Housing in Venezuela: propaganda and reality

Most visitors to Venezuela for the Copa America entered through Caracas Airport in Maiquetia. One of the first propaganda signs they would have seen, if they still pay attention after a problematic exit from an airport which seems unable to complete its revamping is the large sign with Chavez on the side of this apartment complex.


The poster pretends to demonstrate that Chavez is fulfilling his promises to Vargas state, while showing off the "subsidized" housing that he offers the people of Vargas. The poster of course does not mention the unaccountable delays since the 1999 disaster. It does not say that this housing and the area nearby the airport had to wait for the Copa preparation to see the improvement and recovery that should have happened as early as 2002. Though the heavy machinery in the right hand lower corner indicates that things are far form complete (click to enlarge any of the pictures of this post). Nor will it mention that the new bridge that visitors will cross within a few minutes of this complex was built in a rush because for the first 6 years in office Chavez was unwilling to address the problem of the crumbling viaduct, letting it shamelessly fall. As always Chavez fixes things when he has no choice, at criminally higher costs than what it would have cost the country if previsions had been taken on time.

Thus, justifiably incensed by such a blatant propaganda for external consumption I decided to dig a little bit deeper in the current housing situation in Venezuela. I will be fair and will start by the only good news: when the government builds subsidized housing for the people, it tends to be of a somewhat better quality than what it used to be before Chavez. Unfortunately he is not even building half of what was built yearly before his days, just as the needs of the country, with the population increase, are much direr than before his arrival.

From Yaracuy I get two recent examples of "massive" housing. It is important to note, by the way, that under Lapi there was not much building in Yaracuy, Chavez reserving his projects for friendlier areas. But with the arrival of Gimenez, in true autocratic fashion, Yaracuy got a construction boom of sorts. The picture next is the recent economical housing, which has an appreciable piece of land when you think of it.

Still, the neighbors are quite close, there is no good place for a garage which is a problem to the few people that do own a car such as the taxi drivers. Security and privacy are a problem as already one of the houses is building a circling wall (right side). And the water reservoir of course must have the image of the beloved local leader, Gimenez. Personality cult is everywhere at every elected level. And while we speak of water, that water reservoir, Gimenez mug shot notwithstanding, does not seem to carry enough water for the first investment of some of the neighbors is to erect one of those ubiquitous blue plastic water storage that dot now the Venezuelan contemporary housing. Note: to get into one of such houses you better show up some good bolivarian credentials. If your name appears on the Tascon list you can usually forget about subsidized housing.

There is also subsidized housing of a slightly better quality, probably destined to public administration personnel (people like me must resort to bank credit). Curiously that housing does not look as good as the one above though it comes with more land and perhaps more space. It also comes with more insecurity: to protect against crime these neighborhoods pull together to establish a wall around the development and a vigilante spot at the entry. Note the concrete bench to wait for the bus, a more formal garage space in each house and the litter across the street.



So, how many of such housing solutions is chavismo building? Well, through a search through El Universal (most pages of the government that would point out to official figures were down this week end) the numbers are not too encouraging. We can start with minister Carrizales promise to give 60 000 homes by the third quarter of 2006. It was an election year and the desperate government was trying its best effort at subsidized housing construction in 8 years. Unfortunately the global promises for 2006 were never met even though it was the best chavista year in government built housing since Chavez reached power: 77 000.

The graph below, an official statistic by the way so it might tend to promote the chavista effort, is still showing that Chavez has not down so well. For example he might have the best year since 1989, but the hated 4th Republic has the next three best year (and I suspect that 2007 will not overcome them as chavismo seems to have more pressing problems that housing construction, problems such as importing incredible amounts of food stuff). Ironically we can also see that under the hated pseudo neo-liberal polices of Carlos Andres in 1990-1992 we get a similar expansion of public housing construction, without benefiting of the huge oil prices that Chavez benefits from. And the drop of 1993 is entirely due to Chavez 1992 coup, a drop much less catastrophic by the way than the 2002. 2003 drop under Chavez, a drop that had already started in 2001, removing even the excuse of the 2002 coup against Chavez.



