The Devil's Excrement

Venezuela has a very good institute for scientific research called IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas) which is very close to my heart as I spent half my life there. The Director of IVIC is named by the Minister of Science and Technology. According to the law, the Minister will request the advice of all of the permanent researchers of which researcher should be named. According to the internal regulations of the Institute, the researchers will advise the Minister by suggesting a trio of researchers from the Institution. Typically, there is a secret vote and the top three vote getters are sent in a letter to the Minister, including the number of votes obtained. In early October such a process took place.

-Chavista version of what happened according to a verbatim translation from Government press agency Venpres:

Maximo Garcia Sucre was named as the new Director of IVIC, succeeding Egidio Romano.  This is indicated by the Official Gazette of Thursday October 14^th. of this month where the decision to name Raul Alejandro Padron Crema as the new Sub Director of the institute is also announced. The new Head of IVIC was elected by an assembly of researchers that evaluated his scientific credentials, personal and professional merits of each of those that were proposed for the job.

-What truly happened:

The minister rather than ask for three names, asked whether the Assembly of researchers approved of Dr. Garcia Sucre as Director. The Assembly rejected it by a vote of 85 to 10. The Assembly then proceeded to propose other candidates and a second vote took place in which Jesus del Castillo received 58 votes and Reinaldo Atencio (who is pro-Government) received 17 votes, ten more than Dr. Garcia Sucre.

Thus, the Minister in all her wisdom, disrespect for democracyand the Assembly, ignorance about the candidates and totalitarian mentality of this Government named Dr. Garcia Sucre. Venpres tried to lie around the events, but the truth shall make you free reading this blog!

Such is the state of lies and totalitarian attitudes in the Bolivarian revolution.

Venezuela has a very good institute for scientific research called IVIC (Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Cientificas) which is very close to my heart as I spent half my life there. The Director of IVIC is named by the Minister of Science and Technology. According to the law, the Minister will request the advice of all of the permanent researchers of which researcher should be named. According to the internal regulations of the Institute, the researchers will advise the Minister by suggesting a trio of researchers from the Institution. Typically, there is a secret vote and the top three vote getters are sent in a letter to the Minister, including the number of votes obtained. In early October such a process took place.

-Chavista version of what happened according to a verbatim translation from Government press agency Venpres:

Maximo Garcia Sucre was named as the new Director of IVIC, succeeding Egidio Romano.  This is indicated by the Official Gazette of Thursday October 14^th. of this month where the decision to name Raul Alejandro Padron Crema as the new Sub Director of the institute is also announced. The new Head of IVIC was elected by an assembly of researchers that evaluated his scientific credentials, personal and professional merits of each of those that were proposed for the job.

-What truly happened:

The minister rather than ask for three names, asked whether the Assembly of researchers approved of Dr. Garcia Sucre as Director. The Assembly rejected it by a vote of 85 to 10. The Assembly then proceeded to propose other candidates and a second vote took place in which Jesus del Castillo received 58 votes and Reinaldo Atencio (who is pro-Government) received 17 votes, ten more than Dr. Garcia Sucre.

Thus, the Minister in all her wisdom, disrespect for democracyand the Assembly, ignorance about the candidates and totalitarian mentality of this Government named Dr. Garcia Sucre. Venpres tried to lie around the events, but the truth shall make you free reading this blog!

Such is the state of lies and totalitarian attitudes in the Bolivarian revolution.

Today, lawyer Tulio Alvarez presented his final report on the fraud in the recall referendum, the evidence is truly remarkable once the analysis of the telecommunications is included. You can find Alvarez’ full report here, it is quite long and dense, but it has a lot of stuff in it. I am translating a shorter version to post on it and link to it.

But let’s start at the beginning. Alvarez had hired a room at a local hotel (Eurobuilding) to hold his press conference. When the management of the hotel found out what the press conference was going to be about they cancelled, for fear of reprisal from the Chavez Government.

Alvarez had to change to La Piragua a place that is used to hold weddings and other events. Just when the event was about to begin, two or three motorcycles with two guys riding them showed up and began throwing tear gas bombs at the crowd. This delayed the beginning of the press conference for obvious reasons.

