The Devil's Excrement

Going back to work to start the year was no different than working last week; most Venezuelans are certainly not working and will likely not go to work for at least another week, a phenomenon that I have always marveled at. It is in fact pretty amazing that a country with such low productivity practically shuts down for three weeks every year at Christmas. And let’s not talk about Easter week and carnival week when similar slowdowns take place. But maybe I should lighten up.

The slowdown is general. The best part is that politicians also disappear from view for equivalent periods of time, so that real news is hard to come by. Reporters also disappear, I have always found it amazing how virtual newspapers like Descifrado, simply shut down for two weeks and a “real” newspaper like Tal Cual Digital simply shuts down. I guess they must have done an economic study, but there is something about it their absence that bothers me, if doesn’t truly annoy me.

Same thing with Op-Ed writers and those that contribute to the opinion pages. Most of their articles at this time of the year are reviews of the year or pieces that you know for a fact were written only to fulfill their duty. Most of them I can skip over without any problem. But the worst part is that much of this also leaves me with of feeling of isolation, as most of those that “know” what is going on, also go away. Thus, regular sources of good information or interpretation of what is going on, also are missing in action and this makes it sometimes hard to figure out what is happening. For example, I have not been able to verify yet why Chavez came home from China a few days early. And this is important to know, as Chavez is clearly playing his own China card of attracting Chinese investment vis a vis US investment. To me, this is actually a good development, since Venezuela needs lots of investments and Chavez was doing almost nothing to try to attract American one.

Quite annoying that people leave, given that I do exactly the opposite. To me, Caracas at Christmas and New Year’s is at its best. No traffic, no lines, few people. The air seems crisp and clear, so why do people go away? Maybe only to annoy me. But I certainly will not let them.

There is something else that is quite annoying. Besides newspapers having daily reviews of what happened last year just to fill space, they also have huge sections about your horoscope in 2005. They not only have them. They flaunt them! They advertise them! Astrology, much like populism, really sells. Populism is right as often as Astrology, but people seem to forget the misses and concentrate on the promises. Which is also quite annoying, at least to me.

I still remember when I first got back to my country after graduate work, how annoying it was to have a radio program called “Nuestro Insolito Universo” (Our Amazing Universe), which despite its scientific sounding name, devoted itself to the supernatural, myths, superstitions and the like. I marveled at the fact that serious private organizations would sponsor such a well produced program only to propagate half-truths, the paranormal and the unexplained, while devoting no funds to explaining the basic facts of scientific phenomena. The truth is, the paranormal sells, the scientific fact is only of interest to a very limited part of the population.

Recently, a good friend was annoyed by a website I recommended in this same pages as having good news, for propagating the “news” that a Venezuelan “researcher” was saying the recent Tsunami in Asia was actually caused by a meteorite hitting the Pacific. According to this wise Venezuelan researcher (Venezuelans love to use the word “sabio”), world powers wanted to hide the fact that this was the cause, as they had sponsored movies to make people believe that the world could actually defend itself from such an impact. How did this researcher know? Easy, he had predicted the meteorite impact based on his careful work in decoding the prophecies contained in the Bible. Moreover, he has a whole range of additional predictions based on his decoding of the whole Bible, including the fact that the Bible foresaw the Danilo Anderson assassination. As if the Bible did not have more important things to predict on a cosmic scale!

But if this annoyed my friend, it annoyed me even more when I wrote to the Editors of this website suggesting that such an article was not in line with the seriousness of their enterprise and that if they wanted to be successful, they should think about not giving space to such a story. Their reaction? Outrage! Don’t newspapers have horoscope sections, they said? Wouldn’t restricting this guy’s space be a limitation of his freedom of speech, they said? Wouldn’t that be censorship, they said?

So, annoyed, I gave up on trying helping these guys. If they don’t understand why newspapers have horoscopes or why the meteorite story puts their website in a bad light, this is certainly their problem, not mine. Unfortunately, and to my utterly annoyance, the same can not be said of populism. If populism wins, everyone loses, including me. Moreover, I have to live with it. I can ignore Astrology, but I definitely can not ignore populism. So I won’t

Sometimes it is truly hard to know what is going on. On the same day that the Governor of Yaracuy, not exactly Daniel’s favorite person, issues his own decree “rescuing” lands in his state, the Land Institute issues a communiqué saying that the intervention of lands requires a presidential decree. (El Nacional, page A-14, by subscription). Thus, three decrees intervening land and now a step back?

