The Devil's Excrement

Let’s forget about the current Government if we may for a few minutes or for the full post if you may. How do you even start to solve Venezuela’s problems?

Well, I have always believed that you start with education, follow it up with investments for job creation, so that those that you have educated can be employed.

Somehow in Venezuela, people always want to start backwards, they want to put more money into higher education than elementary school education. Why? I truly don’t know, it may just be that in 1958 there were only 10,000 university students and the “leaders” of the country have always been either envious or those that have those degrees or they believe they could be much better if they had them. Who knows? But if you want democracy, you emphasize education from the bottom up, give everyone as much of an equal chance as possible and build it from there.

To me, the educational problem can be reduced to three aspects: Extending schooling to the highest number of students possible, reducing school desertion and increasing the quality of education.

Unfortunately, politicians tend to think only of the first factor, how to extend to schooling to the largest segment of the population. However, as has been shown before in this blog the levels of school registration in Venezuela are adequate and the problems of desertion and the quality of education are more important. In fact, at one point in my life I collaborated with Cenamec, an institution I don’t even know if it even exists today which, worked on improving the quality of science teaching by working on the teachers of science to improve the quality and organize the various science olympiads in Venezuela.

This criticism is not aimed at the current administration, this has been the case for at last 29 years, but the thinking has changed little, the Chavez administration appears ready now to create a whole bunch of new universities (17?) without having a clear idea of why they are needed or what they will do with them. It appears to be simply an effort to develop new infrastructure without having a clear idea of what they will do with it, what careers to emphasize or even who is going to teach in these new universities. It’s as if they were building sports stadiums, without having an idea of what they will do with them.

All of this comes to mind because a report recently came out showing that the Academic Aptitude Test being used to select university students gave frightening results. The test, given every year to decide which students are admitted to the country’s public universities is really not simply an aptitude test, as it looks to measure, at least partially, the knowledge acquired in the five years of high school in the Venezuelan educational system.

The test consists of 70 questions, 30 in the area of reading and comprehension, while 40 were in mathematical reasoning.

Out of the 320,000 students aspiring to enter universities, the averga escore was 8 correct questions out of the 70 asked, a scant 11.4% of the questions answered correctly by the students.

If this were not frightening enough, in three states, the average was not even one correct answer out of the 40 math questions, while in four states students did not manage to answer correctly even 5 of the 30 questions of the language part. Such horrible results are not new. In fact, this year seven different tests were created in order to test whether the problem involved the questions rather than the students. but unfortunately, there was little statistical difference between the results of the seven different tests.

The table in the report in the link has some averages for some states, but the clear statement made that those that administer the test is that the problem lies in the deficiencies the students have and not on the tests. In some of these states, students barely managed to answers 10 out of the 70 questions correctly, a dismal record by any standard.

Like everything in Venezuela, Chavez wants the test to be eliminated, trying to solve the problem at the end result, rather than at the root. Thus, if we combine easier standards, educational deficiencies and few jobs for university graduates, all that is being done is creating a lot of frustrations for the students and not really improving education in Venezuela.

Which is the only thing we really need.

(Thanks G. S. B. for the tip)

While I know most of you read Daniel’s blog anyway, I can’t help but note that his post today on the Doonesbury cartoon calling Venezuela a pariah state, got a lot of attention thanks to Instapundit. The fact that such a well-known cartoonist, not precisely known for his right wing tendencies, classifies Venezuela not only as a pariah, but also in the esteemed company of of fellow pariah states Sudan and North Korea, sends a clear and broad message that people around the world are “getting it” about Chavez.

Of course, Chavez does not help his cause very much, by saying today in Uruguay that “one of the greatest problems facing humanity is the media”.

He is of course very wrong, one of the greatest problems facing humanity is autocrats like him, Mugabe, Putin, Kim Il Sung and friends, who can’t stand the least criticism, disregard the law and checks and balances and could care less about democracy, human rights and the environment.

If one the biggest problems facing humanity was the media, humanity would be in much better shape than it actually is

Last November I published a similar graph to the one below, comparing the “implicit” exchange rate, the ratio of monetary liquidity M2 to international reserves, to the parallel “swap” exchange rate and noted at the time that the Government was printing too much money as measured by the implicit rate and that meant the swap rate was going to move up.

Unfortunately, I was right and the swap rate has moved up sharply. As you can see from the graph below updated to the end of July, the Government managed to control liquidity in the first half issuing bolivar-dollar bonds, which kept the two rates close, but in the last few weeks has accelerated spending and thus the printing and the implicit rate has moved sharply up, way above the swap rate. Note that every time this happens, the swap rate moves up sfast to close the gap and right now the difference is almost Bs. 800. Since the Government has no plans to have the massive issuance of bonds of the first half, then you know the swap rate only has one way to go: UP!, much like the conclusion of that post.

