The Devil's Excrement

Lately, I have been having a hard time writing. It’s not writer’s block, but simply that the parade of topics is just..either boring or simply I am at a loss to have an opinion other than: Say whaaat?

Take Ollanta versus Keiko, to me it sounds like a late night boxing match on HBO between a Latin American and a Japanese, both feather weights. But what can I really add to this choice by Peruvians? Yeah, make sure the guy who led to the current prosperity by laying the ground work to sound economic policies is properly punished and gets the least number of votes in fourth place.

Caldera used to say: “El pueblo no se equivoca”. Even on that Rafael was totally wrong.

But hey, it’s democracy and “the people” can choose what knife their neck will be cut with. Ollanta may bring some Hugoesque nuttiness to ruin his country, while Keiko apparently appeals to a segment of the population that longs for her father’s autocratic streaks.

Sorry Peru, call when you are a mess. We can then talk about it.

And I can’t get excited about when the MUD (Lodo on Spanish) should, may, would, might hold its primaries. My favorite is the day when in the Zamora Province of Spain grapes used to be picked, but my arguments may sound as frivolous as theirs. Maybe they should ask Luis Vicente Leon what to do, so we can finally establish a record that he was once wrong.

Maybe we can even have a boxing match to determine when to hold the primaries. Of course, we would have to limit the tournament to 64 boxers so that the process can work. Some of you may think this method is unfair to Maria Corina, but you are all wrong, she is not only tough, but by going down with the first punch she may be able to campaign more and better than any of the other candidates. The tournament will be winner take all. The final survivor of the boxing tournament will choose the day, whatever it is. I bet some candidates get more national exposure this way than campaigning.

Or, take the fact that the subway continues to have problems. Hey, Gonzalez Lander was good, but you can’t expect the Metro to function well, 16 years after his departure and under Chavista hands to boot. The remarkable thing is that it works at all. After all, it has has had an unending series of Presidents, the last two getting further and further away from actual expertise.

The next to last one was three years out of his Ph.D. and never managed anything bigger than his home. He was promoted to Minister. The current one is an academic, a very good theorist of revolutions. I wonder what happened to the US$ 2.5 billion he invested to insure growth two years ago.

And the news that Lobo met Chavez? Who cares? Chavez has done about faces many times in his life and has no scruples.

For example, since Chavismo is “celebrating” April 11th. 2002, one may look at this video

and ask yourself: Who has less scruples? Arias Cardenas for calling Chavez a sick mind and an assassin with blood in his hands and now becoming Chavez’ Ambassador and future Chavez candidate for Governor of Zulia?

Or Chavez for getting close to him again?

Booring!

(Arturo Uslar Pietri: There are no black-outs here,just darkness for you and brightness for other countries)

July 8th. 2010. Ali Rodriguez Araque, Minister for Electricity:  We have overcome the Electric Crisis

Aug. 29 2010. Vice-President Elias Jaua: The Electric Crisis has been overcome.

Sep. 2nd. 2010. President Hugo Chavez : The revolution has increased electricity production in Zulia by 1000%

Sep. 3d. 2010 Venezuelan Embassy in the US: Targets for Electric Production have been exceeded.

Jan 14th. 2011. Hugo Chavez, Chief loud mouth: The Electric Crisis has been overcome (They even made a pamphlet out of it)

Feb 17th. 2011: Minister Rodriguez Araque: In the coming years there will be full supply (of electricity) and excess capacity.

March 30th. 2011. Reuters: Widespread power outages return to plague Venezuela.

April 1st. 2011. Ali Rodriguez Araque: We will implement a plan to avoid strict rationing.

April 5th. 2011: Minister for Electricity Rodriguez Araque: We are not rationing electricity.

April 6th. Deputy Andrade of PSUV: There is no electric crisis in Venezuela

April 7th. 2011. Minister for Electricity Rodriguez Araque: There will be rationing to stabilize the electric network.

April 8th.: El Universal: Blackout compromised 62% of electricity demand.

April 9th. President Chavez: Fire caused blackout, but I don’t discard the possibility of sabotage.

Even the excuse was predictable…

Updates:

I will be updating this post as time goes on.

April 25th: Minister for Electricity Ali Rodriguez: By 2012 the whole electric system will have been recovered. Not clear if sabotage will change his mind as he claims there was sabotage in two generators. I wonder who provides security at the plant?

May 9th. 50 blackouts daily in Venezuela.

