You had to laugh last night as Hugo Chavez provided via telephone his evidence that Venezuela was “shielded” from the crisis in Europe and the US:
“All of the world stock markets went up two days ago and Venezuela’s was up”
Never mind that this is the same stock market he killed over the years, to finally give it the kiss of death last year.
But more importantly, let’s look at the numbers:
If Chavez was talking about Monday, the day markets around the world dropped sharply, a total of 13,269 shares were traded that day in the Caracas Stock Market. The leading stock? Dominguez y Cia. which traded a whopping 10,919 shares at Bs. 5 each or Bs. 54,595, which at the official rate of Bs. 4.3 represents all of US$ 12,696. To put it in perspective that is 2.5 10^-6 times the GDP of Venezuela. Big Deal!
If he was talking about Tuesday (stocks went up around the world that day, I don’t think he was) that day the leading stock in the Caracas Stock Exchange was Government controlled Electricidad de Caracas, which had 100,000 shares traded at Bs. 0.18 per share for a grand total of Bs. 18,000 or US$ 4,186 or 8.37 10^-7 times the country’s GDP. Irrelevant!
Hopefully, nobody will tell Chavez that the Caracas Stock Market has seen increased activity in the last two months, it has gone from about US$ 2 million to US$ 3 million a month in volume.
The reason?
Some people are betting small amounts that Chavez will not be around in a year or two, the stock market will be revived and the local shares, which have been languishing, will soar.
The Devil's Excrement 
August 16, 2011 at 2:53 pm
Here’s another fall-out from the chemo: loss in bone mass, loss in height. I see the potential for this given his posture, even while sitting.
August 14, 2011 at 7:55 pm
So far it seems to me that the chemo chavez is undergoing is low-dosage to prolong his life…it’s the smart move given the other choice of trying to save his life with aggressive treatments that would incapacitate him physically and mentally.
August 14, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Chavez gets back to Venezuela & immediately calls for an investigation of the MUD.
http://www.eluniversal.com/2011/08/14/presidente-pide-investigacion-contra-mesa-de-la-unidad.shtml
Aseguró que la oposición planifica acciones para justificar un escenario de violencia “que ellos están preparando y tratar de incendiar el país”.
Claims that the MUD (which he refers to as the MUS – Mesa United States) are planning actions to justify a scenario of violence that they are preparing & trying to inflame the country.
For god’s sake – just give it a rest!
August 14, 2011 at 2:35 pm
Chavez has no interest in a stock market, if the Venezuelan market (if it can be called one) happens to be up while others are down, Chavez will try to take credit that’s his nature, but in reality his economic model is North Korea,.not even Cuba,
Cuba needs tourism, so some form of consumer goods are needed.for the tourists. Chavez wants money for two things, buy friends and weapons, unlike Cuba he has oil, so he needs no one.
What’s left of the market economy he tolerates until he has total control, no elections, when he doesn’t need to even cheat, just his say so.
That day will come when the farce of the 2012 presidential elections are over, and he officially declares Venezuela a communist state, so all the debates about presidential candidates is very amusing, Chavez loves it, he can say international “you see Venezuela has a democracy” but the end is the same.
Like Hitler’s Germany Venezuela needs to totally collapse, with Chavez in power, so the myths and dogma go with him.
August 15, 2011 at 11:41 am
Albi-keep writing. You are exactly, +100% on target.
“Chavez wants money for two things, buy friends and weapons, unlike Cuba he has oil, so he needs no one.
What’s left of the market economy he tolerates until he has total control, no elections, when he doesn’t need to even cheat, just his say so.”
If Chavez lives-he will want more power, more absolute control-does
anyone -ANYONE doubt that?
August 15, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Sadly yes, most Venezuelans don’t want to see what Chavez is all about, because they will have to create a new construct,, to take an expression from the Matrix, they have taken the blue pill and believe that one day he will create the everything for free state, that they want, and feel is their birthright, for living in the “richest country in the world”
Venezuelans don’t want to understand that what makes the wealth of a nation is the creativity of its people, Russia has more natural resources than any country in the world, but its GDP ranks less than most countries in Western Europe..
