Yes, sometimes there are news to make us proud:

–The Boston Globe profiles Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and indirectly the wonderful otrchestra program of Jose Antonio Abreu, which proves you can make programs and policies for everyone.(Thanks M.)

–The New York Times profiles Charles Brewer Carias, an old fashioned explorer in the XXIst. Century. (He was my dentist when I was young)

–Venezuela Johan Santana will likely win the Amercan League’s Cy Young Award.

–For the first time in history, a woman scientist, micologist Gioconda Cunto de San Blas, will occupy one of the numbered seats at the Venezuelan Academy of Sciences. Well deserved and about time it happened.

In 1982 when the subway station in La Hoyada in downtown Caracas was opened, the Metro de Caracas honored artist Francisco Narvaez
by creating the Narvaez Plaza and placing a sculpture by him which perhaps could be considered today to be
ironically called “Harmony of volume and space” in the middle of the
square. This is a picture of the square, the sculpture and the entrance
to the subway circa 1999:

Due
to the populist nature of the Government, the Mayor of the Libertador
District of Caracas allowed street vendors to invade numerous public
places in the cities to sell their wares. The Plaza Narvaez was one of
those places invaded. The Mayor of that district appears to have since
regretted what he did, attempting to move street vendors from certain
areas. A year ago, they claimed they would clear Narvaez Plaza, but so
far they have apparently made no effort to do so. The sculpture sits
there, in the middle of the stalls, as if trying not to drown in the
sea of tin and canvas roofs:

Little
needs to be said, this is what happens when populism, negligence and
incompetence take over. This is another accomplishment of the “pretty”
revolution.(Thanks Freddy F.and not Bernal)

–If
controlled prices went up
1.5% in the month of August, who is controlling them?

–Whatever
happened to Telesur?

–What can
Chavez attack Rosales’ record on the
environment, given his dismal record on the subject?

–Why is intolerance
an intrinsic trait of the new pseudo-Democratic Latin American left?

–Why did
the Court force CANTV to pay retired workers minimum salary (even if they
receive the same from social security), while the Government can retire
them paying less?

–Would
Chavez resign if he loses the proposed
referendum approving his indefinite reelection?

–Why does
Carabobo Governor Acosta Carles want to expropriate
the golf course of Valencia Country Club if land is not a problem there?

–Why are the
ads by the Mayor’s office and Chavez’ MVR party calling for new voters to register
identical and why do they use the colors of MVR in both?

–Why are
the search engines of Venezuelan newspapers so crummy?

–Where is
the money for the reconstruction of Vargas state? Where is the investigation
into it

–Why can
Chavez’ MVR use the communist party’s red color?

–Where is Adinas Bastidas?

–What does it mean to say Globovision helped Carlos Ortega escaped?

I don’t know why today I feel like rambling. I guess I feel
like the country must feel. Venezuela
has become a hodge podge of nutiness and inconsistencies where irrationality
has taken over. But somehow irrationality sells. While the esteemed autocratic
leader is in China praising a communism that no longer exists, in the country
that to me has come to really give new meaning to the term “savage
capitalism” (even if I am still fascinated by this movie of
what must be XXth. Century socialism, which Chavez is trying to improve on) the
country seems to be riding a wave of unreality, simply riding on high oil
prices.

But everything else seems to be a mess. Despite billions of dollars poured into
development banks that seem to get more things accomplished abroad, even if very little, or in
cooperatives that do not have the size or the know how to get anything done,
the country’s economic statististics are truly absurd.

Yes, you have all heard
about that wonderful GDP growth in the first half of the year, but if it takes
an increase of 83.5% in Government spending in order to obtain 9% growth,
something is really rotten somewhere. and Holland is a long way from here. Just
imagine, in the first six month of the year, the Government increased spending
by 83.5%, but revenues were only up by 40%. Curiously, taxes derived from oil
dropped 20%, which is simply due the changes in royalties and the fact that believe
it or not, PDVSA has yet to pay taxes this year, despite the continued pressure
by SENIAT to do so. Hats off Vielma Mora! You are fighting against the powers
that be and you will likely lose, but I have to give you credit for your effort
against a Government you support. Rosales should keep you on board when he wins.