Yet this graph might actually be wrong. In another article El Universal states that Chavez only built 34 000 home sin 2006. Where is the truth? How can we evaluate it? should I go and count everything? Meanwhile the housing crisis seems to deepen: Aragua inhabitants protest a deficit of 150 000 only for their state! But to add insult to injury, with a straight face Chavez promised to go an build 200 000 homes in Nicaragua!!!!

The answer is found elsewhere and I have pictures of it too. To start, the Copa visitor might have reached Caracas and got stuck for a few minutes in the usual congestion before the Botanical Garden. Leaning through the left window he will have spotted this housing, on the edge of the river sewer of Caracas, somewhat protected from the rain by the overpass coming from San Agustin. We wonder if the laundry seen drying on the right side was washed in the sewer. In spite of the Mision Negra Hipolita, indigence keeps unabated in Venezuela. You just need to open your eyes slightly, it is worse than ever, worse than when I did my pre-Mision Hipolita report.

Because the fact of the matter is that the pent up demand for housing access, no matter how humble this one might be, is reaching dramatic proportions. And the government does not realize that no state controlled society has never been able to solve the problem. The only societies that have come close to solve it are those which are able to provide decent jobs at decent wages, something impossible in Venezuela today as the private sector is slowly squeezed to death. And even then, such societies report squatters taking over old abandoned buildings all the time. Even if these buildings are a heath hazard, such is the desperation. Venezuela does not escape this phenomena and in fact amplifies it greatly.

Traveling through Venezuela since 2004 shows a stupendous increase of "invasiones". An "invasión" is a group of people that get together and invade some large track of land and build shacks. The idea is to force the state to either expropriate the legal owner of the land to give it to the squatters, or to force the state to give them houses somewhere else to dislodge the land. The strategy is of course well worked out: the lands are ALWAYS close to major roads, and thus quite visible, quite the eyesores. Until 2004 some opposition governor still in office like Salas Feo or Lapi were able to stem such squats, but now that they have been replaced by "people loving" governors the situation has become catastrophic as these governors have no authority to stop such squatting organized from within chavismo itself. Below I am posting a montage I did of such an invasion in Carabobo, close from the very chavista town of Moron.


This "settlement" has been done barely a mile from the center of Moron, on very valuable industrial land, on the main highway that links Puerto Cabello to the Occident of the country. It can hardly be anymore strategic. You can see it all, the children playing in the dirt on the left, the cardboard shacks, the carefully partitioned plots, the stolen electricity form the main grid, and even the small informal business such as collecting old tires. Obviously, no running water nor sewer. And it is much bigger than what that picture might suggest. The picture below is actually a street of sorts, starting at the green shack to very far right of the above picture.



You can see there how complex the stolen electricity grid has become in one year. Because, of course, each year the government delays its intervention increases the costs of the government clearing up the area. By law, many of these structures can be claimed as "bienhechurias" and might deserve, with a good slimy lawyer, of some compensation. The legal owner of the land is very unlikely to get any compensation, unless the government were to build right there. And still, it would be very low, with no relation with the original commercial value.

If you drive from San Felipe to Caracas, you can count at least a dozen of such recent squatting settlements.

As it is always the case in the glorious bolibanana revolution, there is more than meet the eye. If chavismo is diligent in promoting the personality cult to the beloved leader, the inquisitive eye can find by itself that the truth told by the government is not the real truth. And one thus understands better the need of chavismo to close outlets such as RCTV, and eventually blogs, as the burning of the car of Roger Santodomingo makes us suspect the time is getting closer.

-The end-
PS: all pictures have been taken over the last ten days, in Maiquetia, Caracas, San Felipe and Moron. Being on the road slows down posting frequency but increases data for them.