The salvation of Venezuela will come when the world will no-longer need fossil fuels, and Venezuelans will have to finally make something the world needs, with their own ingenuity, rather than getting it from the ground
August 13, 2011 at 7:22 pm
And you’d think that the more or less free trade of shares (for capital) of economic enterprise would be the thing most inimical to a Socialist mindset!
Think of it, with money, you buy a small part of an enterprise. For money, you sell a part of an enterprise. Worse than selling land or real estate. You are selling the products of labor. You are buying labor, and you don’t even have to know what is produced. Not that I mind… to me the owner of property can do what they want with it. But where was all that rhetoric about workers controlling the means of production forever?
You’d think the nincompoops would be proud of killing the Stock Exchange and of keeping it dead…
You would also think that the emission of debt to be bought by others in the expectation of profit from trade, or interest would be contrary to a Socialist mindset… And issuing bonds for government debt! Go figure! Pushing the very people of Venezuela into debt, for others’ profit!
You’d think the nincompoops would first go without food themselves rather than issuing a single sovereign bond.
What about selling futures of natural resources like oil, not yet produced? To anyone? These resources are all Venezuelans’ according to Socialists.
Is this Bobo-ilusion about Socialism at all? Does anything about them make sense?
August 13, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Let’s look at Argentina’s post-default economy. Not bad! Justifies some optimism?
August 13, 2011 at 3:33 pm
Totally agree with JMA and Kepler last comments.
August 13, 2011 at 6:32 am
Get off your knees Venezuelans-stop bowing down to a traitor.
You are living under a Military Dictatorship-
Chavez prefers to be called “Micommandante”
Stop calling him that.
August 13, 2011 at 6:37 am
Socialism -yeah-lots of programs- really are all fronts.
Everyone know it. Venezuelans are living under a
military dictatorship
“alo Presidente” -is just a front- to make the dictator
“look like” a nice benevolent, human, being..
Chavez “works hard” promoting his “front”-
but- everyone EVERYONE knows the truth.
August 13, 2011 at 7:47 am
Don’t be lazy. Run away.
Say “You’re finished, Chavez.”
Let the beam of light -the truth-shine down on you!!
August 12, 2011 at 11:17 pm
there was one picture where bald Chavez looked like Jabba the Hut
August 12, 2011 at 10:37 pm
If chavez does not exhibit debilitating symptoms then he’s on low dosage to prolong his life. If they are trying to save him, I don’t expect to see him his usual anymore. He looks puffy retaining water kidneys failing
August 13, 2011 at 10:37 am
Possible, I would like to see his feet. Looks like a side-effect of prednisone, not sure of why, but I know what the effect looks like.
August 13, 2011 at 11:14 am
this is chemo effect…it kills you his kidneys are failing
August 13, 2011 at 11:26 am
half, I have to disagree he’s on prednisone
August 13, 2011 at 1:54 pm
I expect you’re correct.
August 12, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Exceot now Rodriguez Chacin looks like ET:
http://www.psuv.org.ve/temas/noticias/rodriguez-chacin-los-golpistas-planearon-matarme-para-luego-decir-que-me-habia-%E2%80%9Csuicidado%E2%80%9D/
while even losing weight Chavez looks like a fat ET
August 13, 2011 at 2:33 am
Don’t offend ET. He’s a beauty next to HC.
August 12, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Funny how Chávez looks more and more like Rodríguez Chacín as his hair falls…
August 12, 2011 at 8:19 pm
“How will you deal precisely with the people who dont realize what is going on, feel entitled”- this is the “bomb” that Chavez controlls now. It will be passed on to whomever? We will spend the rest of our lives dealing with “them”..
Look at all of these posts, it scares the hell out of me and I am/was a big
strong man-such a shame-and most of my friends and family have been
silent and tried to ignore what was happening.
The way to thank Chavez is to get rid of him NOW.
And, help to free Cuba, too.
August 12, 2011 at 7:37 pm
JMA: There has been indeed a huge destruction. My personal feeling is that it will be easier to solve the “macro” problems, then the “micro” ones. How will you deal precisely with the people who dont realize what is going on, feel entitled and you have to either get rid of them or displace them so that things can start working at the small level?
