The Devil's Excrement

Whether Hugo Chavez was kidding or not, his silly and foolish statement about capitalism probably destroying life in Mars represents another not so funny irresponsible moment by the Venezuelan President. If he was kidding, he went on for too long, speculating whether this could have happened or not, when he talks to a public that tends to believe what he says. If he was serious, it is no surprise that an ignorant lieutenant so full of himself now wants to extend his creativity to science. Why not? He has innovated in so many fields by now, destroying the economy, trying unworkable ideas and spending money on his whims and mostly useless capricious ideas.

Even bad ideas are the subject of a nationwide address as amply covered by Daniel today. A country where running water was the future for all, now faces a step back into water delivery trucks, with the Government as the provider of tanks and water. Chavez is truly leading Venezuela into a primitive society, that is as far as his limited mind and gigantic ego can take us. Only backwards seems to be his motto.

To make matters even worse, those surrounding him are as limited or as blinded by ideology as the Venezuelan President, which only reinforces problems. Cabinet members seldom have any experience in their responsibilities, let alone managerial experience. Look at Giordani and Merentes, out of place and out of their league in their respective, and very important, positions.

And it shows. If capitalists destroyed Mars, Chavez’s fuzzy socialist project will turn Venezuela into Venus, frozen in the past, run by ignorants and not hospitable for living.

And yes, for this blog, as for Daniel and CC, here is the video, impossible not to add it to twelve years of our foolish history under Hugo.

People seem to be acting as if the decision to stop Gaddafi from killing his own people was an easy, black or white decision. Tough decisions are simply never that clear or easy, if they were, this would have happened close to two weeks ago, when the Libyan Dictator decided to begin the genocide against his own people.

As such, the decision is simply very black and white to anyone that has a high regard for human life above all. If one life is precious, no leader of any country should be allowed to use the weapons supposedly purchased for defending the country from those outside, against his own people. It is not only criminal, but it is a battle no civilian group in the world can expect to survive or even fight against

The problem is that there are not only no rules, but there is the question of who gets to make them? The United Nations, much like most multilateral organizations like it, has always been quite a failure about assuming its proper role in the world. It failed to act in Cambodia, went in too late in Bosnia and has failed to even speak in too many other cases.

What has made Libya and Gaddafi different this time around, is that the forty year old Dictator was quite overt about what he was doing. Once he realized that the fight against him was winning, he decided to use his last weapon: The country’s weapons against his own people.

But the key here is “forty year old” regime. For forty years Gaddafi ahs been an immoral leader in terms of human rights and has been tolerated off and on by the world. Similar things have happened to many others that come from less fortunate or relevant countries.  But Gaddafi the Dictator, was followed by Gaddafi the terrorist, then by Gaddafi the statesman as, like most autocrats, he twisted and turned looking for the only thing that mattered to him: His own survival.

And the West and the East and those in between forgave him and accepted him, even if his hands were bloody from one of the most despicable terrorist acts sponsored by a Government.

And how difficult the decision is or was, can be seen in its backing by the Arab League, many of whose members have incurred in similar, albeit in smaller scale, human rights abuses against their own people. Or are backing them today as I write.

But to invoke peace or oil as the excuse, like Chavez did,  is simply ridiculous, from a Government that could have either abstained from saying anything, or simply could have attacked its own allies, like Saudi Arabia, but failed to do so, as it defended its own selfish interests.

Personally, I am glad the decision is to stop Gaddafi’s forces from killing the civilians and hope it does not go beyond that. If one life is saved the effort would have been worth it.

Unfortunately, this does not seem to have a clear ending. By now, the only possible one is for Gaddafi to leave power and face international Courts. His sons, or relatives, or whomever he chooses, could try to grab power fairly and honestly, nobody really knows in a country divided by tribes if Gaddafi’s own cluster of them is stronger or weaker than others.

But history suggests that conflicts like this one can only be solved and sorted out from within. This should be more so in the case of a tribal country like Libya. If it is not, Libya may be facing decades of additional instability. And that in the end is the worst option, as such a scenario would certainly cause more deaths and poverty for that country.

Chavez’ reaction not only shows his total disregard for human rights, for which he has a long track record that the world refuses to see, but also his fear that this is a precedent that may obligate him to walk the democratic line one day and force him to leave, which I am sure was not in his plans. And I certainly hope we never get even close to a Libya-like scenario and Venezuelans resolve their conflicts internally and peacefully. We would never recover from outside interference or force.

