venezuelans, the elect and choice their Weapon of their own destruction. But the absolute problem IS CHAVEZ.
Las agencias de publicidad eligen sus interlocutores únicamente en base a la popularidad y credibilidad de sus anunciantes, nada más, y Marta Colomina tiene credibilidad en sus escuchas y espectadores. No es como el gobierno, que discrimina sus anunciantes con criterios políticos. Y sus escuchas no darán crédito a lo que tu digas. Marta era bastante crítica al gobierno antes de Chavez. No es alarmismo es analista y anuncia la desintegración de un país, y sus lectores, escuchas y espectadores están de acuerdo.
March 4, 2010 at 8:08 am
Migue, the problem now and before (and I agree now it is 1000 worse) is that a lot of those having wealth were not even generating a real value for society, unlike in the US, in Europe, heck, in Thailand, but have more to do with “who got closer to the oil tit when”, so differences seem more hurtful to many.
In every place you have people getting a lot of dosh for any kind of thing but
Venezuela, in spite of all its oil, is not a rich country.
By the way: I am sure Diosdado and many more of the Boliburguesia have many many times what she has and they definitely got that money in very unkosher ways.
March 4, 2010 at 7:33 am
Bueno, no lo creo MIguel, hasta hace poco…20 agnos!!! Es toda una vida 20 agnos en radio y TV.
Lo unico que estoy diciendo es que los medios son una gran negocio en todas partes, Cisneros origina su fortuna en Venevision y Miss Venezuela, por lo tanto no voy a priori a asumir dolo.
Kepler, you point is a different one, whether it is fair or not. Once again, yes, of course there are huge differences in how people live in Venezuela and there is not wealth redistribution, but she has been shut out of most of her income sources, when Chavez got to power she had two TV programs an three radio programs, she is down to one radio.
There are a lot of people in Venezuela who have money made long ago. Let me give you an example, anyone that made money at Bs. 4.3 per $ and saved in $at a time of low taxes, no taxes abroad and had a good business may have legally accumulated a huge amount of $. Today that is no longer possible.
March 4, 2010 at 5:48 am
Miguel,
There are ways to get around those tax agencies by getting paid abroad. Anyway: even if everything is absolutely kosher: something has to give in.
I may know a couple of persons who make that amount of money here and in Venezuela (although in Venezuela it is rather the software engineer working with the US and otherwise people with industries, who may have much more). Still: this is Europe and that is Venezuela.
Even the US with bigger differences between poor and rich provides for a much better level of assistance to the poor.
Also: even the stingiest rich in the US or Europe seem to be more committed to helping somehow the poor, be it with scholarships or whatever, than those in Venezuela.
The problem is present in other L.A. countries, but the differences in such countries as Venezuela are particularly huge and we know, you probably better than the rest of us, how fragile and parasitic the economy of Venezuela is.
It is all about the title of this blog and its price at a given moment.
And we have one of the highest population growth rates in Latin America.
Take again education. Even the children of the poor have decent schools (everybody does, just big cities are less good if your children happen to be in a school full of poor immigrants’ children). I live in a village of 35000 people close to Brussels. I am sure the children going to a public school here or in the Westhoeck (in the middle of nowhere going from Brussels towards French Lille) have a better education than most children in private schools in Venezuela.
One of my cousins is primary school teacher in a public school in Venezuela. She does a good job, but she cannot live from it. It is her husband plus the fact they have an old house, etc.
If someone – provided he is an EU or EEA citizen – has an indefinite contract to work at a supermarket and the equivalent to three monthly payments in savings, he can rent a flat in Brussels, Berlin, Oslo, etc
and start a life and do something saving.
If the place is good, the flat will be very tiny, it will be a studio, but not a room in a miserable place in a very dangerous area. People do look at every cent, but things can build up from there.
In Venezuela there are doctors who cannot pay that unless they work extra hours in the private sector and it is getting more difficult now.
I could go forever, but bottom line is that if you are not living with your parents/friends in Venezuela or earn a huge amount of money, you are living in a miserable place…
Half the population of Venezuela are street vendors or something like that (vendedores de empanadas, etc).
The thing is that the upper-upper part of Venezuela and even the upper-middle class are sometimes living in much more luxury than the very same in very rich Europe whereas the poor are living so badly.
