The Government went from trying to “intervene” private areperas, to creating its own revolutionary network of areperas socialistas, then it was not long after that some of the revolutionary workers were caught stealing from the till. (Whatever happened to Minister Saman who said he was going to work for free a few hours a week? I guess when he got fired, that destroyed his revolutionary fervor)
And as is usually the case from a Government that knows how to destroy value, but is clueless as to how to go about to creating it, at least two of the areperas are confirmed closed by now, including the main one that Chavez inaugurated:
This follows in the path of Chavez’ Ruta de La Empanada or his Vertical Chicken Coop Projects, to say nothing of more important things like cement, steel or oil projects.
The sign says they will “relaunch” it, another wasteful and useless overhaul in the country of interventions, overhauls and re-powering of everything damaged or destroyed under the revolutionary sun. Hopefully, this wil not get byond that sign this time around.
Note added: Sabio Sapiosetty tells us in the comments they moved the arepera to a truck in front. I wonder what happened to all the infrastructure in the store and I hope the truck does not get stolen.
The Devil's Excrement 
July 22, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Well, it’s not surprising. That bloke was a member of the PCV committee for ages…a despicable opportunist and thug
http://www.vive.gob.ve/inf_art.php?id_not=4173&id_s=6&id_ss=1
Every communist will say and mean that. Of course, the idiot doesn’t have a clue about history, then he would know Venezuela’s regime is now way way way much sicker than the Soviet Union was when it came to bureacracy, ethics and so much more. We are not “on the path to socialism” or a socialist dictatorship as in Eastern Europe, but towards a Cuban dictatorship with a stench of Zimbabwe and a drop of Eastern Congo – keeping still our feudal style.
I wonder what it is with those Faría|Farías names that they come so red.
One of the key bastards from the PCV was a Faría (I wrote something about him, he sent in the eighties his nephew, a university professor, to follow training in the Soviet Union with the KGB on “conspiracy”, which is basically a course on how to create havoc, use explosives, create chaos and promote riots, plus some basic communication.
Then there is the Gauleiterin Jacqueline Faria, who is probably related to the PCV guy (who kicked the bucket some years ago).
July 22, 2011 at 8:47 am
Well now the cat is out of the bag. What we knew all along but that they had been denying is now admitted. I await the string of denials that will be published in 3,2,1…
Diputado Jesús Farías: Vamos hacia el comunismo
http://www.noticierodigital.com/2011/07/diputado-jesus-farias-vamos-hacia-el-comunismo/
We are going to Communism
He states that he is a communist because he’s a member of the PSUV.
If you understand Spanish please read it. If not run it through Google translate.
It’s just so full of win!!
July 22, 2011 at 3:11 am
Well, I am not so sure Bush ever “ran” that team. It must have been something like “dad, I am going with Mike (the accountant and real manager) to see the boys”
Back to topic: it’s funny to read Saman’s tweets on this, the guy is pissed off by what Teodoro wrote in Tal Cual.
How is pricing in those Areperas? And how many are still open, whether in a lorry, under a provisional toldito or else?
Setty, can you tell me what a standard arepa in inner Anzoátegui, in a place like El Tigre or some place like that (not Puerto La Cruz) costs?
July 22, 2011 at 7:44 am
If Bush didn’t run the Rangers how in the hell can I blame the Sammy Sosa trade on him? This is important, more important than Air Force Reserve show up and such… hell, make him present his pilots licence, I doubt seriously he came within 100 ft. of a Delta Dagger. If you have pictures they are photoshoped and can’t be used as evidence.
July 21, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Running the Harvard Law Review, being a Senator are not small undertakings, neither is running a baseball team or being Governor of Texas.
July 22, 2011 at 9:37 am
Being a politician as a qualifier for being a politician?
I’m talking about demonstrable competence in the private sector, where failure to perform means serious personal consequences, no excuses, and no one is going to bail you out.
The sort of thing that most readers here have had to demonstrate in their lives to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table.
July 21, 2011 at 8:12 pm
Quoted from ND:
“They didn’t pay rent (the local belongs to CSB) or electricity or surveillance.
¡The didn’t pay IVA!
Most of the employees were unpaid students from the INCE.