The economic successes of Chavez in Venezuela

Thus after a few days considering moral issues I thought that I might return to the everyday grinding stone of Venezuelan reality and electoral campaign. I did get some help along as some recent economic information came to the front, illustrating, at the worst possible moment for Chavez, how his "economic policies" (to call them charitably by some name) are not working. Not to mention the allusion to the kind of mess he will be leaving to whomever takes over Miraflores next February.

The housing fiasco

It has been now a long established fact that under Chavez housing for the poor has been a real problem. Any reader of any serious Venezuelan newspaper has been able to read about the multiplicity of protests that lower social classes are holding. These protest can range from demanding the fulfillment of the promises that the government made to people that had to be evacuated from dangerous places (remember those who almost fell over the collapsed viaduct of last January?) to those who had to invade private land to blackmail local authorities in offering them some form of subsidized housing. I can even include the disgraceful excuses of Barreto about Caracas Golf Courses.

This Sunday El Universal published the numbers given by the Construction Association of Venezuela. Well, the table did not meet my standards in these type of data. So I decided instead to compare it to the average price of oil. That is, I rounded the numbers published by El Universal and I got some graph that showed the evolution of oil prices through the last two decades (it was any good as any source since what really matters here is the trend). I took an average of sorts for each year, and voila, the graph below. Perhaps my averages are not the best, or perhaps the exact numbers of housing might be contested, but the trend lines shown below are damning to the Chavez administration: clearly, there is a reason why the people are protesting as the governement has failed miserably in its effort to build subsidized housing. With the highest oil prices of any government in the last two decades, Chavez has built less subsidized hosing than any president, including Caldera and the banking collapse, or Carlos Andres Perez and the military coups. (Click to enlarge)

But sure enough we hear all sorts of excuses here and there, from "but the houses are of better quality" (right, as more people than ever would settle for a roof, any solid roof) to now classics "sabotage" "high price of construction material from the private sector" "the Chinese pre fab houses have not arrived yet" and soon enough "It is George Bush's fault".

I do not know what the 2006 numbers will be, but from the continuous protests I doubt very much that the numbers will reach pre Chavez numbers, and too many people anyway are still in the waiting list. Heck! According to El Universal the numbers of people in the "habitat deficit" has risen from 1,220,179 homes in 2001 to 1,680,000 homes in 2006.

Meanwhile in a burst of creativity Chavez promises 150 000 homes for 2007, more it seems than all what he built since he became president (at least according to El Nacional who publishes the official numbers of "mision habitat" deficit as 90,000!). I wonder if he really thinks that people will buy that one...

Inflation bites further

And today we had the inflation number for September. I remind the diligent reader that there are already problems as to how the Central Bank calculates that number, and that it is generally thought by economists that the real annual rate of inflation is at least 5-10% above what the Central Bank publishes.

The good news? Inflation dropped below 2% monthly.

The bad news? It is still at 1.9% for September (officially at least) and the target for the year, a 12 % at most is blown as the cumulative inflation is now 12.5%. And we still have three months to run so it is rather likely that we will reach 15%, perhaps even more than last year!

What did Chavez expect? Lots of oil money spent on social programs and corruption instead of productive investment: what better fuel for inflation? Social programs are certainly good to restart an economy but when the real jobs are not coming and the only growing sector is commerce and imports, what is the most likely result?

But it might even get worse: as a hint of what the real inflation might be, or might become, the housing industry has announced that the average price of homes might rise this year by a total 35%!!!

Which other economic bad news are going to hit Chavez before the campaign is over? Drop in oil prices? Another 2% inflation month? A jobless hike? All of the above?

Our daily “cadena” , plus bonus Venezuela versus Mexico

For those who are coming late to this blog, I have the sudden urge to describe what a “cadena” is. The reason is very simple, it is 8 PM and Chavez has decided to force upon us a “cadena”. That is, ALL TV bands, ALL radio stations, all airborne media MUST transmit simultaneously the speech of Chavez for as long as he wishes, on any matter he wishes to, without anyone being able to interrupt him and confront him on anything he might fancy to utter.