August 12, 2011 at 7:25 pm
As things stand now, the country is virtually irrecuperable. There is no awareness in the population of the utter destruction (economic, social, moral, etc.) of the last 12 years. This destruction is so great that a new paradigm for the country will be needed. It will be necessary to begin almost from zero, and it will take many decades to achieve something of a viable country. This assumes that the political elite in the opposition knows what to do. It does not. Furthermore, the regime will incur in any and all kinds of fraud to cling to power. The doomsday scenario is rapidly approaching. I can only pray to God to be merciful to Venezuela.
August 13, 2011 at 4:32 am
I totally agree.
Venezuelan democratic forces have to act now as deminers. That does not mean behave like naive people asking everyone to hold hands, but warning about the attempts from Chavismo to create further violence
August 13, 2011 at 9:35 pm
JMA,
Anywhere you look in or around the CNE there’s no transparency. Far from this. A minor (in numbers) detail, as it’s been said over and over, is that the CNE hasn’t published vote results abroad pretty much ever since HC started his mandate in 1999. Numbers-wise it doesn’t really represent much (~ .5% of the 11M votes in the last election: i.e., las parlamentarias in 2010). Also, as everybody knows, voters have been switched around, from their usual voting place, to one located a long distance away. Plus, “Campa~as flash de cedulacion”, usually biased towards voters known to most likely vote for HC. And, of course, a very large number of phantom voters, as you said. This is “la carta bajo ‘e la manga”, should everything else fail, these non-existing voters can be manipulated at will by The Satrapa.
In short, as soon as HC assumed power the CNE was tampered with, and the trend has been to make its records murkier and murkier. Based on this, no one should be very surprised that in 2012 HC wins at least by a healthy ~ 20% margin. The big question now is he, HC himself, will be healthy enough at that point. But, I, like Santo Tomas, I won’t trully believe HC is really sick until it is publicly 100% certain he really is.
August 12, 2011 at 6:35 pm
panem et circences, nothing more!
August 12, 2011 at 4:51 pm
Frankly, he must think we are all morons. You can’t spend time speaking about the virtues of collectivist society, eventually abolishing money, and how capitalism is destroying the world as we know it only to then highlight how the country you have essentially run to the ground is doing well because your near extinct stock market is the only one the world that is growing.
August 12, 2011 at 4:25 pm
I think Venezuela and Chavez are toast. Maybe he is a bit more now than the country, and maybe, Venezuela can recover from his influence in decades to come.
I would love to see how the country will be in 22nd Century, because 21st Century Socialism damage like a tsunami this century for Venezuela.
I do not see anybody in the opposition with brain, charisma and balls to do more than assure a “conuco” of power to make a living from it. We are really toasted.
August 12, 2011 at 4:12 pm
OT: chavez quoted as saying second chemo and posibility of radiation. A standard chemo regimen is every two months in increasing dosages. The third may be the last because his vitals will get bad. Chemo take 48 hours to kick-in. Also chemo brain should start making itself present. Chavez’ brain is going to be prized!
August 12, 2011 at 3:53 pm
As Jau says, “Venezuela may be a house of cards,….,” but not planning for the future could be catastrophic. The single most important thing to be done prior to next years elections is ensuring the “honesty” of those elections. According to some reports Venezuela has over 5 million phantom voters registered in their electoral files. 5 million. Were that to remain a fact, you can kiss next years elections good-bye. Everything must be done to cleanse those files,….today. There should be enormous pressure put on the government by the opposition groups to ensure an honest election. It will be hard enough verifying the actual voter tallies, without verifying whether or not that voting document is matched with an actual person. That’s how a “real” democracy works. Clean the files!
August 13, 2011 at 9:04 am
Hallelujah! Dr. Faustus.. are you willing to put your money where your mouth ( pen) is? in polls after the referendum it clearly showed that 53% of the population believed there was fraud. There is statistical basis for what you have clearly stated, about phantom voters, but I don’t hear anyone, and most especially the MUD denouncing these facts!! Why, I ask, are we not as a nation, DEMANDING an audit to the Files?? Herein lies our greatest problem. We must DEMAND from our “Democratic” representatives that they put pressure on the CNE and I just don’t see it happening.. As always, education is key.
August 14, 2011 at 9:36 pm
Dr Faustus, I left Vzla 7 years ago because, to me, Vzla was not a democracy back then, much less now. So, as other non democratic countries, elections do not count.