Well, as usual, it is unclear. All the Land Institute is saying is that it will have a meeting tomorrow about these issues. The Land Institute did say that Governors and Mayors have the duty to fulfill with the requirements of legislation, but is qualifies the need for a presidential decree to do it.

Thus, it is not as easy as the Governor of Cojedes suggested, saying that legal formalities have to be bypassed in the name of social Justice. Even if Governor Yanez had the backing of the President it is clear that there are some divisions on the issue. First of all, there is the Head of the Land Institute Eliezer Otaiza who obviously feels threatened as the interventions by the Governors certainly make his Land Institute useless. Moreover, all of the Governors have been saying they acted because of the slowness  by the Land Institute in executing its mandates, something that affects Otaiza directly as he may go out of favor in the eyes of President Chavez.

But the most significant problem appears to be that the Governor of Cojedes included the land of the El Charcote farm, owned by British Group Vestey and that Embassy has not only expressed its concerns about the intervention, but apparently the Vice-President of Venezuela José Vicente Rangel had made promises to British authorities about their land being protected.

So, this is simply another reflection of improvisation, disregard for the law and the fear by the Chavista Government of international repercussions to their actions. A true revolution would simply not care about the British and some rich British family with investments in Venezuela. But this is a revolution based on the manipulation of the media and information, particularly the foreign media, thus this issue may hurt because of the inclusion of foreign land.

In the days ahead we should have a clearer picture of what is going on. Our suspicion is that we will see some form of unifying concept to try to give these gubernatorial decrees some legality followed by a promise of coordination by the Institute of Land.  Ninety days from now, as the decrees term expires, the issue will once again be revived with full force.

Sometimes it is truly hard to know what is going on. On the same day that the Governor of Yaracuy, not exactly Daniel’s favorite person, issues his own decree “rescuing” lands in his state, the Land Institute issues a communiqué saying that the intervention of lands requires a presidential decree. (El Nacional, page A-14, by subscription). Thus, three decrees intervening land and now a step back?

Well, as usual, it is unclear. All the Land Institute is saying is that it will have a meeting tomorrow about these issues. The Land Institute did say that Governors and Mayors have the duty to fulfill with the requirements of legislation, but is qualifies the need for a presidential decree to do it.

Thus, it is not as easy as the Governor of Cojedes suggested, saying that legal formalities have to be bypassed in the name of social Justice. Even if Governor Yanez had the backing of the President it is clear that there are some divisions on the issue. First of all, there is the Head of the Land Institute Eliezer Otaiza who obviously feels threatened as the interventions by the Governors certainly make his Land Institute useless. Moreover, all of the Governors have been saying they acted because of the slowness  by the Land Institute in executing its mandates, something that affects Otaiza directly as he may go out of favor in the eyes of President Chavez.

But the most significant problem appears to be that the Governor of Cojedes included the land of the El Charcote farm, owned by British Group Vestey and that Embassy has not only expressed its concerns about the intervention, but apparently the Vice-President of Venezuela José Vicente Rangel had made promises to British authorities about their land being protected.

So, this is simply another reflection of improvisation, disregard for the law and the fear by the Chavista Government of international repercussions to their actions. A true revolution would simply not care about the British and some rich British family with investments in Venezuela. But this is a revolution based on the manipulation of the media and information, particularly the foreign media, thus this issue may hurt because of the inclusion of foreign land.

In the days ahead we should have a clearer picture of what is going on. Our suspicion is that we will see some form of unifying concept to try to give these gubernatorial decrees some legality followed by a promise of coordination by the Institute of Land.  Ninety days from now, as the decrees term expires, the issue will once again be revived with full force.

Interesting, it is January 2^nd. And a number of Government promises for the end of the year 2004, have failed to take place:

-There has been no resolution of the Danilo Anderson case as promised before the end of the year by the Minister of Justice and the Governor of Miranda (Who has no official connection to the case)

-There has been no announcement of a devaluation as announced by the old Minisiter of Finance.

-The new Government airline has yet to fly once.

-We are still waiting for the PDVSA financials

by the way, where is Silvino Bustillos?

Oh yes! There is some good news, inflation in December was 1.6% making the year end CPI 19.4%, even below Government estimates. Two caveats about this number: One, it was announced in the morning of the 31^st. of Decembers as if the last two days of the years did not matter. Two, foodstuffs were up 28.4% and transportation was up 24.2%, these are the two items in which poor people spend the most money.