So, without further ado, a simultaneous blogging of a cadena.

It is 8: 15 PM, suddenly Grado 33 is interrupted and from afar I hear a chorus chanting the national anthem. Cadena! I think immediately in that exquisite conditioned reflex we have developed in the last 7 years as cadenas are a on average a several times a week fixture. That I did not hear the official announcement means that Globovision was late in joining the cadena. Hopefully it will not be fined.

8:20 The chorus is over. A voice announces that the program will be announced. Apparently it is a cadena of some formal event. The spokesperson of the housing ministry announces that this is a non partisan event, it is an event where the bankers and the government are sitting together to announce new measures to help people acquire housing, a joint effort to benefit ALL Venezuelans. Groovy! National reconciliation must be starting at last!

8:25 The announcer also adds that the usual formality for such an event will be discarded and it will be a dialogue. And the first person who is invited to speak is Chavez. End of the dialogue…

8:26 Chavez starts talking. He does not start with housing. He starts with the Mar del Plata fiasco. He starts by saying that he brought videos with him from over there, videos no shown by the main stream media, videos that will reveal what rally happened there. I suppose that the building destructions at Mar del Plata have some relevance to the new housing program about to be announced? Then Chavez starts qualifying Mar del Plata as a real hard fought battle. (Applauses, that will be, by the way, punctuating any cheap patriotic moment or Chavez glorifying incident).

8:30 But the criticism received by Chavez on his actions on Mar del Plata must have stung. No mention of Maradonna or even of the rally at the stadium! Just a very generic “we did this and that”. And to support that Chavez is pissed off, really pissed off, he started attacking Mexico Fox. His words against Fox, I kid you not, are worth of a breakup within the countries. Fox is simply accused of been a coward at the service of the US. Well, maybe it is true, but it certainly not up to Chavez to say that!!!!! I was simply stunned. Not to mention that he would resort to such a vile maneuvers to distract from his own failures, from refusing to admit that 29 countries were on the opposite side of Chavez and only 5 on his. But then again arithmetic have never been Chavez forte.

8:37 Panegeric against free trade, on how Venezuela is not ready for it. I agree. But why is he proposing free trade with Mercosur which will be as bad for Venezuela as free trade with the US?

8:40 Then the cadena moves on to national policies. Unemployment is down, interest rates are down, reserves are up, etc… And the attacks against private properties? Not true! Look, they are all negotiating with us and some have even told us that they indeed have too much land and that they should give it away. But my favorite! International reserves are up thanks to the good economic policies of Chavez. Without mentioning at any point that there is a stringent currency control exchange. But I should have known better, it is all a simple excuse to discuss how much excess international reserve Venezuela has and thus how justified is Chavez to dip in them for social programs and projects (let call them all social programs since we are on election period).

8:55 After miscellaneous self aggrandizement, then the projects started. My favorite so far: the problem of the Marcaibo lake are all due to entering of salt water. All the sad “lemna” invasion (an algal thing overgrowing everything on the lake for the past two years), oil spills that pushed the government to forbid private planes above the lake, etc… is all now excused and forgotten: it was the sea. I was in such shock that I even failed to hear the solution he offered (well, the phone rung also).

9:00 Now that I ma back to listen to it, he is talking about railroads all over Venezuela. And he shifts to all sorts of promises.

Now it is obvious where this is going on and the reader will understand why I have a hard time going through even half an hour of a Chavez cadena. Today I did good, I was not watching it (I cannot stand the grimaces he makes when he talks, and even less when he insults people that cannot defend themselves from his unfounded accusations; such cowardice sickens me). But even if I listen to it from my computer, answering my phone, picking up my nose, there is so much I can take.

9:04 It has been already 45 minutes of “dialogue” and only now we are finally reaching the housing problem. He starts by congratulating the private sector present to the ceremony. Do they have a choice? Don’t they need those contracts?

