The Devil's Excrement

Strange statements today by the Superintendent of Taxes Jose Gregorio Vielma Mora.

He told people to “stay calm in the face of the uncertainty caused by the changes announced by the President” among them a possible tax to luxury, and he advanced that any increase in gasoline would be exonerated of the VAT.

He added that

 “Seniat next week is going to actively participate in the public debates of the Enabling Law, and we mean to generate much confidence, much tranquility, to eliminate the uncertainty”

He explained that “the tax on luxury is an idea with has as it bases the year 1992 “that is not an idea of this Government and the Seniat (Tax Office)”

On the tax on luxury he said “I want to be coherent with my words, we are reviewing the laws, is not settled what rate we will charge, it is no the creation of a new tax”

At the end, he closed: “I believe one has to handle to this with a more coherent language, so as not to create greater uncertainty, that stimulates inflation, also to look for a mechanism of connection and coordination with the productive sectors of the country because we want that an endogenous development with the participation of all the citizens, where the private sector grows, the small and medium industry, the cooperatives, the co-managed companies, where we can make a country with a high yield and where the State can unload for job creation to the private sector”.

My take:

Does this guy talk to the Big Boss who is the one that creates the uncertainty? Where was he on Sunday? Where was he the other days that Chavez made the announcements that created the unrest and rattled the country? Chavez said the luxury tax was his idea, was he lying? Was he adressing Chavez or the public?

Yes, we certainly need coherence and it should start at the top. As for certainty, forget it, when laws are ignored and/or bypassed and the same Government makes contradictory decisions, there can be no certainty.

The country’s headlines are enough to make you sick:

—Chavista lawyer Carlos Escarra, member of the Constitutional Reform Committee: If it were for me I would go straight to Communism

I guess he thinks we are in a detour or is that what the people voted for in December?

—Bloomberg: Venezuela’s Arms Purchases Since 2005 Top China, Iran, Pakistan

You have to understand peacefull revolutions need lots of weapons and the poor wanted this first.

—Washingtom Times: Collapsing Venezuela

Lots about corruption which you have read here before…makes me wonder if almost everyone in Government and the private sector do it, is it still considered to be corruption?

—Vice President Jorge Rodriguez using the same impecable Goebelian logic he used when he was President of the Electoral Board: Without Chavez the middle class would be living in poverty

He did overdo the Goebbelian spot later in the same article when he said that the Caracas Stock Exchange was not affected by the decision to nationalize. Oh yeah! The Caracas stock index closed today 7.7% down for the day, thanks to Chavez’ wonderful statements yesterday, the index is down only 27% since its peak on Jan. 8th. the same day Chavez announced the nationalizations. I guess it must be an emerging market thing.

—Investors Business Daily on the Hitler-Chavez parallels: Dictatorship Rises

Where is the mustache? Who is Eva (See first comment, Chavez has Eva and maybe Evo)? But seriously, I liked the part about tolerating dictatorships under facades of democracy being something that has not been tried before.

Picture too good to pass up: Deja vu all over again!

Chavez yesterday: The price of gas is a disgrace!

I wonder who the Hell (not Cipote) held it back…he should be punished!!!

Picture from Tal Cual

Good and provocative reading in today’s papers, I thought of translating some of it, but there is so much, that I can just point out to those that speak Spanish where the good or interesting stuff is:

—Historian Manuel Caballero talks about how behind the call for “popular power” Chavez is simply concentrating more power and how Chavez misunderstands the Russian revolution, where the workers were not asking to own the factories, they already owned them, but they wanted peace. Some quotes:

“In my book “Why I am not Bolivarian” I write and analise Umberto Eco’s thesis about fascism, because there has never been a whole group of people with a single way of thinking “I interpret it because I am the people”. And Eco says that in that case “the people” become a theatrical fiction that is only good for applauding. The people that go to Chavez’ rallies are not there to listen to him, only to watch him. Is the same as Sabado Sensacional” (A marathonic TV program all Saturday’s that has been on for decades)…the people that voted for Chavez in 98 and a large fraction of those that have continued voting for him do not do it to go against corruption, out of anger or frustration or because they wanted a good Government, but because they wanted a dictatorship. “

—Psychoanalyst Adrain Lieberman talks about Venezuelans, their envy, their values and violence in Venezuela. An excerpt:

“More than democrats in Venezuela, what we have is a libertarian spirit, we do not trust regulating institutions, we want to do whatever we want. We have a democratic vocation only in its formal aspects”

—Telecom analyst Victor Suarez asks what controls will the anti-monopoly regulator impose on the Government once it owns CANTV and questions the Government’s argument for nationalizing CANTV:

