Meanwhile, let's check back at the ranch

While Caracas gets ready for tomorrow's hoe down let's check out what are the wheat and cattle yields at the ranch. The picture is grim.

Chavez: the fraud that keeps giving

I am not going to celebrate Chavez first croaking anniversary tomorrow. I genuinely wish he would be alive today and forced to deal with the mess he has left behind, one of the biggest historical frauds that will have been perpetrated once we can dig freely in what happened since 1992, and even before.

Introducing a new devaluation modality: the political devaluation

A good explanation too...

UPDATED

The good thing about today's devaluation is that you do not need to be a PhD economist from S.U. to understand or to explain it. The regime has not done a devaluation for economic reasons or to solve macro problems that weigh heavily on the population. The regime today did simply a currency exchange measure to get some cash quickly to pay for the electoral campaign coming. That is all. All the problems that forced the regime into today's rate change loss of 32% remain and will carry on, forcing yet a new devaluation in, I guess, 6 months at the latest.

Let's see what is this novel form of devaluation: the political devaluation.

When Chavez recognizes his defeat: tales of a rudderless campaign

Yesterday we had two quite extraordinary events that really reflect how bad is Chavez doing and how clueless he has become.  In chronological order.

Chavez had the bad idea to make a provocation in Monagas. True, it was the state where he was the most voted in 2006, I think, but after the major PDVSA oil spill over in Maturin's drinking water and the clumsy attempt at the regime to hide the ecological crime and force people to drink it anyway, he all but lost the state. That is, it might still be chavista enough for him to squeak a 1% victory but with the governor running against him now, and a lot of the local pols that know better, Chavez chances are dim.

Random notes on Amuay

Corazon del infierno

EXPANDED

The New York Times is having a field day.  Not only we have a second major article highlighting the deficient governmental response but also a striking photo gallery of Amuay's ruins.

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The chavista National Assembly leadership does not think it is important to discuss the Amuay accident.  Indeed, any fault, ANY, can be blamed on Chavez historical decision to transform PDVSA in 2003 into his electoral cash cow.  Recognizing that mistake today is exactly as saying that the emperor is not only stark naked, but with a duster up his keester.  And it gets better; we should all show solidarity with Ramirez while he digs the ruble instead of calling for his immediate removal.  The chutzpah of Diosdado, really....

Yare, brought to you since 2005 (at least)

A few minutes ago I was checking my Google Analytics on the blog and an old post of mine was receiving quite a few hits. Yes, I know, I like to check what posts a read more often even though I will still write about what I think is important.  It is my blog, you know....  Well, yesterday yet another jail in Venezuela burst in arms, at least 20 people killed, and once again the now chavista age old question: how come so many weapons find their way into Venezuelan jails and how come after so many of such incidents nothing seems to be done about it by the regime?

I am tired, I do not want to write again on Venezuelan jails, so I leave you with a 2005 post to remind readers that I have been writing about Venezuelan jails for quite a while, even before Chavez was reeelcted. And the creep wants yet another 6 years term.....  The old post, incidentally, about Yare, yesterday's murder scene, to prove to you that nothing has been done to solve this issue since at least 2005.  Why is Iris still a minister?

Cúpira: Chavez ultimate symbol of utter failure

It is fitting that during the heat of his reelection campaign the Cúpira bridge collapsed, illustrating in that simple event all the multiple failures of the Chavez regime in creating a functional country.

I am not going to go into the details and the specifics of the trauma: suffice to say that one of the 10 most important bridges of Venezuela fell because of neglect, lack of prevision, etc, etc...  There is a saying that the human is the Homo genus is the only animal that stumbles twice on the same stone.  Well, the chavista beast has mastered the art of repeatedly stumbling over the same stone. No wonder in Venezuela we use the term chabestia more and more.

Chavismo has been so wrong, so misguided in so many issues that keeping count is now impossible.  Let's just resume some of the dramatic items that the Cúpira bridge summarizes.

Chavez's cadena on Tuesday night.

After more than a week's absence Chavez came back on TV for, what else, a cadena.  And an illustrative one it was.  I will not go into the details on how Chavez held for two hours ALL of TV and radio networks of Venezuela.  For that you could, if you read Spanish, read some of my tweets of May 22 as in a masochistic exercise I followed the whole thing.  But there are two aspects I would like to share.

