The Devil's Excrement

Chavez claims he is spending 10% of GDP on education in his speeches, it is half of that, but as you can see in the graph he has increased the % of GDP spent on education in an important way. However, as the previous graph showed the money has had little impact in the number of people registered in school, another sign of an inefficient administration.

As promised, below is the breakdown of the number of students registered at each level of the Venezuelan educational system from pre-school to university. Curiously, the strongest growth since Chavez became President is at the University level. The more things change the more they stay the same, but it makes sense, if you created a Ministry of Higher Education, it somehow follows that the sector will get more resources. There is little that is “revolutionary” about the chart, but as John said: “We all want to change the world”, but it seems easier to make people believe you are actually changing it!

Source: Luis Bravo Jauregui, La Educacion en tiempos de Chavez, Editorial El Nacional, Caracas (2006)

The graph below shows the percentage of the Venezuelan population registered as a student from preschool to the University since 1957 when Marcos Perez Jimenez was overthrown.

Source: Luis Bravo Jauregui, La Educacion en tiempos de Chavez, Editorial El Nacional, Caracas (2006)

Number of jobs in the manufacturing sector for medium and small size companies

Trading with the Evil Empire has not suffered despite the rhetoric. The blue bars show Venezuelan exports to the US, the red bars US exports to Venezuela. Venezuelan exports to the land of the Devil himself are up four-fold since Chavez took over.

The graphs above show what has happened to the manufacturing sector in the last seven years. Top left: Employment by industrial companies in the manufacturing sector. Top Right: Employemnte by large manufacturing companies defined as those that have more than 100 employees. Source: Conindustria

This graph was made with data from the Venezuelan Central Bank and shows the Net Foreign investment per year since the year before Chavez took over. The data is up to September and this year is negative because foreign companies have been sold to local investors and taken their money out. Some people may think Venezuela needs no foreign investment, but I disagree, GDP per capita here is low, Venezuela is not a rich country and needs all the investment it can get in order to raise the people’s standard of living.

Net investment in Venezuela by foreigners in billions of US$ since 1997. The data for 2006 is up to September. Source: BCV

From the Venezuelan Central Bank non-oil exports (blue line) and total imports (red line) quaterly for the last three years in Venezuela(minus this quarter obviously). Note how exports are below last year’s levels as productive companies have lost competitiveness.

Total Imports and non-oil exports in millions of dollars for each quarter since 2004.

This post is dedicated to the People’s Ombudsman German Mundarain, who has never said anything about violent deaths in Venezuela, but was capable of criticizing Provea’s human rights report today saying: “It is a report of perception, it is not a report from a “direct” source” and then he added “it goes counter current with what most Venezuelans think…63% identified themselves with the President”. Mr. Mundarain is one of the saddest characters of this revolution, claiming to be there defending the people, but all he does is defend Hugo Chavez. Yes, maybe 63% identified themselves with Hugo Chavez, but the 15,000 killed last year, can’t even have an opinion, but Mundarain has never even expressed his concern about those that died under his tenure as Human Rights’s and People’s defender. More than in recent wars and civil wars that whole countries are outraged at. Shame on him!

Violent Deaths for the last nine years taken from the Proeva report the People’s Ombudsman referred to today. Violent Deaths is the sum of Homicides, deaths under investigation and deaths in confrontations with police.

Changing gears a little bit, below I show a graph, which I believe comes from economist Ruth de Krivoy, showing the Unemployment Rate, the Employment rate and the inactive rate, those that have given up looking for a job in the formal sector. As you can see, employment is back above the levels of 98 when Chavez took over, this is in part due to oil income and an increased Government bureaucracy. But note also, how since the start of the “misiones” the size of the inactive population has increased also contributing to “employment”, as people get direct aid, without needing to have or get a job.