Meanwhile, in the middle of this oil windfall, the fiscal deficit reached in
the first half 1% of GDP. Thus, the voracity of the Chavez administration is unparalleled
in our history and watch out should oil drop by a mere 5% as this Government
will simply have no way of surviving it (And neither will we!). Meanwhile, imports reached an obscene
US$ 7.8 billion in the second quarter alone, with the country on track to reaching
US$ 30 billion in imports for 2006, as Mercal buys anything it needs abroad and
I suspect CADIVI gives money to some unreal things. Yes, when you drink that
nice imported wine or ride your friend’s BMW (I assume few readers actually own
one) it is all purchased with those wonderful CADIVI dollars, as is all of that
sugar which is now imported, despite the Chavez Government having spent
billions, yes, billions in developing the sugar sector in another Castro-led
rip off of the Venezuelan treasury. But much like Fidel’s efforts with sugar in
the 60’s, we are now net importers thanks to the Government’s efficiency.

But of course, non traditional exports are just flat. In fact, in 1998 these
exports were roughly at the same level as last year and what is being projected
for 2006 which is around US$ 5.2 billion. Thus, you may wonder where all the
development money is? I wish I knew, but I do see a lot newfound wealth around
and it makes me wonder. Of course, the Government may claim this is a victory,
since in 1998 Venezuela
had 12,000 productive companies and only 6,000 are left. Talk about salvage
socialism.

But the Government continues to operate like it does not matter. Chavez makes
announcements from China,
much like those he made a year ago, or two years ago, but remember that late
last year the Chinese Ambassador said that country had yet to buy a barrel of
oil from Venezuela.
Or how about the 18 tankers to be purchased from Argentina announced in 2004? Or CVG
Telecom taking over 10% of the telecom market in its first year? That was what,
three years ago?

But yesterday the Government dropped mortgage rates for the third time in a
year, so that the cheapest housing pays less than six percent and the next
level, less than 10%, while inflation will reach 14-16%. Cool, no? Of course,
such incongruences are noticed and last week a bank issued Bolívar notes at 9%
backed by a dollar denominated note. This is simply borrowing Bolivars to wait
until the next devaluation which is coming, unless oil goes above 100 bucks,
which looks unlikely. Oil never goes up when the world economies are slwoing down.

The rich get richer and Chavez in China or Angola, or as today’s
joke went, he will make an unexpected call in Caracas to talk to Barreto,
except that Barreto is in London at his concert, eating the nice Chinese food
that he can’t get in Caracas. But Chavez took care to explain (nobody asked!)
that he was not in China
looking for votes for the UN. Of course not, that vote is now guaranteed after
all of the purchases made with the Chinese capitalists.

Meanwhile daily protests continue around the country.
Sometimes the issue is murder, sometimes housing, or other times it is a strike
at the Iranian tractor factory, as those Iranian capitalists don’t want to
increase salaries, because profits would simply evaporate. Profits? Profits!
These guys must be nuts, In fact, they are, coming to Venezuela to
build tractors just to be friendly to Chavez. This is another interesting experiment
on defending sovereignty: Venezuela
put up most of the money, buys the tractors and supplies cheap labor and the
company is run by Iranians. You have to love to the revolution!

And speaking of profits, the Government said it will buy up
to 51% of all heavy crude operations at a cost of at least US$ 2 billion, also
to defend sovereignty and such crap (pardon
my French). So now Venezuela
will be a heaven for heavy oil investors: 33% royalties, 50% income taxes and
the Government runs the project and has a majority. These terms are clearly
much better than those of the tar sands of Alberta,
Canada:
1-16% royalty, 25% income tax and you own 100% of the project. Of course, you
have to deal with the political instability of Canada, as well as all those
engineers fired from PDVSA who live and work there for the competition, under
another “defend the sovereignty” program.