I have been here to houses of very rich people. I have been in houses of very upper class in Venezuela. The ones in Venezuela live better, but the poor are living like animals, just with sunny skies.
Going back to Colomina: she may be earning that a thousand times more legally kosher than others, but even so: I have a strange feeling, specially when she speaks about how bad things are in Venezuela, even if what she is saying may be right.
All Venezuelans will need to make sacrifices, but it seems there is not the slightest intention from anyone to cave in.
March 4, 2010 at 12:16 am
Miguel, creo que estas defendiendo lo indefendible.
Y mientras mas escribes, evidente es.
Belgica es Belgica, Suiza es Suiza y Venezuela es Venezuela.
En el caso de Colomina, revisa su trayectoria. Hasta hace poco fue profesora universitaria, empleada publica (vtv).
Yo si creo que hay un gran negocio detras del alarmismo, lo que me hace dudar mas aun de que el problema sea Chavez o la revolucion.
El problema somos los venezolanos.
March 3, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Well, it’s complicated:
First, up to 2001, if you had money abroad you did not have to pay taxes (Caldera changed that part of the tax code, not Chavez) Compound interest can be very powerful.
Second, if you have money abroad and you invest it in Venezuelans bonds you pay zero tax.
Given how tight Seniat is about paying taxes and VAT I doubt any radio or TV announcer is not paying tax on his/her local income.
They may produce little, but actors, actresses, radio and TV people, artists and baseball players all make huge amounts of money here. I used to work for a bank, we had a person be the “spokesman and image” for the bank. He would get about $15,000 a month for being that, believe me, he was worth it. (In fact, when the bank was sold, that was the only complaint of the buyers). The Miss Venezuela contest is one of the best businesses in the country, everyone involved in that is very rich, even if they produce little.
Find out how much a news or TV personality makes in Belgium, you will be surprised.
March 3, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Miguel,
I believe you. Now
1) I doubt very much that woman
is paying the taxes she should pay in Venezuela
2) Venezuela is not really a rich country, somehow
there are people producing little for the money they
get…and that in a poor country as Venezuela
is somehow more shocking
March 3, 2010 at 4:14 pm
Estos son los puntos:
a) El alarmismo de algunos es justificado o es parte de un negocio?
b) Si se reprochan conductas incorrectas (e inmorales0 por parte de otros, como actuamos a la hora de ser nosotros los cuestionados?
Yo, por ejemplo, no dudo que esa gente tenga la obligacion (legal y moral) de devolver ese dinero.
Que opinan ellos?
March 3, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Bueno, Miguel…it would be interesting to see her tax declaration.
A simple “locutor/productor” having that amount of money in a rather poor country is not a crime at all, but to me it is rather strange and it shows there is something fundamentally wrong.
March 3, 2010 at 1:54 pm
The Evil Empire is to blame. They have infiltrated the printing press and changed the numbers so that the Govt. would look like idiots! They are everywhere attempting to derail the revolution! Accordingly, the militias should not hesitate in shooting anyone working for newspapers that are thought to be sabotaging our efforts to tell the truth. Beware of suspect that may be in the possession of ink. In fact, I will take measures to expropriate all ink in Venezuela. If that does not work, I will confiscate all paper. Do not tempt me like this. As a reward for your defense of the Motherland, I will be passing out free match books to all who get on our red buses and attend the next unplanned rally.
March 3, 2010 at 11:09 am
En este blog dicen que Marta Colomina, Eduardo Lapi, etc http://locomparto.blogspot.com/2010/03/caso-stanford-marta-colomina-aires.html
March 3, 2010 at 11:08 am
Miguel, viste esta lista?
Click to access 001_Complaint_Against_Certain_Stanford_Investors_and_Appendix.pdf
March 3, 2010 at 9:42 am
That has to be some new Cuban math.
March 3, 2010 at 7:01 am
I will say it again, it is part of my mantra: the last time Venezuela took part in open evaluations of academic levels of its pupils was in 1998 (this was for research, not for getting into something).
In one test of mathematics, carried out by Unesco, Venezuelan pupils came in place 13 out of 13 Latin American countries, well below the second worst, Bolivia.