May 12th. Head of Load Department of the Ministry Of Electricity: By 2012 you will be able to trust Venezuela’s electric system.

May 12th. Ali Rodriguez Minister for Electricity (Nationwide TV): Prophets of doom are once again announcing an electric collapse.

May 13th. Venezuela’s largest refinery complex hit by power outages.

May 17th. It has been six months since the official website of the electric sector publishes any statistics. Could it be because it would show how bad things are?

May18th. Minister of Electricity: By December electricity generation will be increased by 2,568 MW thanks to new distributed power systems and the overhaul of some units that are out of service.

May 26th. An “unexpected” interruption leaves three states without power. Carabobo, Falcon and Lara lost power tonight due to a problem in Planta Centro.

May 27th. Electric service restored in four States.

May 28th. Corpoelec applies rationing to compensate for electricity deficit.

May 30th. “Blackouts will be selective“. A professor of Electrical Engineer explains while it will be at the earliest in 2014 when the problems may be fixed in Venezuela’s electrical system.

June 1st: El Nacional Page C-7: Corpoelec had to shut down power in nineteen states “because it needed to”. This was stated by Igor Gavidia, Director of the National Center for Delivery of the Ministry for Electrical Energy. He gave a list of all of the “rationings”. (His words)

June 10th. Five hour blackout in Zulia State which affects four other states.

June 11th. Minister of Electricity: Electric service will be progressively restored by Sunday in Zulia State.

June 12th. The Government will announce emergency measures on electricity on Monday, June 13th.

June 12th. Minister Rodriguez Araque has censored all information about electricity in the country since November 2010

June 13th. Penalties are imposed on those that can not reduce consumption by at least 10%, the Government people’s consumption for the problems, not their incapacity.

June 27th. Electric system should stabilize by the end of 2011.

June 28th. CAF lends Venezuela US$ 320 million for overhaul of six turbines in Guri dam.

Sep. 5th. Chavez: We neglected the electric area

Chavista Justice moves in mysterious ways. While tens of thousands of prisoners are held in jail for years without the processes against them moving forward, others move speedily and efficiently thru the complicated maze of procedures, regulations, norms and laws, when the Government so desires.

Imagine this case from real life:

On Aug. 19th. of 2010 a person was detained.

The next day, Aug. 20th., all of the following took place:

-The Prosecutors went to a Judge in Caracas requesting something from it, related to the detention the prior day.

-The Judge admitted the request and ordered that a copy of his decision be sent to the Venezuelan Supreme Court

-That same day, the General prosecutor prepared her response to the case and sent it to the Supreme Court.

-That same day, the Venezuelan Supreme Court reviewed the case file, which is composed of thousands of pages.

-That same day, a Justice of the same Supreme Court elaborated a sentence made up of 138 pages.

-That 138 page project was then distributed that same day, fortunately all of the Justices were at the Supreme Court that day and had time to review and study the case and the 138 page decision.

-That same day, the Justices agreed on the proposed sentence, making it final.

-The decision was published that very same day in the webpage of the Venezuelan Supreme Court.

Of course, imagine in between, that thousands of copies had to be made of everything, papers sent from one place to the other, relevant laws checked for consistency, prior cases and sentences reviewed etc.

The case?

Of course, it was the Makled case, who was detained the previous day in Colombia, and in less than 24 hours Venezuela’s “Speedy Gonzalez” Justice made sure that its request for extradition of the drug kingpin was filed ahead of that of the US request. For the simple reason that Makled knows too much. He rose too fast, protected by the military and the Government. He is a crook, but so are all of his Chavista cronies, so they had to make sure he was sent to Venezuela to protect everyone. It was too costly for Makled to go to the US.

Now, just wait for his videos…

Strange statements from Minister Giordani. First he admits drastically, that the capitalism system works because of individual incentives.  Yes,  capitalism simply works, but then he seems to go on to say that his problem with it is the fact that individual profit is what motivates people, not the “common” good”

He got the most important part about basic Economics right: “People respond to incentives”. Cost and benefits determine how we behave, no communal thinking, no matter how human or generous we may be.

But then Chavez’ ignorant economic guru, who never studied economics, cites studies from last century “on”, which probably means that he only read the old ones, because nowhere in modern economic theory, Marxist or Capitalist, is oligopolic pricing and speculation associated with inflation. Least of all, for the state to participate in the markets like the Chavez Government is doing.