If anyone thinks I exaggerate, you only have to look at Chavez’ trail of blood in ’92 and ’02, his disregard for human rights, today’s interview in La Razon with Che-look alike Humberto Lopez from Colectivo La Piedrita, or remember that some close collaborators of Chavez remain to this date admirers of not only Gaddafi, but also of Pol Pot and his Cambodian revolution.

For now, I am just glad that there is this limited action to stop the genocide by the UN, however inconsistent it may be with its past and that of its members.

In a forward looking move, Hugo Chavez condemned the military action in Lybia, calling for “a return for the path of peace”. He must mean to allow his buddy to continue killing the people who oppose him.

If anyone out there is surprised, just remember, Hugo is a Fidel Castro supporter and admirer, a Gaddafi admirer, a former Saddam admirer, a Mugabe supporter and the author of one bloody coup attempt in which innocent civilians were killed and openly backed another coup in which supersonic aircraft was used to threaten civilian populations. He also ordered the deployment of “Plan Avila” in 2002, a plan that had been classified as being in violation of human rights by the OAS.

Just Hugo being Hugo.

On May 3d. 2009, President Chavez inaugurated the already existing generic pharmaceutical plant, which had been supposedly upgraded and refurbished since it was shut down in 2006.

Since I have a personal interest in that business, I paid attention, wondering how much real competition this generics plant would create for the private sector.

I worry too much.

Almost two years after Chavez’ bombastic ceremony, it turns out the plant, built and upgraded under Cuban advice, has yet to open, according to none other than the annual report of the Comptroller who controls almost nothing, Clodosvaldo Russian. (He seems to look for only small corruption cases)

Imagine how stinky the whole deal must be for Clodosvaldo to take notice. Five years have gone by and the plant has yet to reopen. The report questions the controls of the plant in its construction, as well as asking that those responsible for “planning, contracting and executing” the building of the plant be made responsible for their mismanagement.

Just think, when Hugo opened the plant two years ago, he said this was the only one in the country producing medicines for malaria and tuberculosis and then Minister of Health Montilla marveled at the fact that the plant was built in record time, faster than the private sector.

Just don’t get malaria, please, you will be out of luck.

Maybe Chavez should order this project frozen too, maybe nobody will notice.

Had to share this.

Today, President Hugo Chavez ordered that Venezuela’s non-existing Nuclear program be frozen because of the problems in Japan.

This is good news, nobody will lose their job, no project is being stopped, nothing is happening, some money may even be saved in trips to sign useless agreements with Russia, Iran and Vietnam.

Who should I quote? Myself? It is in bad taste, but here it is:

“I can not take Chavez’ nuclear program very seriously, beyond the exhibitionist aspects of it”

or

“To do anything in the nuclear field, you need people and very simply, Venezuela does not have them. It would take years for Venezuela to put together a group of nuclear scientists to perform a small project whether peaceful or not. Unfortunately, educating high level people like that has not been and is not a priority right now and there is no local talent available to even begin doing it locally. The Venezuelan science establishment is getting old and in nuclear physics in particular, the people I know of are mostly retired or in the process of retiring and there are few people coming up below them.”

and

“The only thing that would change my mind on this was to learn that the country was importing huge numbers of experts from other countries for such a project.”

There you have it, mas sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo. (The Devil knows more because he is old, than because he is the Devil)

As oil prices hit U$100 per barrel, many thought this would be enough to satisfy Chavez’ voracious appetite for sometime.

No such luck.

Yesterday, Chavez said that more money is needed and that he had sent some people to China to negotiate a new loan. Chavez said that he “did some adding” and he realized that he needs more money. “I checked the Housing Mission, we need thousands of millions”

And then the man that has wasted over half a trillion dollars in twelve years dared say: “One has to administer resources with good criteria. We have to save (??). One has to add up the numbers of the country…We have to administer with prudence…we need money for agriculture,roads, schools, hospitals, culture, the armed forces, railroads…”

Chavez sent the Minister of Commerce Edmee Betancourt with representatives from Finance and PDVSA to make a formal request to the Chinese, later he mentioned “one of the largest banks of that country”

It was unclear what happened to the US$ 16 billion left, never disbursed, of the US$ 20 billion loan with China. This is the so called “miracle loan” as Minister of Finance Giordani says these loans can not be considered as debt, in a new and novel interpretation of “debt” under the revolution.

Let’s see. Even if we don’t believe PDVSA’s export numbers and believe ours, Venezuela exports about 1.6 million barrels of oil a day. At US$ 100 per barrels, the Venezuelan basket for the year would be around US$ 92 per barrel, some $25 dollars above last years average, or  an additional US$ 40 million more per day, or an extra US$ 14.6 billion more. But this is not enough for Hugo.