In the same year Venezuela took part, according to personal communication of Andreas Schleicher, on a reading and comprehension test organised by the IEA.
We got position 41 out of…forty one countries.
I wrote a public letter to the regime asking for it to let Venezuelan pupils take part in the PISA programme, as most other South American countries are doing now. I sent copies to media, international organizations, etc. The government, as expected, did not reply. I got an email from the Venezuelan embassy in Paris saying they will pass the message, the minister of education said some weeks later in an interview in El Universal that “some people out ther want us to take part in international testing but we have already the aid of the cubans”.
Those evaluations are no miracle, but they can be a useful tool if carried out correctly to see where pupils stand (see PISA programme in WIkipedia).
I believe cubans do have less illiteracy than other countries in the region, although my suspicion is that cuba’s achievements have been greatly exagerated: they were good at providing for the very basic.
Venezuela does not even have that. Hell, Venezuela does not even have the security Belarussians have! We have got the worst of everything.
Our average pupils were the very last in 1998. That is one reason why we are where we are now. And now the level is way worse.
That is quite a challenge.
March 3, 2010 at 6:28 am
Octavio, This notice deserve a post, UNICEF report that 50.000 to 80.000 children work in Venezuela. Probability most of them lives in the streets.
I recall, that some years ago, Chavez said he will resign if there children in the street, I still waiting his resignation.
I suspect most of them do not go school neither knows read or write. Where is the true of cero people in Venezuela that do not know read or write? And Mathematics my God! Forget it!.
March 3, 2010 at 5:51 am
This must be the same mathematics school where our Finance minister & Emperor Chavez went.
When they predict economic growth % & fantasy inflation numbers they must be using this new formula.
March 2, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Deanash don’t be condescending, if he knows enough to post here he knows enough to read and learn. The guy is an obvious PSF just by the catch phrase he has used so far. Like Uribe is a murderer of farmers.
March 2, 2010 at 9:45 pm
Y para saber más información: Adolfo, dime exactamente qué es “Aporres”? Sos un estúpido, nada más, y nada menos.
March 2, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Well, 4% error per year in estimating electric demand adds up after 11 years 🙂
March 2, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Maybe the Cubans are needed after all….my God,who the hell can’t add that in their head without the use of a calculator!
March 2, 2010 at 7:24 pm
Adolfo: You are arguing and you dont even understand Spanish, the data are not two diferent things, 38% is those that did satisfy the savings, 67% is those that did not. The plot is a pie chart that has to add to 100%, there are no two eays about it. Please stop confusing the comments all over the place start your blog with BS, dont try to discuss what you dont even understand because your spanish is sooooooooo bad.
March 2, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Shorter Adolfo:
“Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”
March 2, 2010 at 7:07 pm
Los datos son de dos cosas distintas. Ver Appores por las palabres de la madre de Zapata.
March 2, 2010 at 7:05 pm
Adolfo is confused BECAUSE 67 + 37 does equal 104. What he obviously doesn’t understand is the concept of percentages. So, instead of merely ridiculing him (too easy), let’s try and teach him. This is exactly the point I was making in the last comment that I posted.
Adolfo, Arturo, Chavistas, and “Presidente” Chavez, et al, when you are dealing with percentages, 100 = the total. That is, 100% of something is ALL of it. There isn’t more.
The total of percentages must equal 100. And yes, there are exceptions, but learn this basic concept first.
And Miguel, it’s true, a picture is worth a thousand words. That NONE of the people running the government can do basic math DOES explain why their isn’t an adequate supply of electricity.
March 2, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Adolfo count with me 37 67 = 104 %. Now are one that believes that 104% of population is something that exist in this universe? Does your single cell brain gives you just enough to breath sndnot crap on the carpet in the living room? Are related to arturo?
March 2, 2010 at 6:40 pm
Man Adolfo in your world does 6 4 = 11? maybe if we read it again it will … Oh darn nope still equals 10.
March 2, 2010 at 4:58 pm
5 out of 4 Chavistas agree that 67 plus 37 equals whatever Hugo says it equals.
🙂
March 2, 2010 at 4:29 pm
It says all…
March 2, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Read it again. Who you must have problems with understanding.
March 2, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Just concrete proof that they are making shit up as they go.
March 2, 2010 at 12:55 pm
it would be funny if…