Inflation is just a monetary phenomenon, Venezuela and Giordani’s policies are proof of that, but Giordani has not had time to study that chapter apparently (or learn it from experience). And he never will, between screwing up Venezuela’s economy and writing his books, who nobody reads, he has no time to study.

It was truly a pathetic show. While Venezuela’s has product shortages, the electric network is suffering from years of lack of investment, most state industries don’t function, let alone pay their own way, there was Hugo Chavez giving away all of 667 cars built by Venezuela’s joint venture with Iran, called Venirauto. And then the bombastic promise (Why i it always “we will”, never )we have”) “we will build 16,000 of these cars in 2011”

So?

Over half a million cars were sold in Venezuela in 2007 and since the Venirauto cars are just modified Peugeots which have been built in Iran for years, all Chavez has accomplished is to import parts from Iran to be assembled here, not much different than what has been done for years. Except, of course, Venirauto has a green light to bring parts, while all other struggle to get a myriad approvals from the Government.

But let’s calculate it. GDP is one trilion Boliavrs at Bs. 4.3 per US$, it is around US$ 232 billion. Chavez kidnappped the country’s airwaves, forcing Ministers to be there, to give away 667 of these cars. There are two models of these cars, one sell for the not so socialist price of US$ 26,200 and the “cheap” model for $17,400 at the official rate of exchange. (We are talking 5.5 and 53.7 times the annual minimum salary, even if Chavez said lower prices)

If we assume that half the cars are of each model, then the cars “given out” by Hugo today, were worth 14.5 million dollars or 6.2 10-5 Venezuela’s GDP. (How much was the Nationwide broadcast worth in itself? How much advertising was lost?)

So, really, what’s the bid deal? If instead of building cars to compete with the private sector, Chavez was letting his Ministers work on solving health, electricity, transportation or water problems, the “people” who can not afford one of these cars would be much better off than they are.

(Come on, even importing thousands of computers, under the very nationalistic name of Canaima is more important than this, but in the end both projects do little to improve local know how.)

But that is what makes today Chavez show so pathetic: There is no sense of orders of magnitude, no sense of the ridiculous. Chavez boasts about giving away 667 Veinrauto cars (You have to wonder if they added one at the last minute) while he is being lied about their price, which is likely to be subsidized anyway.

Just more fuel to the official BS, at a very high cost. I mean, has anyone seen a Venirauto Distributor, or is Chavez the only one?

Because Venirauto was started five years ago and as far as we know, it has yet to produce more than 4,000 cars.

It’s just not worth it.

Simply put, the military must not teach orders of magnitude in their courses, because clearly, Hugo has no clue at what size is relevant or important.

But of course, he squeezes the topic as much as he can, the picture above is today’s, but the ones below are testimony to how much hot air and time Hugo has devoted to such an irrelevant topic:

Note added: It turns out that in 2009, then Minister of Science and Technology, today Government pollster Jesse Chacon said Venirauto would make 16,000 cars in 2010, the same number Chavez is projecting for this year. More interesting, Venirauto lost money in 2010, giving up Chavez’ claim that the company makes money.

(Weil: Homage to the Putrefactor)

Remember Pudreval? Thousands of Tons imported by PDVSA under the helm of still Minister of Energy and Oil Rafael Ramirez. Somehow he is untouchable. Chavez dismissed the problem. A Court ordered three of the Pudreval Directors jailed, the trial was annulled in record time by a Supreme Court that takes years to decide on very significant matters.But you know they care so much about due process for Chavistas, they ahd to do it.

But things stank so much, pardon the pun, that even Comptroller Russian had to say something (covering his behind a little?). Because his report did not mince words:

“It was Bariven (A PDVSA affiliate) and PDVAL (another PDVSA affiliate) that imported all the food without taking care of legal and technical criteria”

Jeez, I wonder what else is there?

Well, you can do the same once the food gets here:

“In the inspections…of the containers of food…there was the presence of insects, rodents, both alive and dead, as well as feces. Similarly, we found packages of decomposing food, as well as past their perishable date, such that we had to declare them not apt for human consumption. From the analysis of the results of the inspection a sample of 37 containers out of 305, or 12.5% of them” (The syntax of the last sentence was technically abominable, the math was ff too)

Oh yeah, legal procedures for bidding on the purchase of the food were also ignored and not followed.

This guys are really good, they knew had to do nothing. I wonder why they were hired?