The biggest insult to my intelligence is that the opposition is been selling “the democracy in Vzla” for years. I mean they say that there is no separation of powers, etc. but the CNE “well the CNE works fine”.
So, I am living abroad, but naively perhaps I hope to go back to a more or less normal Vzla in the future.
August 12, 2011 at 3:03 pm
Interesting fact that people are betting, a little, in Venezuelan stocks. Here hoping that their bets pay off!!
OT:
I spent last week in CCS. Apart from having a GREAT TIME and enjoying the GREAT weather, El Avila, friends and family and the incredibly gorgeous women around. I can tell you that politics is almost a banned topic. Nobody wants to talk about it, porbably because its so bizarre that its just a waste of time. But you can see that the Chacao bubble is smaller and smaller. While people are partying and enjoying life, the country is crumbling and Chavez is even more powerfull.
Hopefully is just a house of cards, because the majority of the people are doing nothing to change the situation.
Before people start insulting me, I include myself in the team that is doing nothing to change the situation. I live abroad and I would like to come back, that is all.
Los de Chacao Viviremos y venceremos! 😉
August 12, 2011 at 3:32 pm
the thing about the bubble getting smaller may be true but for the rest, it ain´t so
August 12, 2011 at 3:35 pm
Well, Jau: I have to tell you that los de Chacao won’t live and win in Chacao unless they mind the 99.9% of the country and the 95% of the population
Venezuelans – not just those of Chacao or Northern Valencia o posh Maracaibo (where is it? I don’t know) and every other tiny part of Venezuela have been thinking in feudal terms for ages. And now they can’t if they want to avoid Venezuela exploding like a pressure kettle that has no escape
valve
August 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Kepler, I think you are very wrong on this. Chacao and other posh parts of Venezuela defaulted their power a long time ago, the best prepared AND HONEST people of Venezuela preferred to work on the private sector and left the government to the piranhas way before Chavez.
We are not talking about feudalism here, we are talking about a complete lack of interest. The government has been run by dishonest and unprepared people for a looooong time. Of course there are a few exceptions here and there, but the huge majority of government decision makers of the last 50 years have NOT come from the Venezuelan jet-set.
Venezuela was a true democracy before Chavez, everybody had a chance, you didnt have to be rich to run for office, and of course we failed. Now we have Chavez and if we ever want to have a normal country again, we would probably need to turn ourselves into bloody feudal lords to steady and repair this sinking ship.
August 15, 2011 at 4:14 am
Jau,
I agree Venezuela had a democracy, albeit a very dysfunctional one. The governments have not been run by the jet set but this jet set has shown – with some few exceptions like the people from Polar, the Vollmer, perhaps – very little interest in the nation. Then there were the local caudillos: the people from Caracas couldn’t care a fig about the rest of the country. The rich from Valencia the same, etc, etc. And this has come to haunt us.
Actually: if I remember well, the last president of Venezuela who was born in Caracas was Guzmán Blanco. We also had one or two presidents born in Valencia in the early part of the XIX century. I don’t think this is a coincidence: Venezuela was a tough place to rule due to the distances, the climate differences and attitude difference and all that…this led to isolation, to little of a real national identity – we got some of it through the sick cult of Bolivar – and to the strengthening of an already present feudal mentality: each region looks for its local big caudillo, not for ideas, not for real movements.
Oil increased the differences: more easy money could be made in the centres of cargo distribution. People flowed in. The people in Caracas and Valencia etc couldn’t care a fig about those other regions, which became only baby producers. People in the capital had at best a Luzado mentality.
When I talk about feudalism I talk above all about the issue of local leaders who only fight for their interest and of people supporting them only for what they can get from that leader.
We must overcome this. We must find more than THE politician, The fucking liberator. We need to find teams of people ready to move around in Venezuela and tell people we need a country with real debate, with real accountability, with a plan for sustainable development, which does not mean to plant trees but to produce in a way the wealth does not get squandered.
August 12, 2011 at 2:53 pm
No doubt, Miguel, some people think like that. Even Irak and Mongolia have some type of functional stock exchange.
Tell that to, among others, the mono-malandro-maldito-ignorante who runs the Superintendencia de Valores.
August 12, 2011 at 3:40 pm
Every time you use the word “mono” to attack Chavismo that’s another Ni-ni vote that’ll be lost.