Total chaos…
Easy to steal for the employees …
They quarrelled because some wanted to steal more than others. In the end there wasn’t enough left to buy Harina Pan… “
July 21, 2011 at 7:31 pm
Before becoming President, the most complex thing Chavez ran in his life was the cantina at the Escuela Militar. There you could innovate; “What if we served mixed drinks?” What if we add one soldier in each shift to wash dishes?” “What if we have a happy hour?”
He runs the country the same way.
July 21, 2011 at 10:00 pm
That’s really the problem Miguel, and not just with Chavez and Venezuela. When all an election is, is a popularity contest to see who can promise the most to the voters, that’s what you get.
I doubt that Obama ever successfully ran anything as complicated as a cantina, nor did GW Bush ever have to make a go of anything in his life.
Shouldn’t there be some minimum qualifications, for voters as well as those who run for office? Shouldn’t someone who wishes to vote at least have to demonstrate that they understand the issue being voted on? Shouldn’t a candidate for office have to demonstrate competence? Like for instance supporting a family or making a payroll?
July 22, 2011 at 7:36 am
nor did GW Bush ever have to make a go of anything in his life
Agreed with voter qualifications, voters should have a certificate of sanity and demonstrate an understanding of the threat of the giant bug beings from France, not as filtered by the kook-stream media like faux news and Martian-in-Chief R Murderdock.
Hold on to your hat, Spaceship Default is lifting off.
(hey this is fun)
July 21, 2011 at 7:17 pm
You know I bet Chavez thought running a big fast food chain would be easy, that its just a matter of putting ingredients together, but my father (cuban exile) is the owner of a few McDonalds franchises and I can tell you he works at least ten hours every day. When he was starting in the business he worked from open to close most days. To get my allowance he makes me work like a dog. Running a clean, quality fast food joint is one of the hardest businesses, and between the best run places and middling joints you will see a big gap in sanitation. I wouldn’t eat at those socialist arepera places unless you want food poisoning. Hiring good employees and up standards requires good managment and I bet from the top down its just a bunch of cronies working at these places.
July 21, 2011 at 11:04 pm
Just like he thought running utilities, cement plants and steel plants would be easy…
July 22, 2011 at 3:28 am
“Because I don’t care enough to understand or like what these guys do, it must be easy. Move aside!”
Duh…
D’oh!
The stumbling block of really stupid busybodies.
You didn’t mention the risks and the possibility of ending up failing and with a huge debt. That surely made your father’s sleep less than easy. (“Forget about the risk, the govt. picks up the tab”).
July 22, 2011 at 7:29 am
To get my allowance he makes me work like a dog.
Immigrants, they’re getting all the good allowances!
🙂
If your Dad’s McDonalds are in Florida I’ll make a point to visit.
July 21, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Bill
It may not be Prostate after all: (in spanish)
http://www.codigovenezuela.com/2011/07/noticias/pais/algo-huele-mal-en-el-cancer-de-chavez
July 21, 2011 at 5:57 pm
The truck is a perfect result of all this, as it makes a perfect metaphor. This business – and any “business” run by this government – is like an old, broken-down vehicle. It keeps stalling and stopping, and the only way it ever gets anywhere is when everyone gets out and pushes.
July 21, 2011 at 5:12 pm
Fox News Latino is reporting that a Brazilian doctor has said that Chavez has prostate cancer.
July 21, 2011 at 4:23 pm
may he die a slow painful death with time to think about how much damage he has done….Id say Cuba is working feverishly to groom the successor
http://gregcontreras.blogspot.com/2011/07/chavez-has-18-months-roger-noriega.html
July 21, 2011 at 4:16 pm
December 2010…I was taking care of my uncle” in a clinic in Venezuela and Chavez open the arepera in “cadena nacional”. I could not believed how low a president can go to announce the opening of a “fast food” restaurant as a success of the “revolution! Well 1.5 years later, I guess he will need to re-open the super arepera socialista once he comes back from Cuba.
July 22, 2011 at 2:20 am
If Chávez had enough money, he would open public toilettes where people can go and get their ass cleaned by Chinese workers and people will vote for Chávez even if the petrodollars the Chinese get will be taken away from the schools that could be built for Venezuela’s poor children or from the hospitals for the elderly. It is incredible…
July 21, 2011 at 3:27 pm
If Venezuelans had not been feed so much crap about the supposed benefits of Socialism, and they had not been nursed by the Petrostate…
…this would be the easiest Presidential campaign in the history of the World. Present the horrendous facts. Wait for the punishment vote.