9:18 I was on the phone. He is now telling us all the new credit measures he is taking (or was that re-taking) to promote housing construction. All of these measures have failed so far, I am allowing myself to be pessimistic. But the atmosphere is warming up, now that the has emptied his disgust at his Mar del Plata failure, he is more genial and he is making silly jokes on people forced to live with relatives after their marriage. Whenever he announces the numbers of the credit rate depending of your income, people applaud as it it were a great novelty. All of this is warmed up form about 6 months ago.

But the fact is that this cadena has already shown its objective. It is a naked electoral propaganda imposed on all of us, in a way that the opposition cannot counter, that the CNE will not punish. It is an completely unfair tactic, an unspeakable advantage, for the chavismo electoral campaigning just as a few days ago a few youth of Primero Justicia were arrested for posting tracts.

You know what, I had enough of this shit, I am turning off and going to bed. The smart reader will know what to think about it.

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PS: observe that at 9:34, the information/propaganda ministry was already publishing the criticism to Fox!!!! With photo included of Chavez during the cadena, which of course this real time blogger even put up with the caption! You can even appreciate the accusating finger! All planned, all manipulated news, all the time.

PS2: I have received a BBC link where you can go and vote as to your opinion on Chavez. Comes with a Petkoff participation. Plus a meaningless but ever so delightful beauty contest among South American presidents.

Housing in Venezuela: empty promises becoming emptier

Tal Cual editorial today gives the numbers of public housing built by the last three administrations in Venezuela (1). The simplicity of the figures deserve an illustrative table. To the number of lodgings built in total and yearly, I have added the major problems faced by each administration, as well as any political advantage that they might have benefited during their tenure.

	Carlos Andres	Rafael Caldera	Hugo Chavez
Period	1988-1993	1993-1998	1998-2005
Duration	5 years	5 years	6 years
Governmental housing built	313 000	341 000	101 000
Yearly average	62 000	68 000	16 000
Political Problems faced	Popular upheaval February 27 1989; 2 coup attempts, 02 and 11 1992	Banking crisis and financial collapse during first half of term; collapse of oil prices second half of term	Coup attempt 2002, general strike 2002-2003
Political advantages	Weak majority earlier in term	None, minority government for 5 years	Taylor made constitution since 12/1999; majority government since 07/2000; high oil prices since 2002

The numbers are eloquent by themselves. Just as the 1999 Vargas disaster was followed by inefficiency and corruption, so is the public works program and, more essential, the public housing programs mired in at least inefficiency.

Interestingly chavismo does not even pretend to deny these numbers and instead launches in a campaign to make believe that housing is sprouting everywhere. The latest show was actually Chavez in Yaracuy yesterday doing his "Alo Presidente" Sunday talk show. This picture from the Bolivarian News Agency shows Chavez and the new Yaracuy governor Gimenez supposedly inaugurating just made buildings in Cocorote where, we were told, some of the refugees of Vargas 2 will find solace.



Well, it is all at least a semi lie. The pair of buildings have actually been built since the middle of last year, AND NOT even in the district, Independencia, of Gimenez, now the governor of Yaracuy. But that does not stop this one from taking all the credit and put hound-like the glory at the feet of his boss. How do I know that? Well, I drive in front of them occasionally. I was actually wondering if I could buy an apartment myself there but was told that all was "reserved".

And after that how can I believe that the government will build 200 000 homes in the next couple of years?

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Added later. Miguel did translate this editorial.

The tumbleweed state

Venezuelan administration?

Last night, as a form of protest, I decided to watch the Oscar's ceremony even though I had not seen a single one of the movies, because in Venezuela only a few of the nominees come to the theaters, AFTER the fact.  All of this, of course, courtesy of currency exchange control that forces distributors to bring only the most "commercial" crap available.  Not to mention that the Venezuelan public sucks but that is another story.