Venezuela everyday more like Cuba, will smell like it soon

RNV not even hinting at Polar as a target of Chavez wrath

Yesterday Chavez gave yet another cadena of 5 hours where he said his usual inane stuff and then some more.  I will pass on his usual provocations such as the armed forces being chavista.  What I think was the worst this time around was his latest discovery that taxes and mandatory employee payment are not business expenses.  True, it maybe a provocation also but in this case I am afraid that there is more to it: either he truly does not understand how a business is run, or worse, he wants to end all private business once and for all and is not even waiting for October 7.  I became twitterless under the shock.

In Venezuela businesses pay a lot of taxes and are constantly audited so fiscal evasion is rather difficult, no matter how much you bloat your expenses.  After all the SENIAT (our IRS) only accepts bills that are made at the business name and tax number, and under strict guidelines of presentation if not they are deemed not valid no matter the amount.  The only small exceptions are some tolls, and food bills for very small amounts, considered in the global travel allocation of a given employee.  So, from personal experience, I can tell you that one of Chavez accusations is an outright lie: it is nearly impossible to over-report sales tax (VAT).  It is true that the system allows you not to pay all the VAT on raw material and services but you still pay a significant portion of it.  Thus if it is also true that the final customer pays the bulk of it, it remains that intermediate VAT during the process are genuine business expense.

Red page special: when populism sends people up in flames

And thus we end the year with tragedy upon tragedy.  Not only we are apparently now the country in LatAm with the highest crime index but we are also one of the worse ones as far as security on the road.  Today a gas carrying truck fell on the road side, overturned, released gasoline which quickly found a spark.  Apparently at least one kilometer of the Panamerican highway between Los Teques and Caracas burst into flames killing 12 passengers in a bus and a driver in a car,  16 to 20 people were hurt and a few survived because they threw themselves into the bushes down hill until they reached help.  Apparently the public services from cops to fireman were on site as early as possible.  All the Los Teques to Salias area was cut off from Caracas for several hours.

I am not writing to comment on the accident but to wonder how come such disasters are not more frequent.  Surely we must be a country of exceptional drivers to be able to deal with all the obstacles that exist today in Venezuelan roads:

Even driving you cannot reach the boundaries of Venezuelan corruption

Once upon a time, when there were still real intellectuals in Venezuela, when we thought democracy was coming, we used to say of Gomez that he was a ferocious dictator and that he managed the country as if it were its own rural estate.  We must say that after 13 years of Chavez if one Venezuelan caudillo will be rehabilitated it is Gomez.  Sure, Gomez stole a lot of public funds but he did not steal more than other caudillos, just for a longer time.  And still, Venezuela was better off when he died than when he took charge.  Let's just imagine for a minute how good would Venezuela had been if Gomez had stolen less than he did....

With Chavez we cannot even give him the benefit of the doubt since he steals money for the most useless causes.  At least Gomez invested most of what he stole in Venezuela, buying cattle ranches and paying off Venezuelans to get peace.  Chavez just grabs money and throws it out the window.  Indeed, if there are mega scandals of fraud or corruption like the millions of  tons of food that rotted, there are also "lesser" scandals such as the millions given to the F1 Williams team for no return to the country whatsoever.  Our own Alek Boyd has it all, this time around working with Representative Ramos.

Free gas for the rich

Hint, hint: move to Venezuela

El Universal carries a piece of news which is simply hair raising: the governemt has started delivering gas to service stations and stopped charging for it.  That is right, service stations now get a full truck of gas and do not pay for it.  And what is best, the sales prices of that full truck of gasoline is barely enough to cover their expenses for "selling" that gas to customers.

Wrap your mind around that for a minute...

Tightening the colonial control over Venezuela

Cuba is very worried about its colonial outpost in South America.  Things are not going well there.  The Viceroy is ailing just as the province is having serious difficulties in providing the monthly stipends due to the imperial metropolis, Havana.  Thus measures had to be taken before the natives become more restless than what they already are.

First, the Viceroy needs to be controlled tightly.  His ailments cannot be let known by all and any.  His planned health trips have to take place in Havana where it is easier to hide the side effects of chemotherapy.  The problem is that the masters have not found yet someone reliable enough to replace him, or politically skillful enough to make sure that the stipends keep coming, and to make sure that the natives keep believing they are an independent nation.

Chavez sickness for Canadian readers

Here, resuming my regular writing for Troy Media (without pay, heard that Eva?).  This is where I stand right now as to the whole mess, but who knows what should I write tomorrow.....

Chavez croaking? Well, maybe.....