This is a companion post to Daniel’s post on Eva Golinger, where he tells how she showed up in the blogosphere and has made a name for herself by digging documents and accusing with them.

The
Golinger Code by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

We feel
obligated to bring up once again the episode of the “Committee for
Anti-American Activities” of the US Congress, which was directed by Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 50’s of last century, because it is
impossible not to associate it to what was staged a few days ago by the National
Assembly which resolved calling to testify in front of it 33 reporters “suspicious” of “anti-Venezuelan activities”-a concept already established by
Eva Golinger, a synonym for the macarthist “anti north American” and for whom
to express your opposition to the Government is “anti Venezuelan”. The format
is the same as McCarthy’s. Informers would give him the list of those “suspect
of anti American activities” and his committee would subject them, to brutal
trials, which sent a few North American intellectuals and politicians to jail
and exile. It was a black period in the history of the US which was
overcome thanks to the gigantic democratic reserves of that country, which
managed at the end to defeat the demential senator, who ended up an alcoholic
and subject to scorn.

When one observes the behavior of that professional informer, the
super-snitch Eva Golinger, together with her adjunct, that paradigm of decency
and integrity called Mario Silva, it comes to mind the remembrance of that sort
of “political operator” of McCarthy, lawyer Roy Cohn, who fulfilled for him,
the same repulsive role that this little gringa lawyer has assigned herself in
our country-who by the way, seems to have a special licensee to actively get
involved, and not only with opinions, in our affairs. Of course, Tascon, who
not happy with the “merits” accomplished with his nauseating list, now searches
for a new “award” in the calendar of talibanic Chavismo, playing the role of a
tropical McCarthy.

The objective being pursued is the same one that the gringo Senator
was following: to intimidate, to create a generalized atmosphere of
suspicion, stimulate snitching, and in short, to attempt against the fundamental
rights of human beings such as those that can be summarized as the ability to
think with your own head and to live your life without the fear of being
repressed for political reason. The starting point of this persecution is
terrible: Anyone that has received and/or accepted an invitation by North American
political or cultural organizations is forced to prove that he or she is not an
agent of the CIA.

The burden of proof is inverted: It is the reporters who
have to prove that they are innocent. You are guilty until the opposite can be demonstrated.
McCarthy did not invent anything. He copied the procedures of the totalitarians
of the XXth. Century, Nazi-fascists and communists, perfected by the Cuban G-2
and which, apparently, have found disciples among the most rabid and backwards sectors
of Chavismo. Imagine how bad it was that Desiree Santos Amaral, vice-president of
the National Assembly and a reporter, felt obligated to express her
reservations about the pertinence of that “investigation”.

This is a political trial, a witch hunt, directed against reporters in
general. They pretend to disqualify them (“anti-Venezuelans”) and put fear in
them with the stigma, already floating in the air of “Traitors to the Homeland”.
This is a moment of definition.

Taking it lying down is not an option.

—In El Nacional, I read that the Venezuelan Supreme Court in all its screwed up wisdom, ruled that foreigners do not have the same rights as Venezuelans on the economic front. The merits of the case are irrelevant to the decision, the Court simply said that the protection given by the Land Bill to those exploiting land for agriculture does not apply to foreigners. So much for Venezuela being a country of immigrants.

—And speaking of that Court, what was that Venezuelan Justice doing in the Miss Universe contest as part of the jury? Did the Court pay for the trip to that revolutionary event? And is it true that one of the Justices was not born in Venezuela, as required by the Constitution?

—And how about Deputy Iroshima Consolacion Bravo telling us in El Nacional that the new foreign exchange Bill is aimed at “minimizing the existence of the parallel market” because it has been going up so much. Maybe the Deputy should look at this story in El Universal today if she wants to understand why the parallel exchange rate keeps moving up. In the printed version there is a graph and it is absolutely scary. Bs. 5,000 per US$ or more by Xmas? You can bet on it!

—And how about funny man Deputy Julio Moreno, President of the Comptrolling Committee of the National Assembly telling us that there is more control than ever, but later admitting not one person has been sanctioned for corruption in this Government?

—And the cable car has been free since the Government took it over. I think everything in the country should be free from now on. Gas already is, but food, electricity and cellular phone service should all be free too.And we shouldn’t have to pay for RCTV.

—And the Government authorized the import of 500 million eggs, that’s 20 per citizen. Maybe local producers will be undercut in price by the imports, they will go under and next time we will have to import a billion eggs. (BTW, I had fried quail eggs yesterday, not a bad substitute, plenty of them here, but you have to fry a bunch to make a dent!). Will they be free?

—And Chavez’ nose keeps getting bigger and bigger. First he says that his support of Kirchner’s wife as a candidate for the Argentinean Presidency is not an intromission in that country’s affairs. And then he claims he never gave an ultimatum about Venezuela’s entrance to Mercosur. I guess he does not know what intromission or ultimatum means.