“In front of the verbal and administrative firing squad should be the Government officials that promised that the people would have more access to communications. Those that offered and did not fulfill their promises that the citizens would have more access to communications. Those that offered and did not fulfill their promises in eight years of Government”

—Pro-Chavez historian Margrita Lopez Maya expresses her concerns about what has been happening in the last two weeks, in particular, how Chavez seems uninterested in anybody’s opinion but his:

“Based on some of the things proposed, a process has begun of slowly weakening liberal democracy. I think we are going towards an institutional weakening of the National Assembly as a space for deliberation and the depositor of popular sovereignty. Equality and autonomy of powers rule the 99 Constitution, but I think there is the intention of inducing a modification to go towards the subordination of all powers to the Presidency”

—Alberto Barrera writes on Chavez’ vision of society (can’t find it online):

“Hugo Chavez never had that very Venezuelan need to go out in the streets and get a quick job. The State, bourgeois and liberal, always gave him everything…I suspect that XXIst. Century Socialism has a great problem: Its main manager is the “new man” from the IVth. Republic”

In the last week there have been some good announcements on the part of the Government. What is remarkable is how the Government has spun these announcements as if it had not been the result of its own policies to begin with:

—After eight year’s of providing those that are better off with a gigantic subsidy, Hugo Chavez announced today that gasoline prices are going up (A gallon costs 16 US dollar cents today). This is great news as it did not make sense to give the middle class a subsidy five times that of the poor. However, Chavez held firm to not increasing the price of gas for eight long years of a senseless subsidy. Not only that, but it was his Government that ended the natural gas program for automobiles in 2000, which was recently revived. The size of the increase has not been announced, but I surely hope measures are taken to limit the impact on the poor. I have always argued (I posted on this in 2004) that the Government could pay for all public transportation to convert to natural gas with one year’s subsidy and thus prices would not have to go up for public transportation.

—The President also announced last week that he will cap Government salaries at $1,400 a month. A cap had always existed and under the second Caldera Government the “Ley de Emolumentos” was issued and has been largely ignored under the disorganization of this Government. People have been retiring with obscene salaries, in particular those at the Electoral Board, the Supreme Court and the Venezuelan Central Bank. Reportedly the Supreme Court Justices who make US$ 13,000 a month and get paid a bonus of six months at the end of the year have discussed the issue and decided this does not apply to them because they are an “independent” body. It’s almost funny for them to argue that now. Remember the case of the Vice Minister of Finance caught entering the US with US$ 45,000 in cash and telling the US Court that he made close to US$ 150,000 in 2002 alone? You have to love these revolutionaries.

—And despite the announcement that Chavez would nationalize everything that was privatized, he also said he would not revert the privatization of steel company Sidor, which is good news. Could it be because it is owned by an Argentinean consortium and his buddy Kirchner asked him not to do it?

I worry that they may be getting ideas from my blog…

On Friday the Miami Herald had this article (Thanks M.) that suggested there was more behind the Enabling Bill that the Government was proposing. Given the good reputation of the reporter that wrote the article, I called a few reporters and within an hour I had a copy of what he described. I was planning to write about it on Friday, but then Petkoff in Tal Cual wrote the Editorial below, which is really a list of what the Attorney General’s proposal says and I decided to just translate that, however, Friday was a rough and tiring day and it is only now that I have the energy to complete it.

One needs to ask why the Government and the National Assembly continue to have a hidden agenda on these matters. As I suggested earlier, what has been said is quite limited and not really important to the true objectives of the Government. In true Dictatorial fashion, Chavez did not say what he was planning to do if he won and continues to hide it from the people in order to protect his popularity. This text is supposed to be included at the last minute next Tuesday, right before the approval of the Bill. Some democracy!

The Hidden Enabling Bill by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

The draft of the Enabling Law that the Executive sent to the National Assembly is only an appetizer. The true content of what Chavez will be enabled for is in this project elaborated by the Attorney General of the Republic that still has a chance of being incorporated in the second discussion that will take place on Tuesday at the National Assembly.

Here we present some extracts of this document in which the ten statements that already appear in the exhibit of motives that the Parliament approved yesterday in its first discussion are extended, point-by-point and law-by-law.

We can say, then, that this is the Enabling Bill that hides behind the Enabling Bill.

On the economic and social scope:

—To dictate norms that preserve the social function of property, in their diverse forms and classes, developing the concept of social and collective property, according its limitations and restrictions within the framework of the constitutional values and principles and applying (sic) the new emerging realities on matters economic functions, organizational structures for production and new mechanisms for barter.