But hey, crime and inflation are under control, the rise
must simply be that Chavistas keep better statistics. As for housing, we are
going to import houses from China,
I guess Fedex will bring them, in order to save money. They will come in the same
airplane with the iPods the CNE will give away to encourage new voters. Unfortunately,
the additional fingerprint machines tocounteract this and discourage voting will not come in the
same plane, as the order appears to be on hold. Shucks! Maybe we could have
gotten a wholesale deal!

Actually I wonder at which stage we lost the know how
to build housing given that we used to build yearly what the current Government builds
in four or five years.Maybe the Chinese will tell us!

But don’t worry, things will be fine soon. Just think of the
amount of money saved by shutting down the golf courses. No more golf club
imports! We will re-export the clubs
already in the country. I guess more jets will leave the La Carlota airport
every Friday as the Chavistas go play golf in Aruba.
As it should be, they have electric cars there, not like in Country Club where
you exploit a caddy to carry your clubs.

But things are indeed better, as Manuel Rosales said, if it
is true that Chavez will visit Zulia soon, it is just about time. He hasn’t been
seen there for quite a while and when he has shown up, it has always been
hopping in his helicopter. Chavez no longer walks among his people, the suit
may get dirty or the fancy watch stolen, or God forbid, someone may try to kill
him, like Mr. Danger, the CIA, the FBI or the MVR.

And yes, Rosales should remove that subliminal advertising,
like when he says that Chavez should get his shoes dirty. That is unfair. Chavez is
in China,
traveling in his modern Airbus. Everywhere he goes, a red carpet is laid out for him,
so there is no way that he can get his shoes dirty. This is a lie, subliminal
terrorism on the part of this right wing oligarch from Zulia state, that pretends to run against
him. For God’s sake, how can anyone trust him, he has ten kids, including triplets and a stable family life!

But rest assured, Chavez will win, because between now and the
December election, he will build enough virtual housing units to convince the same
virtual voters to vote for him. Except that four people will occupy each house, so multiply by four! And those my friend, are not afraid of any
fingerprint machines. They are as fearless, as they are virtual.

Crazy day today, as the Chavez Government via
its spokesmen VP
Jose Vicente Rangel and Jesse Chacon, publicly
disagreed with the measure of attempting to expropriate the golf courses by
Metropolitan Mayor Barreto as the Mayors of Chacao and Baruta sued Barreto for defamation
and the like. Rangel even goes as far as pointing out that there is not even
money to carry out Barreto’s projects.

But then comes autistic Barreto and completely
agrees with them, by assuming all of the responsibility and saying Chavez
has nothing to do with his decision and saying he respects the same rule of law
that he seems to have violated in his decrees and attempts to expropriate the golf
courses. Go figure what is in the mind of this guy that he can come out and say
he agrees wholeheartedly with something that is meant to criticize his actions.
Of course, he ends his press release by sucking up to the almighty leader

Here is Petkoff’s take on the issue

Another Barretazo by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

Until we are given notice and until we see the
decree of expropriation of Country Club and Valle Arriba signed and validated
by Hugo Chavez, we have to consider the one issued by Barreto as the act of a buffoon,
one more act by that incompetent mayor, that wants to cover up with it the outrageous
behavior that on two occasions he perpetrated last week, with the downpour of
insults and badmouthing that he poured onto the Mayors of Chacao and Baruta, as
well as onto the middle class in general. And cover up also, of course, with demagoguery,
his gigantic failure as Mayor. On top of that, it is so obvious that this is
simply a retaliation against the mayors that the expropriated clubs are precisely
located within the municipalities they run. In turn, one can presuppose that
the La Lagunita golf courses were saved because many of the nouveau rich that
the mega corruption of Chavismo has produced have built and bought luxurious
and expensive homes in this sector. “Don’t intervene my golf courses” must have
been the warning to the great expropriator.