Alvarez then began his press conference. During his whole talk, he had as a background a movie taken at one of the secret data centers used by the CNE and the Government on August 15^th. to interfere with the results of the recall vote. The video consists of a complete and detailed movie of every single piece of equipment at the data center, including front and back, serial numbers, brand names and model numbers. Most of the equipment was not only computing equipment, but also telecommunications equipment. (We hope to have the video or parts of it on the Internet next week) Alvarez also showed bills to PDVSA for some of the equipment found in the room. These were not old PDVSA systems, many were brand new. He also showed a letter from the CNE saying the equipment will be removed and sent to Pasadena, California (??).

Alvarez went beyond that, he also named the operators of the center, four Mexicans and one Chilean as well as every single member of the military that was involved in the center. He showed copies of the passports of these people. He called on the Ministry of Defense to explain what exactly these officers have been assigned to in the last few months.

There are two main new and strong charges by Alvarez, which I will detail as I have time:

-The voting machines, besides being connected to the CNE were connected to three secret data centers. Each voting machine had an IP number assigned and they have copies of all of the data traffic that went through the CANTV farm servers during the recall day. With this, they could reconstruct where the data was going to and the IP numbers of the computers at the three centers. These three centers were located at the Universidad Bolivarian, Ministry of Science and a building in downtown Caracas at the esquina del Chorro. There was incoming and outgoing data from and to the machines all day on August 15^th. , this has all been quantified, measured and even read.

-Using the information from the data traffic, some of the scientific studies that I have mentioned and other methods, they were able to determine that all methods point to 18% of the voting machines being tampered with, this represent 2.55 million votes in those centers in which the No option received 68% of the vote. All methods point to the same machines. From this they were able to reconstruct the true results of Aug. 15^th and yes, the Si won.

Alvarez said the data will be available to any group that wants to look at it and challenged anyone to show his conclusions are incorrect.

I will try to report summarize in the next few days as much as I can of these reports.

Finally, while the press conference was preceded by two different acts of intimidation, it closed in an amazing case of abuse of power when the live broadcast of Tulio Alvarez’ press conference, which was only being broadcast by on TV station, was interrupted by a an impromptu press conference by none other than CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez. The announcement was essentially irrelevant; he came on nationwide TV to say that he will propose on Monday to the full board of the CNE that the day of the regional elections one box from each voting center be counted. This was a proposal made by the opposition and has yet to be approved, so clearly the whole purpose was to block the transmission of Alvarez’ press conference. Rodriguez even took questions from reporters, something eh seldom allows.

This is the pseudo-democracy we are living in. One in which intimation is the rule of the day, where Government officials abuse their power for political gain, using free air time only given to the Government to block the presentation showing that they are a bunch of crooks. But the saddest part is that despite the seriousness of the charges, neither the Attorney General nor the People’s Ombudsman has or will do anything about it, despite the severity of the charges presented.

Today, lawyer Tulio Alvarez presented his final report on the fraud in the recall referendum, the evidence is truly remarkable once the analysis of the telecommunications is included. You can find Alvarez’ full report here, it is quite long and dense, but it has a lot of stuff in it. I am translating a shorter version to post on it and link to it.

But let’s start at the beginning. Alvarez had hired a room at a local hotel (Eurobuilding) to hold his press conference. When the management of the hotel found out what the press conference was going to be about they cancelled, for fear of reprisal from the Chavez Government.

Alvarez had to change to La Piragua a place that is used to hold weddings and other events. Just when the event was about to begin, two or three motorcycles with two guys riding them showed up and began throwing tear gas bombs at the crowd. This delayed the beginning of the press conference for obvious reasons.

Alvarez then began his press conference. During his whole talk, he had as a background a movie taken at one of the secret data centers used by the CNE and the Government on August 15^th. to interfere with the results of the recall vote. The video consists of a complete and detailed movie of every single piece of equipment at the data center, including front and back, serial numbers, brand names and model numbers. Most of the equipment was not only computing equipment, but also telecommunications equipment. (We hope to have the video or parts of it on the Internet next week) Alvarez also showed bills to PDVSA for some of the equipment found in the room. These were not old PDVSA systems, many were brand new. He also showed a letter from the CNE saying the equipment will be removed and sent to Pasadena, California (??).