—To dictate norms on the matter of expropriations that simplify administrative and jurisdictional procedures, guaranteeing speed, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency in the subtraction of property, as well as the protection of the rights of those being expropriated as well as the general interest.

—To dictate norms of regulatory character on the matter of foreign investment, directed to the industrial and endogenous development, and to the transformation national technology regulating the resolution of controversies with respect to the sovereignty and to the impossibility of declining national jurisdiction. ·

—To dictate norms that regulate on matters related to strategic minerals, establishing parameters for their exploration, extraction, use and commercialization.

In the financial and taxation areas:

—To dictate norms that make possible the creation of binational or multinational funds for the development of programs of joint financing between the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with two or more States.

—To dictate norms that allow the Fund for National Development (Fonden) to grant guarantees, to issue securities titles and conducting financial operations that imply indebtedness with the prior authorization of the President of the Republic.

—To Dictate norms in the area of the public finances, oriented to the construction of the new socioeconomic regime consecrated in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, orienting the execution of excess income originating from the Law of Economic and Special Allocations derived from Mines and Hydrocarbons as well as the Law of the Intergovernmental Fund for decentralization, among other sources of financing for popular participation, with the intention of strengthening it and the equitable distribution of the resources to the communities, for the execution of its programs of endogenous development.

—To dictate norms that regulate the management system of national assets, as part of the financial management system of the State.

—To dictate norms that regulate the activities of financial intermediation developed by banks, directed to rationalize their profits benefits, orienting it as a productive and non-speculative system. Also, to promote the investment for the endogenous development of the country, democratizing credit and the free access financing, generating conditions of equality for its request, processing and granting. Also, to establish conditions that allow and stimulate the participation of new forms of association for the development of banking and insurance activities.

—To Dictate norms that establish a system of regulation, control and supervision of the tangible assets of the Fund for Guarantees and Deposits (Fogade), where these can be identified in all their extension, establishing transparent mechanisms for their sale and guaranteeing their keep, custody, maintenance, protecting the general interest of the depositors of the national banking system.

—To dictate norms that allow to re-dimensioning of the figure of the Central Bank of Venezuela, with the aim of fitting it within the socioeconomic regime consecrated in the Constitution of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

—To dictate norms that help the diversification, optimization and harmonization of the Venezuelan tax system, with the object of increasing the effectiveness of tax collection, to stop the existence of unproductive assets, to modernize tax control and to improve the activities of the Tax Administration.

—To dictate norms that establish a fiscal policy of general and special contributions, proportional to the income of people and legal entities and in accordance with budgetary necessities.

In the area territorial distribution:

—To dictate norms that define the geographic spaces that define (sic) the National Bolivarian Project for Development.

—To Dictate norms that allow to regulate the processes of promotion and creation of establishments of communities in the national territory, in accordance with the outlines established in the territorial planning of the country which stimulates the integral human development based on values and social forms, oriented to allow the formation of a new citizen and to construct a new society, in the terms established in the constitutional text.

In the area of security and defense:

—To dictate norms for the organization and operation of the National System of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence.

—To dictate norms for the implementation of operational zones of the integral defense of the nation.

—To dictate norms that allow the mobilization of the National Armed Forces in the assumptions that are specifically anticipated, without the need to declare a state of emergency.

In the area of popular participation and the social voluntary military service:

—To Dictate norms to establish the mechanisms of participation, social control and socio technical inspection of organized communities in the application of the legal, economic and social ordering of the State, providing with the legal instruments for the permanent means for the population to participate, evaluates and control public management in all their manifestations and the accomplishment of the essential and nonessential assignments, executed or not by public or private entities.

—To dictate norms directed to the democratizati
on of Popular Power, creating an organizational structure that allows the legitimate exercise of this Power, whose representation must have a direct and immediate identity with the community that it represents. In such sense, these norms must grant attributions to the Communal Councils, in the matter of planning, administration, management and control of the resources and in the execution of the inherent projects to endogenous development.

(Finally, Petkoff also notes that the Attorney General proposes changing Article 2 of the Enabling Bill so that NOBODY outside Government personnel participates in the elaboration of the Decrees/Laws issued under the Enabling Bill. How about that!)

–Chavez says: “We will proceed with massive nationalizations if it is necessary…I don’t think (we will nationalize other companies). It will depend. Processes are dynamic. If those private companies, national or multinational do not understand the process and want to sabotage it, we will nationalize them, no matter what they are”

My take: This is the version of the muzzle law applied to the media, but in this case to the whole Venezuelan private sector, either you become submissive and do what the Government says or else we nationalize you. Clearly, when companies continue making a profit in the future, the private sector will be mostly nationalized unless you are or get an Argentinian or Brazilian partner.