UPDATED (twice).   Yesterday I was dismissing the situation of Chavez extended absence as at least part showmanship; but today I am forced, courtesy of a post from Gustavo, to rethink that things might be much, much worse than I thought.  I do not know how trustworthy is Gustavo's source, but the thing is that his "conspiracy theory" matches so many things so well that, that as Italians would say, si non e vero, e ben trovato.  And thus, even if this blogger is always reticent on reporting rumors, for once he will make an exception.

In short, Chavez would be suffering from a prostate cancer that has metastasized.

Chavez to us on the electricity crisis: you pay! (bonus: electrical engineers you would never hire)

Big Brother is in Cuba

And thus we return to the past.  This week end Zulia state reached very high temperatures and suffered a major blackout, long enough (a day in some areas) that even your ice cubes in the fridge melted.

I supposed in a way it was the last straw for a government that decided to punish the customer for the blackouts: we consume too much electricity, it is not the government's fault, never was, and of course, never will be.  Before Chavez, blackouts were occasional, under Chavez they are regular but that part of the much hated 4th republic is never brought forward by the regime.

Thus today new harsh sanctions have been approved for those who are not able to bring their electricity usage 10% below their 2009 level.  Observe also on the picture that Chavez is bigbrotherly present at the announcement even though he is, supposedly, recovering in Cuba.  One wonders if Jaua and Rodriguez subconscious did not betray them, trying to link the new sanctions to Chavez and not to their incompetence in solving the electricity crisis for which they have been in charge for a bout a year now.

ZeeZap! Splat! Electric crisis back with a vengenace.

Today pretty much 3/4 of the country were left in the dark.  Some areas like Yaracuy only for about an hour or less, some are still not quite back there.  So, in spite of all the governmental propaganda, the electric crisis catches us right where it left us last year, and even worse since the regime announces that there will be a rationing "only for tonight" so that they can hook up who knows what, a novelty we never had before and that only leaves us thinking that today "accident" was in fact much worse than expected.

The Venezuela that Chavez will leave us (or to himself for that matter): 12 years after

Herr, lehre doch mich,
dass ein Ende mit mir haben muss,
und mein Leben ein Ziel hat,
und ich davon muss. (1)

The Chavez regime is finally reaching an end, transition has started, regardless of the fact that today it reaches 12 years.

Transition to where, we do not know. How long a transition is any one's guess.  Maybe we are returning to democracy and the rule of law, or maybe toward the final Myanmarization of Venezuela with a Chavez II holding on, but a hold over a very different country as the one we used to know in 1998.  The country that either us or Chavez will inherit is a country with little prospects, wasted time, squandered opportunities and a mess.  I suppose that there are those who may think that it would be poetic justice for Chavez to stay over for a few more years and face the mess he created.  But autocrats do not function that way and I doubt that Chavez at this point is able to comprehend the extent of the damage he has inflicted on our country.  And even less able to care (ref: the movie "the last days" if you do not get the psychology behind this comment).

So what is the country we are getting after 12 years?  Before we can even attempt to think about what to do to start fixing up the disaster upon us we need to understand our inheritance.  Below I try to be brief and split the description in different areas without any particular order.

Chavez reminds us again why he is an idiot on economy matters

Today he presented one of the old CADA markets he seized a few months ago as a new governmental success, an "abasto bicentenario".  But that he is now stealing stuff to later pass it as his own creation is now just routine: where he really blew the gasket today was in telling us the future of La Güaira.

The Central Bank of Venezuela FINALLY publishes the first quarter results

The economy shrunk by an official 5.8% in the first quarter of 2010.  FIVE POINT EIGHT PER CENT.

You want to know why?  Read the two preceding posts and you will have a good hint.

But agricultrue is not the main culprit since it went South long ago.  This time is manufacturing (-9.9%) and commerce (-11.8%).  that is right, there is less to shop for but there is less people to shop for too, something that chavistas will probably find positive.  And with the inflation of 5.6 in April, well, I do not need to explain to you what this all means. Oh, heck!  I will explain it to you: Chavez economic ship is sinking faster than expected.

Ah!  I forgot, Giordani IS STILL in charge!!!!

And if you think that maybe they will start getting the hint that they might just need to correct something, forget it!  Today Felix Osorio the Food minister stated that they will go against any retail chain that considers food a merchandise (mercancia).  Yes, that is right, I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!  Nor the title "ministro de la alimentacion".  You can read it here in English or the original in Spanish here.  I suppose soon we will be told to produce food for free becasue you know, it is for El Pueblo!