Alvarez went beyond that, he also named the operators of the center, four Mexicans and one Chilean as well as every single member of the military that was involved in the center. He showed copies of the passports of these people. He called on the Ministry of Defense to explain what exactly these officers have been assigned to in the last few months.

There are two main new and strong charges by Alvarez, which I will detail as I have time:

-The voting machines, besides being connected to the CNE were connected to three secret data centers. Each voting machine had an IP number assigned and they have copies of all of the data traffic that went through the CANTV farm servers during the recall day. With this, they could reconstruct where the data was going to and the IP numbers of the computers at the three centers. These three centers were located at the Universidad Bolivarian, Ministry of Science and a building in downtown Caracas at the esquina del Chorro. There was incoming and outgoing data from and to the machines all day on August 15^th. , this has all been quantified, measured and even read.

-Using the information from the data traffic, some of the scientific studies that I have mentioned and other methods, they were able to determine that all methods point to 18% of the voting machines being tampered with, this represent 2.55 million votes in those centers in which the No option received 68% of the vote. All methods point to the same machines. From this they were able to reconstruct the true results of Aug. 15^th and yes, the Si won.

Alvarez said the data will be available to any group that wants to look at it and challenged anyone to show his conclusions are incorrect.

I will try to report summarize in the next few days as much as I can of these reports.

Finally, while the press conference was preceded by two different acts of intimidation, it closed in an amazing case of abuse of power when the live broadcast of Tulio Alvarez’ press conference, which was only being broadcast by on TV station, was interrupted by a an impromptu press conference by none other than CNE Director Jorge Rodriguez. The announcement was essentially irrelevant; he came on nationwide TV to say that he will propose on Monday to the full board of the CNE that the day of the regional elections one box from each voting center be counted. This was a proposal made by the opposition and has yet to be approved, so clearly the whole purpose was to block the transmission of Alvarez’ press conference. Rodriguez even took questions from reporters, something eh seldom allows.

This is the pseudo-democracy we are living in. One in which intimation is the rule of the day, where Government officials abuse their power for political gain, using free air time only given to the Government to block the presentation showing that they are a bunch of crooks. But the saddest part is that despite the seriousness of the charges, neither the Attorney General nor the People’s Ombudsman has or will do anything about it, despite the severity of the charges presented.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

Busy tonight will not be able to post much, just some tidbits from the news, that I would like to talk about given the time:

—Eight of the nine accused in Tachira state for rebellion were found guilty and given different sentences of up to six years in jail. The eight were found guilty of rebellion and sedition when the day after Chavez resigned they went to the Governor’s house demanding his resignation. They had no weapons, which is a requirement for sedition and the Supreme Court ruled in the case against six Generals that there was no rebellion that day but a “power vacuum”.

This is obviously a political case against these eight leaders of the social Christian party COPEI. They become now eight more political prisoners of the Chavez administration.

The biggest mystery in all this is how the man that came on TV General Lucas Rincon who said Chavez had resigned and was a prisoner is never called to declare in any of these trials. Lucas Rincon was then the minister of Defense, went home after the announcement and resurfaced as Chávez’ Minister of the Interior a few months later.

–Governors and Mayors from the opposition proved the lies of CNE Directors when they said the reason for the missing addressees of voters was the difficulty in given them in poor areas and claiming this was an old problem. The mayor of Chacao showed that 98% of those with problems are newly registered voters. The Mayors and Governors handed in 28 boxes with the evidence showing that 1.8 million voters lack an address. They managed to do this, despite the effort by the National Guard to block their access to the CNE headquarters. The Guardsman Captain told a reporter that if she reported what he tried to do in blocking them “they will promote me”. Check Daniel’s blog for more on this issue.