–Chavez says: “CANTV used to wiretap me, they were owned by north americans and thus they used them”

My take: Of course, he does not have to prove anything, he is Hugo Chavez. A few months ago he was threatening CANTV with nationalizing it if it did not pay what the Court said it had to pay pensioned workers (The Court had not even ruled how much!). Since the Court ruled and CANTV paid, he needs other excuses to justify the nationalizations.

–Chavez says: “O Globo…(the Brazilian media conglomerate) is the enemy of the people”

My take: That’s Chavez concept of democracy: either you support him or you are a coupster, oligarch, enemy of the people. O Globo should be glad they are not in Venezuela, their concession would have expired last year if not earlier.

–Chavez says: “Democratic Senator Harry Reid got it all wrong” in reference to the Democratic Majority leader comment that Chavez represents a threat to the US.

My take: So far it has been Bush that is the enemy, come 2008, if it’s Hillary, she will become the she-devil, if Obama, he will be a traitor to his people. Just wait!

–Chavez says: “I would have to be overthrown before renewing RCTV’s concession”

Oh yeah! It’s not political, it’s not revenge, it’s the law, Chavez’ law, the only one in town.

-Chavez says (Zeta, 19-01-2007, page 9): “A President should not listen to economists”

My take: It shows, it shows, it will be his downfall.

There you have it, all in an autocrat/dictator’s day

When Hugo Chavez ran for President in 1998, one of his main proposals was that Venezuela required a “participatory” democracy instead of a representative democracy, in which decisions would somehow percolate down so that the Executive and legislative branches would have the input of the citizens and their opinion would be heard on all matters. This concept was in fact incorporated into the 2000 Bolivarian Constitution in many places and at the Quebec Summit in April 2001, Chavez refused to sign the final declaration of the Summit, because he did not believe in representative democracy, but only in a participatory democracy and the term was not included in the declaration.

After the events of the last two weeks, it should be very clear even to those with a limited understanding of what democracy is about, that Chavez does not believe in either of them. As the Venezuelan National Assembly approved today a first draft of the Enabling Law that will give Chavez absolute power to legislate for the next eighteen months, those “representatives” of the people not only relinquished their own power to legislate in favor of the autocrat, but they also precluded the exercise of that participatory democracy that Hugo Chavez claimed to believe in and which was clearly included in the 2000 Bolivarian Constitution.

When the Assembly approves the Bill next week, Chavez would have basically been appointed as a dictator of laws, where he will be able to propose, include and approve, any idea he might have. In this manner the Deputies will apparently go on a paid vacation for the next eighteen months, while the citizens wonder whatever happened to Article 211 of the Bolivarian Constitution:

“Artículo 211. La Asamblea Nacional o las Comisiones Permanentes, durante el procedimiento de discusión y aprobación de los proyectos de leyes, consultarán a los otros órganos del Estado, a los ciudadanos y ciudadanas y a la sociedad organizada para oír su opinión sobre los mismos…”

which translates as:

“Article 211. The National Assembly or the permanent commissions, during the process of discussion and approval of the Bills, will consult other organizations of the State, the citizens and organized society t hear their opinion about them…”

There will be no such procedure with the Enabling Law which will be granted to Chavez without fail or discussion, next week, which simply proves the President’s customary grandstanding on matters of democracy and participation. In fact, only last night he was claiming his new Socialist Party will be an example of democracy with all internal leaders democratically elected at all levels, a promise that is hard to believe, given that his own MVR party has yet to elect a single leader by the party members, despite the fact that the Constitution clearly states that should be the case.

Meanwhile, some of the same Deputies that were giving up their representative powers today, justified the Enabling Law with the stupid argument that most Presidents in Venezuela have been given Enabling Powers so that they can impose their views. Somehow they forget that Chavez is the first President in what now should be called Venezuela’s recent pseudo-Democratic history that was eligible for reelection, that he has been in power for all of eight years, certainly “imposing” his views and that he already was given an Enabling Law in 2000.

But what is worse is the type of Enabling law that he will be granted. First of all, rather than being for a short and limited period of time, it will be for 18 months, a lifetime compared to the previous such Bills. Moreover, Enabling Bills granted on the past to incoming Presidents have been quite specific. Even the 2000 Bill was extreme in its details, as there was some semblance of democracy and not a docile National Assembly willing to comply with every wish and whim of the autocrat. You can find that Bill here and examine the exquisite level of detail of the mandate given Hugo Chavez at the time.

