The Devil's Excrement

The last few days, the OPSIS website has not been updating the data, all we know is that there was a sharp drop in the inflow into the Guri dam, as on March 30th. inflow dropped to as low as 430 m^3/sec, the lowest level all year.

As usual, our friend Moses sends us some very interesting information in the form of a link to a Corpoelec presentation, which is now on the web right here.

The first conclusion from seeing this is that there is no doubt that Corpoelec is considering the operation of the Guri dam below the magic 240 meters above sea level, based on this graph:

I do not understand the details of this plot, but there is clearly a “range of operations” which goes as low as 234.9 meters, well below the “critical” level of 240 meters above sea level. This region has a higher risk of vortex formation as the water level drops, but the graph suggests that there is some leeway in allowing it to drop below 240 meters, which would be good news as we will see below.

The next plot shows what Corpoelec estimates will happen in time, showing that it does not expect the 240 meter level to hit until May 23d. very similar to the model I presented and those in the comments using higher order fits:

Finally, there is this plot that estimates the current trajectory, comparing it to historical values.

From all this data and if Guru can be operated down to 238 meters, it would only be June until we have a problem.

Thus, I continue to be optimistic that in 2010 Guri will not reach the critical level and has to be shut down. Of course, the problem is that first, we need rain, but more importantly, the starting level for 2011 will be low and we will need a lot of rain to start the dry season for next year at a high level.

Forget for a moment what is happening in Venezuela today. Concentrate on a single fact, a single number looking towards the future, Venezuela’s population grew last year by 480,000 people (The net of 580,000 births and 120,000 deaths). it is a daunting task to think about how to provide for these newly arrived Venezuelans in the years ahead, without even worrying of solving the problems that already exist.

I try to think about it in three different dimensions: When you read what the average Venezuelan wants out of life or expects out of its Government, there are three general priorities that motivate them politically: Hope, purchasing power and quality of life. Hugo Chavez has been able to provide lots of hope, a slight improvement in purchasing power which is now going to go below what it was when he became President, but he has failed miserably on improving quality of life.

It looks as if, with or without Chavez, it is only hope that can once again improve for the average Venezuelan in the next ten years. Improving the rest, even if you just focus in the newly born, represents a daunting task.

Take housing as an example. Providing housing to those 500,000 kids per year in the next four years will require half a million new homes if we assume two kids per family and two parents. Half a million homes is half the homes built in Venezuela by the Government ever since such programs exist. There are only 3.7 million formally built homes in Venezuela.

Well, building 125,000 homes per year, which I reiterate, would only provide homes for the newly born and their parents, is far above the maximum number Chavez has been able to build in any of his eleven years (27,000 housing units) and even above the maximum  (98,000 units) built in any of the ten years preceding him.

Thus, providing housing to these new Venezuelans is way above the organizational capabilities this country has had in the recent decades and the ability to even build them may been seriously compromised by the nationalization of the cement companies (to say nothing of the lack of electricity to generate the steel beams used in Venezuelan construction.

But note that there is already a shortage of 2.5 million housing units in the country,thus, even beginning to attack the problem is quite a task.

But is it? Coincidentally, there is an interview with one of the architects from a group that proposed to Chavez how to remedy the housing problem with a ten year US$ 30 billion program which seemed impossible to finance in 2000. They lasted two years in the constant shuffle that Chavez applies to his Cabinet and managers, as well as the fact that their program was completely decentralized. Add to that economic interests from the Capitalist, the socialists and the Bolibourgeois and the program went away faster than Chavista Justice acts on cases involving their enemies.

So, housing looks really tough.

Let’s consider purchasing power. Despite the biggest oil boom in the country’s history with oil prices increasing eight fold in the last eleven years, purchasing power improvements in the first ten years were only marginal and economists are predicting that the average Venezuelan will actually lose all those gains before the end of the year. Back to 1998 in a puff! Not pretty!

So, simple rules about growth in income break down in Venezuela because of The Devil’s Excrement. It is not a problem that the Venezuelan economy or oil prices would have to grow by 2% to accommodate the 480,000 new Venezuelans, the problem is that in the absence of a National Plan, with sound priorities like getting rid of military spending to benefit the people and the need for oil production to increase, Venezuelans will be poorer and poorer in the next few years. Politicians will be able to offer hope, but not much more which is real.

Unless, you could agree on four or five National priorities, a pact among political contenders that Housing, Oil, Education and infrastructure have to be taken out of the political diatribe.

Which simply sounds far fetched, if not impossible.

I could go on and on. You could take the electric problem, which takes knowledge, planning and money, or the crime problem, which takes knowledge, planning and money, or the education problem which takes ditto. Those half a million Venezuelans represent a daunting task and a challenge, which politicians in either side of the spectrum seem to be far from even attempting to address.

But ever since I realized that there will be half a million new Venezuelans every year going forward, that number has been giving me nightmares.

(Comrade, sorry to interrupt you activities, can you tell me where Oswaldo Alvarez Paz´house is?)

In another demonstration of long term planning, responsibility and caring for productivity and the values of hard work, President Hugo Chávez has just announced that Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of Easter week (next week) will also be holidays next week in order to save electricity. We have an eight day holiday for the whole country starting Saturday.

Everything is backwards these days in Venezuela.

Note added: After Hugo had his whim, the Government realized the announced “Feriado Nacional” could not be “Nacional”, it is end of the month, tax payments are due on Wednesday and a country can’t function like that for eight days, so we get the exceptions:

Electric companies, telephone, hospitals (??), banks, drugstores, Foods, Hotels (obvious), Restaurants (holidays don’t apply to them anyway), public transporation.

(In Spanish here)

Today the Venezuelan Supreme Court pensioned off 90% of the Court, applying the benefit to all the Justices that were eligible. At the same time, all of these Justices will continue in their functions until Chavez’ Constitutional period ends in 2012. Only one Justice, likely the only honest and ethical one, Justice Marmol Leon opposed it. Here is the decision.

Why you may ask why was this done?

Easy. The National Assembly is about to approve a Law limiting salaries in the Venezuelan Government to no more than around Bs. 9,000 (about US$ 1,200 at the parallel rate), which would limit pensions to this number if they were pensioned off in 2012. Instead, they get their pensions today at the current salaries which is like 4 to 5 TIMES higher and on top of that will stay applying their peculiar version of robolutionary Injustice.

The cynical and unethical behavior of these people never ceases to amaze me!

I guess you could call it an act of corrupt, capitalistic and robolutionary Injustice!

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)

Reportedly at the meeting in Cancun to create a new organization of Latin American unity, Hugo Chavez and Alvaro Uribe got into a strong confrontation. As the two Presidents argued about Venezuela’s commercial boycott of Colombia, Chavez sen Uribe to Hell (Vete pa’l carajo) and when Chavez threatened to leave Uribe told him to be a man and stay to argue face to face (sea varon y quedese a discutir de frente). (In English here)

There is never unity when Hugo is involved, if you are not with him, you are against him.