Beyond the fact that the decree doe not
fulfill any of the regulations established in the law of Expropriations, this
is not a matter for this discussion. This is clearly a political matter and the
metropolitan mayor, with his customary irresponsibility and lack of judgment,
has acted without measuring the consequences both politically and socially- besides
the economic ones- of his acts, which in his megalomaniac delirium must be
considered like something comparable to the takeover of the Winter Palace of
St. Petersburg in 1917. If this is not rectified, it is obvious that in the
middle of the electoral campaign this grab for power can only lead to a brutal
increase in political tensions and who knows towards which type of undesirable confrontations.
In fact, even in the Chavista world this does not go unnoticed, more so if you
take into account that yesterday Barreto was subjected to the disciplinary
committee of MVR, so that he may respond for his grotesque speeches of last
week. It is evident that this expropriating measure is not aimed at confronting
the deficit in housing. In fact, there is no prior study-as the Law of expropriations
orders- about the usefulness for reasons of public cause of the land.

It is simply a political attack on the Mayors
of Chacao and Baruta.

But there is more.

Barreto belongs to the Taliban sector of Chavismo,
completely opposed to the existence of a political climate which is less
violent and tense.

All of his actions are directed to feed reactions
equal in sign in certain sectors of the opposition. In fact, the proposed “expropriation”
is simply a provocation, a red cloth. In fact a normal and peaceful electoral campaign
is not convenient for the Talibans. They need an atmosphere of violence and confrontation.
It is within that where they believe they can stop the slow, but sustained unraveling
of the popularity of their candidate. But their objective is not only to provoke
the opposition.

The arrow is also directed –and perhaps with a higher priority-towards
those sectors of Chavismo that have publicly rejected any identification with communism
and have guaranteed the defense of property rights. Remember Ojo de Agua.

Today the
Mayor of the Metropolitan area of Caracas Juan Barreto created another ruckus
by issuing a decree declaring the “forced acquisition” of the golf courses at
Caracas Country Club and Valle Arriba Country Club. Last week, in his by now infamous speech,
Barreto had threatened that he was going to expropriate the golf courses at La
Lagunita Country Club, but that particular course was not part of the decree today.

The
question is what does this mean? Is it a real serious threat to private
property rights? Is it legal? Does he mean it or is it just political?

To begin
with, expropriation is part of Venezuela’s
legislation. However, to be able to expropriate, you have to first show that
the expropriation is for the “common good” and serves a social purpose, in this
case this should be done by the city council, but was not done prior to the decree. The second step
is to issue a decree and finally, you can not take over the property until you
have provided the owners with “adequate” compensation and legal recourse. Thus, in terms of the
legal framework, the process begins weakly, due to the absence of the decision
by the city council on the matter.

The next
question is what is adequate compensation for this land? That is harder to
gauge given the extensions of land and their implied valuations, but le’s say the area is
some two million square meters per course and at $1,000 per square meter you
are talking a few billion dollars each of the golf courses.

The Metropolitan
Mayor’s office certainly does not have that type of money to spend around and
in Venezuela
it does not have the legal ability to issue bonds, so the Central
Government
would have to do it. Would the Central Government be interested?
Anything is
possible in the revolution, but it seems like a mighty steep price for
something which has relatively low impact, no more than 10-15,000
hosuing units. The land we are talking about can be
seen below in these maps from Google Earth, showing at equivalent
scales the 18
holes of each course, with Country Club on the left below and Valle
Arriba on the right. You shoudl be able to discern the golf courses
easily:

The
problem is that the process required to build housing would simply not stop here. In order to truly use
these land for building residential units for people, one would have to change
the zoning from recreational to residential and then obtain the required
building permits. The difficulty is that both rezoning and permits are out of
the hands of the Metropolitan Mayor’s office and are only within the domain of the
individual municipalities where the golf courses are. In this case, Country
Club is 85% within the Chacao municipality and Valle Arriba is within the
Baruta municipality. Curiously, the La Lagunita golf course mentioned last week by
Barreto, was not included and that one is within the El Hatillo municipality
which is not in the hands of the Primero Justicia party, which Barreto seems to
despise.

I believe
that this is just a ploy to distract attention and generate confrontation. The Chavez
administration’s style has always been to walk a fine line from a legal point of
view. Fights and confrontations are always carried out within gray areas in
legislation, so that it is quite confusing to discern whether the Government is
within its rights or not.