–Media owner Marcel Granier said upon exiting from testifying about his visit to the Presidential palace on April 13^th. 2002 that “there is a massacre taking place against freedom of speech in Venezuela”. In today’s Tal Cual , Editor Petkoff outlines how the vagueness of the content law make any act as simple as an opinion or showing a movie a violation subject to shutdown of the TV station or newspaper.

–The Government condemned the destruction of the Columbus statue on Tuesday, but said nothing about withholding funding from aporrea.org which not only promoted the action, but its is proudly taking credit for it. Ironically, new Minister of Information Izarra was the one that coordinated the funding of aporrea.org from his prior position at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington. He did not say whether additional protection would be given to the replica of Columbus’ ship which floats at the lake in Parque del Este. There have been suggestions in pro-Chavez pages that they will now go after it.

–Tomorrow, lawyer Tulio Alvarez will present his final report on the fraud during the recall vote in August. The evidence is overwhelming and will surprise. In any other country what will be presented tomorrow would lead to the resignation of the President and the Electoral Board. Pay attention in particular to all of the data about communications. Truly incredible accusations! Should be at the center of the news for the next few weeks. I will report on it as the data becomes available and will summarize the report tomorrow.

A group of people that lives in the Salias municipality right outside of Caracas went today to the Electoral Board (CNE) to inform them that they had held a Citizens Assembly according to Article 70 of the Venezuelan Constitution and that the 4,000 people at that assembly had voted to open all of the electoral boxes on Oct. 31^st. They presented a document outlining how this ill be done and said they did not need the approval of the CNE, because of said article, combined with Art. 5 of the Constitution, which says that sovereignty is exercised directly and is not transferable from the people. The group encouraged other municipalities to follow suit.

This is article 70 of Venezuela’s Constitution, which was the cornerstone of Chavez’ much ballyhooed “participative” democracy which has now been set aside:

Artículo 70. Son medios de participación y protagonismo del pueblo en ejercicio de su soberanía, en lo político: la elección de cargos públicos, el referendo, la consulta popular, la revocatoria del mandato, la iniciativa legislativa. Constitucional y constituyente, el cabildo abierto y la asamblea de ciudadanos y ciudadanas cuyas decisiones serán de carácter vinculante, …

Article 70. The means of participation and protagonism of the people in the exercise of its sovereignty on politics are: the direct election to public office, the referendum, popular consultation, revoking mandates, legislative initiatives, Constitutional and Constituent, town halls and citizens assemblies the decisions of which will be binding….

If more municipalities imitate Los Salias, it will be interesting to see how the CNE and the Government approach the issue. I really don’t believe they want to open all of the boxes, much like they did not want to open them for the August. 15^th.  recall vote. It could be dangerous to go to the Supreme Court since the Electoral Law is so clear in saying that all of the boxes have to be opened. Thus, I suspect the CNE will simply block people from doing it on Oct. 31^st. or postpone the vote.

This weekend President Chávez once again attacked the Central Bank over the amount of “foreign exchange profits” it should turn over to the Government. This continues to be an issue that is not resolved and highly controversial.

Essentially, Central Banks around the world began a few years ago publishing financial statements very much like those of a commercial banks, even if their purpose is not to make a profit but monetary stability. Every time there is devaluation, the foreign currency “purchased” by the Central Bank at the old price is “worth” more in terms of local currency. Thus, the bank “makes” a lot of money every time there is devaluation and it sells this foreign currency purchased at lower prices.

About four years ago, the Venezuelan Government asked the Central Bank to hand over those profits, which it did. This is not a common practice, in fact, it is forbidden by law in many countries. The practice itself is not considered negative by economists as long as handing over the foreign exchange profits fits the purpose of currency and monetary stability which the central bank has. The usual recommendation is that the practice does not become recurrent and that it not be done if it threatens the balance sheet of the Central Bank..

In Venezuela handing over these profits has become recurrent via the annual devaluation that has taken place in the last few years. In the first half of the year alone, the Venezuelan Central Bank transferred Bs. 1.5 trillion in foreign exchange profits, some US$ 781 million at the official exchange rate. A similar payment will be made in the second half. The problem here is that this already represents almost 5% of the funding for the Government’s 2005 budget. Thus, it becomes a vicious circle, as the Government needs to devalue again, even if oil prices are very high, because it has no other source for funding such a large piece of the budget.