—Finally, my brother and others wonder that if it is true, as Chavez says, that Venezuela and Cuba have become one Nation, does that mean that any Venezuelan that steps into US land can stay? The US Coast Guard is going to be busy.

If you are so inclined in this webpage you can find and download the complete Venezuelan Electoral Registry. You need Access to handle the data.

The Internet is cool, because on a Sunday morning I can watch this interesting talk from the comfort of my living room (also below, but there are many more in the link, like this other one by Rosling on Poverty!). And I can stop it. Or watch it again…

Today is the fifth anniversary of this blog. I must confess that during the past month I have considered whether to shut it down on this date.Why? Because I get the feeling that everything I say is simply repetitive. That I am not saying anything new. What was a suspicion a few years ago, has become a certainty. Everything bad thing about Chavez and his Government has become institutionalized. The Government no longer even attempts to hide its abuses in the gray area of the law. Even Chavez challenges the CNE and the Courts to stop him from violating the law and defends the fact that the President of PDVSA blatantly violated it during last year’s election.

But I will leave the blog open, not so much out of duty or need to do so, it is almost irrelevant given the hold on power of the autocrat/dictator on all institutions, but because things are going to get much worse and as long as I am allowed to, I might as well leave it alive and continue recording what Chavze is doing to the Venezuelan people and the country.

Everything has become absurd. A Minister suspends a concession just because…she felt like it. A foreigner is invited to the National Assembly to say that any reporter ever invited to her country by the local Embassy is a traitor to Venezuela and the National Assembly not only takes it seriously, but calls the reporters to testify. Corruption is so rampant that on Thursday “some” banks, those friendly to the Government and willing to pay a “fee” , were sold US$ 400 million in structured notes at an equivalent prices of Bs. 3,100 to 3,200 and they quickly turned around and sold it in the parallel market at Bs. 4,200 for a tidy one day US$ 95 million in profits (minus “fees”) to those lucky enough to be selected. A Congressional Committee shows a decision from the PDVSA Board “forgiving” some companies from fulfilling contracts for a few hundred million dollars, because they backed the Government during the strike. a billion dollars in drilling rig contracts is given to 12 companies, 7 of which only exist on paper. Two years later only the five that were real delivered. A pro-Chavez reporter/priest says that he knows things going on at PDVSA that are so bad they will make the Government “fall”, thus, he says, he can’t reveal what he knows, but the Prosecutor does not call him to ask what it is he knows. The Minister of Communications says Venezuelans have a right to “control” media produced by Venezuelans in Venezuela and aimed mostly at Venezuelans, which implies this blog can be “controlled”. A CNE Director agrees with Chavez that what happens at PDVSA is a “private” matter. Public telephones become free. Dozens of jets belonging to the friends of the revolution land daily in Caracas’s military airport where private planes are banned from landing. The Government buys a company on sale a year ago for US$ 15 million, for US$ 103 million. Venezuela will import US$45 billion in 2007, up from US$ 12 billion in 1998. Structural inflation was over 24% annualized in July, but the Government pays for ads saying the Government anti-inflation plan is working. RCTV was closed and rules were invented to shut down RCTV International, just because…A new Constitution has been rewritten and the Government of “participation” has yet to tell its people what it says.

Then, how can I be worried if everything is so rosy?

Because the country is a basket case and only oil prices going higher all the time will be able to sustain the madness.

For example…It went unnoticed that in the last three weeks, bolivar denominated Government bonds, mostly in the hands of the banking system, dropped 20-30% in value.

Or that Venezuela’s Global 27 bond fell 30% since March and gyrated 8% on a single day last Friday.

And that Fonden’s indiscriminate sale of its Venezuelan and Argentinean bonds, destroyed the market for some of them and increased spreads by 300% due to the amateurish way in which this was done.

And this all spells trouble in the economic front at a time when oil prices are at an all time high…imagine if they happened to go down

And that is precisely why I will keep writing, because all sorts of external reasons will be blamed when the whole thing collapses, but I plan to record how it all happened and how this is the result of ignorance, arrogance and the belief that the laws of economics can be manipulated at will.

And I will also report for as long as I am allowed to how this Government is not democratic, it has fascist tendencies and is run by a bunch of of people who simply suck up to the autocrat/dictator while they enrich themselves.

Not that I think I will have any effect by writing about it. I am very pessimistic about the future of this country under the current administration, which I think is here to stay, whether the “people” want it or not. And I believe the damage is so severe, that I don’t think changing administrations will help much anyway, except that maybe, just maybe, we could get someone who has respect for human rights and the rule of law.But there will only be change when the mess becomes chaos and by then it will be that much more difficult to fix things.

So, you can count me in for a while. I will be here. Off and on. Pessimistic. But I will be chronicling the destruction and will try not to be too repetitive. But sometimes, it is just impossible. Like in this post.