There is
no such gray area here. The Venezuelan
Constitution guarantees the right to private property in its Article 115, which says in it that
only for reasons of public utility or social reasons, under a firm sentence and
opportune and just payment can the expropriation of anything be declared. It
would take a large step to fulfill these conditions. Moreover, it is very clear
from a legal point of view that the Mayor of the Metropolitan area can neither
rezone or approve construction permits within the municipalities involved,
which would then also require a huge legal step and violation of the law, for
them to go over the Mayors of Chacao and Baruta. It would thus be a huge
violation of the law and abuse of power for the Metropolitan Mayor to do this.
So far, the Chavez administration has always been hesitant to take such a
drastic and clear step of clearly stepping outisde the realm of the rule of law .

Note that
I do not imply that they may not want to do it, or are incapable of doing it.
It just does not seem like they would pull something like that off just before
the Presidential election, when polls clearly say that 76% of Venezuelans strongly
believe in the right to private property.

However,
creating this scandal certainly distracts attention from the important issues.
It is not only a confusing issue, but clearly golf courses only get the
sympathy of a minority. Perhaps candidate Manuel Rosales had the right idea
when he said today that he would not let “an outgoing Government set the agenda
for discussion in the Presidential campaign”.

There were
however some strong reactions to the decree today. A City Councilman from the
Metropolitan area called
it demagoguery, Rosales’ running mate Julio Borges said Caracas needed an
integral urban plan not “hormonal responses”, Baruta Mayor said that the
Metropolitan Mayor did not have legal authority to even expropriate and Chacao Mayor Leopoldo Lopez said
that the Minister of Housing has
already said there are n plans to build anything in those golf courses and
reiterated that the La Carlota airfield could be used to build housing in a
large extension of land.

Barreto
rejected once again the possibility of the use of La Carlota for
building
housing. This is truly a huge puzzle. Chacao Mayor Lopez has proposed a
project
for that area. The La Carlota airport is only used these days for
helicopters (all other flights were banned)
but it occupies a huge part of the city. Below on the left you can see
the La Carlota
airport on the same scale as the golf courses above. Clearly the area
is
larger, wider and completely open, easier to develop and a change in
zoning
would be justified and definitely approved by the Mayors of those
areas. And nothing woudl have to be paid as the land is owned by the
Government itself! A
similar case could be made for the Tiuna Fort that can be seen on the
same
scale, basically occupying the whole image, on the right below:

While the
news has clearly has people concerned (The parallel market shot up, the stock
market went down) I think for the time being the issue should be taken with a
grain of salt and efforts should concentrate on showing the Government’s incompetence
and promoting Rosales’ candidacy without allowing Barreto and Chavez to set the
agenda for discussion. If they really mean it and the law and the Constitution would
be bypassed, then it would be the announcement that this is a dictatorship and
the autocracy has moved one step forward. I simply don’t think that Chavez is
yet ready for that. Nor do I think he would show such a hand before the election.

I was away due to family matters and there is quite a bit of interest to write about later. The most obnoxious thing I saw was how he headlines were filled with Chavistas denouncing that Rosales was taking adavantge of his position as Governor to advertise and advertise “subliminally”. I don’t quite get the silnece by both Rosales, the opposition and the media on how much Chavez is taking advantage of his position, including the dozens of ads that are published daily by Government offices and isntitutions, without anyone noticing it or reporting it. I certainly hope that some reading this that has contacts with the media or the Rosales campaign  will let them know about Bruni’s “Hall of Shame” compilation of all illegal ads published day after day since the camapign began. That is enough to give the term unfair advantage a new meaning.