In contrast, the current Enabling Bill is simply grotesque, with no guidelines or mandate, almost all encompassing and allowing the President to completely change the social, economic and political structure and fiber of our country in any way he may desire over the next eighteen months. To wit, the Bill, as proposed, will “allow the President to legislate in ample and unlimited manner on”:

-The transformation of the institutions of the State.
-Popular participation
-Public Functions
-Social and economic spheres
-Citizen safety and judicial security
-Science and Technology
-The National Health System
-Security and National Defense
-Infrastructure, transportation housing and services
-Telecommunications and information technology
-The penitentiary system
-Regionalization
-Territorial organization
-Food supply security

As you can see, President Chavez has been given powers to legislate on essentially anything he wishes for in the next eighteen months, without any specifics and without control. This is certainly not in the spirit of any known Enabling Bill ever approved in history, anywhere, except those to given to Dictators at the peaks of their rule.

The approval of this Bill is simply undemocratic. It goes against the spirit and the letter of our laws and the Constitution and it creates a very gray area of what you can legislate about and/or what Constitutional reform is. After all, if not one Deputy raised his or her hand to suggest or discuss a change in this Bill, do you really believe they will oppose anything that comes out of the autocrat? Or which or whose voice will be raised against any of the hundreds of articles that will be part of the dozens of Bills to be approved by decree by Hugo Chavez. The Supereme Court? You will not hear from them either.

As Quico points out,
the worse part is that there was no need for any of this. The National
Assembly is 100% controlled by Chavez, so he could have submitted the
same Bills, have a mock discussion of them and they would have been
rubber stamped it. But that is not Chavez’ style. He is a true autocrat
for whom democracy is simply a nuisance to be used at his convenience
if he can benefit from it.
He does not even want to have to discuss the details of each Bill. Some may remember how the Constituent Assembly rejected renaming the country “The Bolivarian Republic”, only to be told by the autocrat upon his return from one of his self-promotion trips to put it back in. Which they promptly did.

Thus, when next week the National Assembly empowers Chavez to do whatever he wants, they will be setting the country in a dangerous and uncertain path, led by an autocrat who for the last long eight years has shown is incapable of managing this country or choosing the people to help him do so. A man, who has yet to come up with a definition for his “XXIst. Century Socialism” and who sadly believes that he knows it all and can by himself design a new socioeconomic system that mostly mimics failed ones.

At the end of these eighteen months, Venezuela’s social end economic system will hardly be recognized and we all will be worse off because of this.

A sad day indeed.

The ugly horn of fascism by Simon Bocanegra in Tal Cual

Two days ago a small group of people attacked the headquarters of RCTV. Stones, bottles, aggressive shouts and insulting words on the external walls of the TV station were the heroic weapons of that heroic day. Inside, the workers lived moments of fear and anguish. Was that an announcement of new and larger attacks? This small journalist does not know if the guys went there on their own or were sent. Bit that is irrelevant even if the Government denied its responsibility; it cannot avoid its intellectual authorship. That attack and a direct consequence of the brutal and trouble making language that I the Supreme uses each time he refers to the topic of Canal 2 (RCTV). In the fascist like atmosphere of “order, our commander, that we will obey”, the “command” that stoned Radio Caracas TV was following explicit orders. Do the direct aggressors and their political leaders think about the men and women cornered at the headquarters of the TV station, fearing worse things may happen? Socialism owes itself to high and noble ideals. Are those them? Bullying people, insulting them, stoning them and using violence against them? No. Those are the anti-values of fascism.

An interesting quote:

“I do not believe that it was a mistake to privatize CANTV. On the contrary, it was the right thing to do, because the State in 1991 got rid of an operation that was not efficient and-definitely-the quality of service that we perceive today from the private CANTV is far better than that offered by that state owned CANTV”

Who said this?

a) The President of CANTV
b) The President of the Caracas Stock Exchange
c) Some loser leader of the opposition
d) A Wall Street Analyst
e) Someone that just does not “get” the revolution

The Answer?

This was said in 2001 by the then Head of the Telecom Regulator CONATEL Jesse Chacon, who coincidentally was being sworn in as Minister of Telecommunications on the day that the autocrat announced that he would nationalize CANTV. Chacon will also assume the position of Head of CONATEL, which is being absorbed by the Ministry in another dissapearance of an “independent” institution. CXhacon has not changed his mind, you just don’t argue with the all-knowing autocrat/dictator..