But it will be close. And it will just be the beginning of the ordeal.
You know why? Because the 4th., those that came before Chavez, flirted with various mythologies, some about Socialism and actually taught Venezuelans to believe in them.
Carlos Rangel and Jean-Francois Revel, among others, would be perfectly entitled to make a prayer wheel (or a recording) and keep it running until next millennium going on “te lo dije, te lo dije, te lo dije…” (I told you so…)
July 21, 2011 at 2:48 pm
m_astera,
…and with all these advantages, they are still unable to make it work, i.e. run a business, any business.
Sooner rather than later they will blame every failure on Hugo’s cancer. After all El Comandante is / was too ill and he just couldn’t properly oversee all these projects for el pueblo, be it the arepa socialista, the housing, crime, the Guaire clean-up, oil output increase and many dozens if not hundreds others.
If he beats the cancer and regains full functionality, this illness maybe a blessing in disguise for him and the opposition will have great difficulties to challenge the excuses, because el pueblo once again would believe his BS and how dare anybody attack their demi-God when he was so deadly ill.
I can just see it coming….
July 21, 2011 at 2:10 pm
A privately owned restaurant must pay taxes. Those taxes are taken and used by the government to subsidize a business that pays no taxes but undercuts the prices and competes with the taxpaying private business that is subsidizing it.
That may be the most morally repugnant government program I have ever heard of, and the most blatantly criminal.
July 23, 2011 at 4:04 pm
Socialism is greed and envy at its core.
July 21, 2011 at 1:33 pm
Octavio you do not spare anything, you are everywhere!
Chavez found a very old way to redistribute rent to the people; the same as Julius Cesar did when he victorious arrive in Rome. Julius Cesar asked people not to pay taxes for the rich aristocrat, and ordered to prepare food in the streets to give hungry people; he was the first communist-populist in the world. The last two are Lula (when President ordered to cook felloada in the favelas) and Chavez (arepera, empanadas etc etc) even that Lula was as well accompanied with very well known cronies –mercantilists- Chavez did the same at the beginning. Now he does not need them.
AG
July 22, 2011 at 2:18 am
Alexander, buy yourself a good book of history.
Julius Caesar was indeed a populist, although there were many others before him who did that in Rome as a state, starting with the Gracchi, as far as we know.
There were many cases of similar things in the Middle East as well.
I dislike communism but that didn’t have anything to do with communism itself. Please, books teaching about the whole ideological circus and world history are not prohibited, open them and read.
Mercantilism, capitalism, communism, socialism…whatever, eh? putting labels without a clue is rather for Fox News or the Agencia Bolivariana de N oticias.
July 22, 2011 at 9:58 am
I’ll take Fox News a million times over your BBC or whatever else you watch.
July 22, 2011 at 12:03 pm
Well, it’s good you know how to turn on the TV set, let’s pray the Lord, who must have created that little creature on the sixth day so that all we can keep up with the news.
BBC? Yeah, right, that communist stronghold…and I reckon CNN is socialist. Andres, I’d rather take Spiegel, SDZ, El País, Лента, De Standaard for occassional reading, ZDF, ARD, France 24 for TV news…same time as you, but one day this or that as I don’t see one source as The Truth.
July 21, 2011 at 12:59 pm
Hope nobody steals the truck. So much for the investment in infrastructure.
July 21, 2011 at 2:31 pm
But given the price of gasoline, they can afford to go west and along the way pick up the Grapes of Wrath crew and maybe make it across the border. At least then they can get Harina Pan and keep their profits.
July 22, 2011 at 7:21 am
they can afford to go west and along the way pick up the Grapes of Wrath crew, absolutely, I mean if the wayward bus from a forgotten village is on time next sweet Thursday.
July 23, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Profits?? Are you trying to offend them?? These things are probably losing a ton of tax dollars.
July 21, 2011 at 12:54 pm
They bought a truck. Across the street from Parque Central, at the site of the rather awful community garden, you can now buy your socialist arepas from a truck, on the street. It not as nice as the old arepera, but the project does continue to limp along, unlike some of the others you mention.
July 21, 2011 at 6:45 pm
Hey, Setty. Maybe you can get a picture of the truck? That would be good!
July 22, 2011 at 5:44 am
Indeed! Pictures, pictures!