This is what the revolution spends money on, they hate private property, but love to travel and fund activities with Venezuelan’s money abroad, as Venezuelans struggle to survive at home. Whose mind is really in a putrid state in Venezuela? (Thanks Alek!):

1 SEPTEMBER · 6-10PM · TRAFALGAR SQUARE
Free music festival London Caracas: Caracas Londres is a free music festival featuring bands from Latin American countries. It is being organised by the Mayor of London and the Mayor of Caracas, to highlight the growing links between the two cities and with Latin America more widely. London Caracas: Caracas Londres takes place on 1 September in Trafalgar Square from 6pm to 10pm. The event will be opened by Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London and Juan Barreto, Mayor of Caracas. Acts appearing include: Bersuit Vergarabat (Argentina) El Gran Silencio (Mexico) Desorden Publico (Venezuela) Os Paralamas do Sucesso (Brazil) Further information about this event. Plan your journey using Transport for London’s journeyplanner.
	Media partner

Truth is stranger than fiction these days around Venezuela and its travelling salesman:

–Chavez gives the Chinese one dollar discount per barrel more than it wants to give its own refinery.
–Chavez thinks it is the President of a country that sits in the Security Council.
–Venezuela has been a member of the Security Council of the UN four times in history. The previous times it did not cost so much.
–Chavez says the communist revolution in China is feeding the population, that revolution was thus more imporant than landing on the moon, according to Huguito who ahs never been to Guandong.
–All high ranking telecom Executives from the Government are in China, despite the fact that they have failed to meet any of the first year goals for CVG-Telecom.
–The Government will help subsidize trips for Chinese tourists to Venezuela.
–All but one of the opposition candidates now backs Manuel Rosales, after Roberto Smith joined the unified candidacy today. That is about half a dozen fewer candiadtes than we thought possible only a month ago.
–El Conde del Guacharo, donkey and pretty lady in hand, said he will join Manuel Rosales if Rosales leads him near election time.
–Mari Pili says Chavez is too overconfident
–Rosales is excited about his Government having a seat in the Security Council
–The Mayors, the union leaders and the youth of AD now back Rosales, who would have thought AD had so many members left.
–Barreto did not insult anyone today.
–Bernal was not at the infamous meeting with Barreto, because he was helping Nicaraguan Mayors run their towns.
–The US diplomatic pouch was full of twinkies for the Veneuzuelan Armed Forces, or was it jelly beans?.
–And yes, the opposition has a unity candidacy!

It has always been the role of the military in Venezuelan elections to protect the integrity of the “electoral material”, that is the military operation surrounding the elections always called “Plan Republica” has been limited to proetcting the material that goes from the CNE to the voting center, protecting the centers and then at the end, protecting the boxes with the votes (who knows what for given the use that has been given them). This has always created conflicts as different military officers have interpreted their mandate differently. Because people are easily intimidated by a soldier with a rifle, over the last four decades, this role has been better defined, in order to protect the voters. The line has always been drawn at the military will not get involved in any stage of the voting process or organization.

In the RR, however, the military took too active a role, in my opinion violating both the spirit and the letter of the law. Despite the fact that the tally at the end was public, it was precisely armed military with guns that stopped people from entering voting centers. The same happened in the regional elections when Governors and Mayors were elected in 2004.

This November, there will be a special election for Mayor of the Miranda municipality in Trujillo state and the regulations for the procedures at that election were published. And Art. 7 says “Plan Republica will aid in guaranteeing that all voters stop at the fingerprint machines to capture their fingerprint and that no voter enters the voting booth without passing by the fingerprint capture system”

Thus, add intimidation to an already intimidating factor, in what should be a voluntary process to which people should go freely, openly and happily. That is the concept of choice and democracy this Government has. If they apply this same concept in the December Presidential election, this will simply promote more abstention and go against promoting democracy.

Meanwhile, the President of the CNE announced the new harebrained scheme to promote young people to register: The CNE will raffle PC’s and iPods among those new voters that register to vote. Somehow I think that a PC and an iPod must be the last ambition of 80% of Venezuela’s young, given the precarious economic condition they face in their everyday life. This seems to be a very inconsistent plan with the goals of the “pretty” revolution, it seems to come from a “putrified” middle class mind. However, keep in mind that for most people in Venezuela’s middle class an iPod is too expensive an item to even consider it.