Even Russian the Ruffian admits it!

(Did you see the President finally noticed us after ten years? Yes, I was starting to think the billboards were hiding us from view)

A Caracas councilman by the name of Alejandro Vivas has been keeping tabs on the housing promise of the Chavez Government and enumerated them in the radio the other day:

1.)  2000: Plan Bolívar 2000. Military-Civilian plan to build low income housing. It was the first big corruption scandal of the Chavez era. Remember General Weffer?

2.)  2004: Misión Hábitat: US$ 200 million to change the model of housing and build 10,000 units in 2004 and 50 to thousand in 2005 with an additional US$ 500 million. Wondered what happened…

3.) 2006: Fundation Misión Hábitat.

4.) 2007: Misión Villanueva: A program to redistribute the population over space, so that we are better distributed and people live better.

5.) 2008: Misión 13 de Abril: Building of Socialist Communities in 40 locations of the country.

6.) 2009:  Misión Barrio Nuevo Barrio Tricolor . “Dignification” of existing housing

7.) 2010: Russian Plan. US$ 500 million from the money not spent the previous year. 55 Hectareas in Fuerte Tiuna,

8.) 2011 Plan Vivienda Viva.

And counting….

(Lula to Hugo: You are such a Pinocchio!)

As Chavez promises now and ever increasing number of new projects, news from Brazil is that his biggest and most aggressive project with Brazil, the Abreu and Lima refinery may not happen, because Venezuela is showing very little interest in it. The refinery was supposed to be the centerpiece of Venezuelan/Brazilian cooperation. Many times Petrobras has given up on it, but Chavez and PDVSA have always said they would go forward with it, but then nothing happens, like so many things in the revolution and in Chavez’ promises.

In fact, Petrobras has said a couple of times Venezuela’s participation in the project was dead, but Chavez and his Minister of Energy and Oil have revived it every time they went to see former Brazilian President Lula Da Silva.

In a note published in Brazilian business newspaper Valor, sent to me by a reader (Thanks!), Roberto Costa Petrobras’ Director for Downstrean operations, clearly shows his frustration over PDVSA’s lack of interest in providing adequate guarantees.

According to the note, Petrobras was going to have 60% of the refinery, while PDVSA would have 40%. Petrobras obtained financing from that country’ development bank Bndes. Bndes, which is run like a serious bank, it has a  credit rating and issues bonds internationally, asked PDVSA for some guarantees for the loans. PDVSA presented some 5-year revolving lines as guarantee, which Bndes rejected. Minister of Energy and Oil Ramirez said that by February the problem would be solved, but here is late March and nothing has happened.

If PDVSA does not come up with the guarantees, the project will die in August when Bndes’ credit approval expires.

This raises so many questions, that it is difficult to choose a sarting point:

-How can a company like PDVSA not be able to furnish appropriate guarantees if the project is considered to be so important?

-Was this another Chavez whim and PDVSA really has no interest in it?

-Is it that now that Lula is gone and the new Brazilian President is not as friendly to Hugo that Chavez is no longer interested?

-Is it simply lack of coordination and management on PDVSA’s side?

All of these questions remain up in the air at this time.

In the end, this is another Chavez whim/promise made to be in the headlines but that never materializes. Recall that Chavez made a lot of noise about another loan Bndes had given it a year and a half ago and nothing has happened, like so many other things Chavez promises.

Chavez is great at announcing and promising, but very bad about delivering, as so many of his “projects” show. The Bndes/Petrobras and the Bndes story is just another example of over promising and populism by the Venezuelan President.

But hey, it works, people buy it and he never delivers it!

Recently there was an international meeting of one of those universal, useless, multi planetary union of world countries which held a meeting.The name is irrelevant, there are so many of those boondoggles that you can no longer tell one from the other.

But our “democratic” friends from Chavez’ PSUV showed their true colors, their true democratic ideals to surface, by choosing eight, yes, ocho Deputies to go to this fun meeting. Given the unfair sixty to forty composition of the new Assembly, what did these Democrats decide to do?

Simple, they decided to go the truly democratic route, they chose seven Deputies from their own PSUV party and to show their open spirit, the eight person, the token member, was chose  from Venezuela’s Communist party that happens to support Hugo Chavez. The opposition, which hold 40% of the National Assembly got zippo.

Which proves what we know, to Chavismo democracy is simply a nine letter world, but who is counting?