August 12, 2011 at 6:24 pm
Yes, it makes me sometimes doubt, if antichavistas really are for a better Venezuela… I hope so, but, I wonder, what for a reason to use mono if not racism.
August 12, 2011 at 8:23 pm
Bueno, we oppos have to carry the burden of the Cro-Magnon know-nothing opposition just like chavismo has to co-habitate with the paleo-Khmer Rouge left. It’s just that the nutters are on the margins of our movement and in the centre of theirs…
August 13, 2011 at 2:31 am
I guess you meant something along the lines of “that’s another oppo voter that would switch his/her vote inte to ni-ni”.
I disagree. I think it’d really take much more than name-calling to shift voter intent between the three groups (the Chavista base, the oppos, and the ni-nis).
August 13, 2011 at 7:24 am
I agree with you megaescualidus.If we look for faults we will find them, but a ni-ni KNOWS why he is ni-ni,and often it is for reasons that are much worse that hearing someone use the word “mono” which you will hear a million times a day in Caracas anyway( especially among the young people.I never had friends who referred to anyone as a ‘mono”, but I heard very disrespectful and badly educated teenagers use it constantly .
I doubt that it necessarily means racism( without knowing the person one cannot say),however it is very disrespectful.
August 13, 2011 at 2:48 am
I agree with Guillermo. And the reason for that mono thing is racism.
It’s not a nini vote, but several nini and low level “believers”.
By believers I mean humble people who for the first time got something from the government (and they did, Bolsero just didn’t know).
They are no less intelligent than Bolsero or me, but they definitely did not have the education we had nor were acquainted with the sources of informations we have.
The “base” is much smaller than what many think…they need to spend more time talking and LISTENING to the the others. One doesn’t do it in a trendy cafe in Chacao.
August 13, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Kepler-
“They are no less intelligent than Bolsero or me, but they definitely did not have the education we had nor were acquainted with the sources of informations we have.”
Sounds like you think all people are equally intelligent and have equal abilities; all they need is opportunity. So what problem do you have with Chavez and his government? That’s exactly what he’s been saying all along.
August 14, 2011 at 6:44 am
No, I don’t think so and I did not say that.
But grosso modo, in such large groups, I haven’t found they were less intelligent than people like the Bolsero…only that Bolsero thinks anything he got he got from his sheer will and intelligence and has’t got a clue about what basic education or lack of it does to anyone.
There are lots of people who are more or less intelligent than others. Let’s remember your references to the The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. That says a lot about you.
I am talking about large masses of the population. Take Russia-USA.
Russians now are not less intelligent than gringos and yet they are still supporting Putin (yes, there is still cheating, but he is still clearly the most popular). Why?
August 14, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Kepler-
Wishful thinking does not make things so. Intelligence is the ability, given a limited amount of information, to figure something out. It’s easily measurable and can easily be adapted to any person or culture, even the completely illiterate. Having a higher IQ does not make one a better person, it only means that person is better or faster at reaching a correct conclusion from the same info. Formal education doesn’t make someone better either; in many cases it stifles their creativity and reasoning abilities because they have memorized “facts” that are really only opinions.
The average IQ of northern Europe is a little over 100. The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africa is less than 80. That is the mean, and the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Does it mean northern Europeans are better people? No; it means they are better at solving problems, especially complex ones. Northern Europeans built the Gothic cathedrals, determined the laws of perspective drawing, bridged large rivers with arches of stone, and gave the world electric power. Sub-Saharan Africans did not; who was or was not “economically disadvantaged” or properly educated had nothing to do with it.
As for Russia vs the gringos (such a racist pejorative, how dare you), both populations are as media programmed as you are, and given the same sort of poor choices the rest of the world is given for politicians. The Russians at least have the common saying that “scum rises” and know that they aren’t given a choice except between which scum.
Re your non-sequitur about me mentioning the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, what a laughable twit comment that is. It tells a lot about me that I’ve read something that you haven’t? I’ve read a lot of things, and don’t allow media or social approval to make my choices. If you have never read the “Protocols”, you truly are uneducated, just as you are if you have never read Marx, Plato, or Murray Rothbard for that matter; if you have never read them because someone told you not to, that’s pretty funny. 😛