The sad part is most of this money will be used for current spending, not investment, mortgaging the future of all Venezuelans so that Hugo may create a feeling of bonanza and get reelected in 2012. That is all that matters to him.

How irresponsible can you get?

You have to wonder where some of the Chavista “leaders” get their ideas. Reading the daily newspapers of Venezuela is truly a veritable Ripley “Believe It or Not” adventure into harebrained ideas. Today Chavismo was quite generous in its outpouring of ideas that would amaze anyone.

First it was the President of the National Assembly Fernando Soto Rojas. Fresh from telling us last week that there is no separation of powers in Venezuela and Chavez has a say on everything, he calls and tells us that:

“The Lybian conflcit is seen by Venezuela as a political opportunity to project Chavez image both within and outside the country and attempt to avoid a defeat in the upcoming presidential elections”

He even says that Chavez PSUV party “approved” a plan to position Chavez’ image in the context of the Middle East crisis.

“We need a worldwide political victory to win the Presidency in 2012”

Jeez, where do I start on the venerable (by age) Soto’s words? First, he is recognizing that the number don’t look very good despite the affable Jesse Chacon telling us today Chavez would win running away. Second, Chavez, Soto and the party appear to be more involved with worldwide politics than doing something for the people or perhaps they realize the people are so pissed (See this video for example) that there is little they can do for them that would change their opinion. But more importantly, political issues continue to dominate what the party and Chavez discuss. The strategy is to position Chavez in some international conflict because the task of doing something nationally looks sort of difficult at this time. Too much time has been wasted on politics, rather than doing something.

And then, today’s El Nacional where Soto’s words were quoted, aslo has a strong statement by none other than Minister of Feeding Carlos Osorio.Osprio says that wheat imports will be centralized by the Government, so that there are no excess imports that have to be sold to other countries (read Colombia). Osorio added: “We can’t continue with this vision of teh private sector and capitalism of seeing foodstuffs as a business”

As if this was not enough, Osorio said that all purchasers must be made from countries who are “allies” of Venezuela

Where does one start? First I would love to see the list of “allies”. It would be interesting to make it public. The fewer the providers, the more expensive importing stuff will be, but that does not seem to matter anyway, after all, we have the highest inflation in the world, there is nobody left to beat.

Second, this “import only what is necessary: simply does not work. This is what leads to shortages and the problem with the stuff sold to other countries is not because there is an excess, but because it is cheaper in Venezuela, where purchases are mad at the subsidized rate of Bs. 4.3 per US$ and the price of wheat flour is subsidized. But what is hard for me to figure out is where does this guy get the idea of excesses? There have been two or three shortages of wheat flour in the last two months.

But what I really wonder is if this guy knows what “capitalism” and the private sector have done, for example, in Brazil in terms of food, not only producing cheap foodstuffs but making Brazil a powerhouse producer for the world. And ot was the private sector, not the Government who did it.

It is incredible how these guys use their home made “wisdom” to make up political and economic models that are known to have failed, while failing to even study or look at the successful ones. Chile and Brazil would be a good place for them to start with. But I know, I know, it’s hopeless.

Note added: Well, according to the Association of Wheat Workers, the “excess” supply will not last until the end of march.

Pension Funds: The Same Story by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

In the scam with the Pdvsa Pension Fund, there are several things you can say that are perfectly clear.

First, Mr. Francisco Illarramendi managed the fund at will and was caught red-handed, getting rich with the money of the workers of PDVSA, which he managed anyway he wanted.

Second, thus, “Gordo” Illaramendi managed the Fund by appointment of Rafael Ramirez, thus, this gentleman knew everything.

Third, PDVSA workers, contrary to the lies of the capo of PDVSA, had no art or part in managing funds that were theirs. They could not exercise any supervision or monitoring of the dirty dealings that were taking place with their money. If it were not for the gringo institutions, who discovered the fraud, PDVSA workers still would not know anything. Fourth, while in the US there is an investigation and an open trial on the robbery to the Pension Fund, here in Venezuela from Chavez to Ramirez the issue is ignored, as if it had nothing to do with them. Just like what happened with the case of the “Gordo” Antonini Wilson. Trial and sentencing in the U.S., open trials in Argentina, but here, outside of a discrete forced retirement of Mr. Uzcategui, PDVSA’s principal passenger on the plane and veteran scammer with Argentina, the thing was covered up. Now, of course, they attempt to apply the same technique. Look the other way and let “Gordo” Illarramendi defend himself, hanging on a wire, like they left Kaufman, Duran and company in the scam from the suitcase. You can steal, but at your own risk. If you are caught, don’t count on your government accomplices.

Those Who Authorized Him Are to Blame