From a friend I get this e-mail telling me that ABC news has chosen bloggers as People of the Year. I guess I get a nano (or is it pico?) fraction of it. I think this is great, even if I am baffled that it fails to mention any major bloggers or the role blogs played in the Dan Rather affair and demise.

I have written a lot about the need for pension reform in Venezuela, imagine how I feel when I read about the problems facing Norway, which has been contributing to an investment fund since 1996 and the fund now has US$ 165 billion split 60%/40% between fixed income and equity investmentd. Compared to this, the Alaska Permanent Fund “only” has US$ 29 billion. Now, there are only 4.5 million Norwegians versus 25 million Venezuelans, with my country’s population growing much faster.

Norway’s problem is that next year oil production will start going down and the pension fund may run out of money. So, they are considering extending the retirement age to 67 from the current 62. As I noted before, in Venezuela people retire after 25 or thirty years of service, implying that many retirees are in their late forties and early fifties. This in a country with no investment fund, declining oil production and a large population.

Venezuela did set up an investment fund in the 70’s, which had US$ 20 billion in its hayday, and was quickly used up in the 80’s as oil prices dropped. A new Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund (FIEM) was started in the last year of the second Caldera administration reaching US$ 6.3 billion and most of those funds were used up in 2002. Thus, we clearly have not had the required discipline to even sustain such a fund in time.

How I envy Norway’s problem.

I have written a lot about the need for pension reform in Venezuela, imagine how I feel when I read about the problems facing Norway, which has been contributing to an investment fund since 1996 and the fund now has US$ 165 billion split 60%/40% between fixed income and equity investmentd. Compared to this, the Alaska Permanent Fund “only” has US$ 29 billion. Now, there are only 4.5 million Norwegians versus 25 million Venezuelans, with my country’s population growing much faster.

Norway’s problem is that next year oil production will start going down and the pension fund may run out of money. So, they are considering extending the retirement age to 67 from the current 62. As I noted before, in Venezuela people retire after 25 or thirty years of service, implying that many retirees are in their late forties and early fifties. This in a country with no investment fund, declining oil production and a large population.

Venezuela did set up an investment fund in the 70’s, which had US$ 20 billion in its hayday, and was quickly used up in the 80’s as oil prices dropped. A new Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund (FIEM) was started in the last year of the second Caldera administration reaching US$ 6.3 billion and most of those funds were used up in 2002. Thus, we clearly have not had the required discipline to even sustain such a fund in time.

How I envy Norway’s problem.

I have written a lot about the need for pension reform in Venezuela, imagine how I feel when I read about the problems facing Norway, which has been contributing to an investment fund since 1996 and the fund now has US$ 165 billion split 60%/40% between fixed income and equity investmentd. Compared to this, the Alaska Permanent Fund “only” has US$ 29 billion. Now, there are only 4.5 million Norwegians versus 25 million Venezuelans, with my country’s population growing much faster.

Norway’s problem is that next year oil production will start going down and the pension fund may run out of money. So, they are considering extending the retirement age to 67 from the current 62. As I noted before, in Venezuela people retire after 25 or thirty years of service, implying that many retirees are in their late forties and early fifties. This in a country with no investment fund, declining oil production and a large population.

Venezuela did set up an investment fund in the 70’s, which had US$ 20 billion in its hayday, and was quickly used up in the 80’s as oil prices dropped. A new Macroeconomic Stabilization Fund (FIEM) was started in the last year of the second Caldera administration reaching US$ 6.3 billion and most of those funds were used up in 2002. Thus, we clearly have not had the required discipline to even sustain such a fund in time.

How I envy Norway’s problem.

I have made a lot of friends via this blog and thanks to this blog. I know many of you just read without commenting, so we may not know all of you. But this greeting is to all of you. I hope that the disagreements we may have are just part of the process of creating a better country. 2004 was not all I wished for Venezuela. I do hope that in 2005 we can have less confrontation and more happiness than we have had this year. I do wish the best for everyone in 2005 and that we may all live in peace and prosper together. Happy New Year to all of you and thank you for reading me!

The Chavista Governor of Portuguesa state gets my vote for her statements today on what has been happening with land in other states. She acknowledges that Governors have no authority over lands and that responsibility falls on the National Institute for Land. (INTI). She comes out all in favor of private property and calls for respect for those that work it and make it produce.  Definitely a voice of reason within this mess.

Let’s see if she is criticized by her peers in the days to come. She shows too much common sense.