The origin of the discussion is that now the Government wants to receive more of these profits and it is arguing that the Central Bank is using for the accounting of these profits LIFO (Last In First Out), rather than using FIFO (First In First Out). The Government wants to use FIFO, because then dollars obtained by the Central Bank last year or the year before at much lower exchange rates would be sold at the current one, thus the profits would be higher. In the Government’s proposal, the Central Bank would have to hand over Bs. 3.1 trillion for the first half of 2004, US$ 1.6 billion or 6% of next year’s budget. The Superintedent of Banks said today that these foreign exchange earnings may reach Bs. 8 to 9 trillion or 15% of next year’s budget which is a huge proprtion. I am not sure where this higher figure comes from, but it sounds too high to me.

Clearly, this would insure that next year there would have to be devaluation, as these profits may reach 10-15% of the national budget, unless oil prices skyrocketed even further. If the Government did not devalue, these profits would evaporate as the Central Bank rotates its inventory this year and fewer profits would be left over for next year. The Government would not have an alternate source of funds for such a large piece of the budget.

Chávez is threatening to go to the Supreme Court on the issue, while Central Bank Directors are calling for arbitration. In either case, the final result will be further devaluations and more inflation because of its recurrent nature. The only unknown is by how much.

This weekend President Chávez once again attacked the Central Bank over the amount of “foreign exchange profits” it should turn over to the Government. This continues to be an issue that is not resolved and highly controversial.

Essentially, Central Banks around the world began a few years ago publishing financial statements very much like those of a commercial banks, even if their purpose is not to make a profit but monetary stability. Every time there is devaluation, the foreign currency “purchased” by the Central Bank at the old price is “worth” more in terms of local currency. Thus, the bank “makes” a lot of money every time there is devaluation and it sells this foreign currency purchased at lower prices.

About four years ago, the Venezuelan Government asked the Central Bank to hand over those profits, which it did. This is not a common practice, in fact, it is forbidden by law in many countries. The practice itself is not considered negative by economists as long as handing over the foreign exchange profits fits the purpose of currency and monetary stability which the central bank has. The usual recommendation is that the practice does not become recurrent and that it not be done if it threatens the balance sheet of the Central Bank..

In Venezuela handing over these profits has become recurrent via the annual devaluation that has taken place in the last few years. In the first half of the year alone, the Venezuelan Central Bank transferred Bs. 1.5 trillion in foreign exchange profits, some US$ 781 million at the official exchange rate. A similar payment will be made in the second half. The problem here is that this already represents almost 5% of the funding for the Government’s 2005 budget. Thus, it becomes a vicious circle, as the Government needs to devalue again, even if oil prices are very high, because it has no other source for funding such a large piece of the budget.

The origin of the discussion is that now the Government wants to receive more of these profits and it is arguing that the Central Bank is using for the accounting of these profits LIFO (Last In First Out), rather than using FIFO (First In First Out). The Government wants to use FIFO, because then dollars obtained by the Central Bank last year or the year before at much lower exchange rates would be sold at the current one, thus the profits would be higher. In the Government’s proposal, the Central Bank would have to hand over Bs. 3.1 trillion for the first half of 2004, US$ 1.6 billion or 6% of next year’s budget. The Superintedent of Banks said today that these foreign exchange earnings may reach Bs. 8 to 9 trillion or 15% of next year’s budget which is a huge proprtion. I am not sure where this higher figure comes from, but it sounds too high to me.

Clearly, this would insure that next year there would have to be devaluation, as these profits may reach 10-15% of the national budget, unless oil prices skyrocketed even further. If the Government did not devalue, these profits would evaporate as the Central Bank rotates its inventory this year and fewer profits would be left over for next year. The Government would not have an alternate source of funds for such a large piece of the budget.

Chávez is threatening to go to the Supreme Court on the issue, while Central Bank Directors are calling for arbitration. In either case, the final result will be further devaluations and more inflation because of its recurrent nature. The only unknown is by how much.