And it became a surreal affair.  Not only the French were sweeping 4 of the biggies but twitter coverage in Venezuela switched from the Oscars to the squatters taking over a few buildings in Terrazas del Avila.  See, professional squatters unleashed against the Miranda PJ authorities thought that people would be too busy watching the Oscars to come out and defend themselves on a Sunday night.  They should be more up to date, people that cannot watch movies can hardly root for them.  But I digress again.

Chavez naked hatred: Afiuni and Empresas Polar

We got two examples today as to how Chavez hatred clouds his judgment.  One was how judge Afiuni was mistreated in  an unjust hearing and how he directly challenged in the most vulgar terms the president of Venezuela's largest food manufacturer, the one guy that is responsible the most for stocking the shelves of Venezuela with food accessible to the humble classes.  In both cases it was a macho demonstration of someone who does things just because he can do them without anyone stopping him, even if the consequences will be devastating for the country.

When all are rights there are no rights

The announcement of pet rights this month in Venezuela makes obvious that nobody has rights.

So many chavistas are idiots...

... and Weil nails them today.

Screaming Pro Chavez Marcher (May 1st parade?): In the other governments we had no right to housing nor to jobs
Anchor Person: Do you have housing?
SPCM: No
AP: A job?
SPCM. Neither

This is the result of 12 years of brain washing: utter disconnection with reality.

A personal view on recent Venezuela history.

When my parents grew up, Venezuela had a set of institutions and infrastructures that allowed them to fulfill their potential. The country was not in the first world but it was far from being a third world country at the time. My parents were not rich, but they studied in good public schools, went to public Universities, graduated and had access to relatively affordable housing. When I grew up, they had one car, so in many cases we had to use public transportation. It was somehow complicated because my mom would sit me in her lap so that I would not pay for the ride, but the system worked. When I got sick, I was treated in Caracas Children’s hospital, a public hospital. There were also huge public vaccination campaigns. We were put in long lines to open our mouth to get a very sweet red liquid called the “polio vaccine”, in other cases it was not so fun when they would come with real injections for all sort of unknown diseases. At the time, I understood the principle that if I had gotten the disease before, the government would not come for me with their big needles. So, whenever I could, I would try to catch some disease like measles or mumps, first to stay home and second to prevent those government nurses to get me the next time. That was Venezuela in the sixties.

I have always thought that Venezuelan problems came with the Arab oil embargo (no wonder Miguel’s blog is called “the Devil’s Excrement”). Oil prices were multiplied by four overnight. All of the sudden, there was so much money that the whole economy was distorted. Venezuela became “Venezuela Saudita”. When Venezuelans traveled abroad, everything seemed so cheap because everything was so expensive at home. Housing prices that had been stable for decades started to increase so much that it was extremely difficult for a young professional or University professor to buy a house on his salary. All of a sudden, things that had been within the reach of everybody became unreachable for those that lived on a salary. For those that lived on a business, it was a flourishing time and soon there was a very active medium class that had an amazing standard of living.

That was the time when many poor people from Colombia and other Latin American Countries came to Venezuela in search of a better future. They installed themselves in the “barrios” of the big cities where lived those that could not afford proper housing. In those slums one could have, however, the latest color TVs and electronic equipments. The energy was stolen from the public posts and Electric Companies such as Electricidad de Caracas just increased everyone else’s bill to compensate for the stolen power. Nobody complained.

It was a time of optimism and huge government programs. Excellent Universities were founded and ambitious scholarship programs to study abroad were put in place. Everybody had access to those programs and the subsidized Universities became a real social melting pot where the rich kid from Altamira and the poor one from the slums studied side by side. It was the time the oil industry was nationalized and the time when the government decided to invest in a new government company to maintain the Venezuelan oil industry. It was the birth of PDVSA. There were also many new heavy industries been founded in the South of Venezuela and the government had huge panels in Caracas that said “Jovenes al Sur” (The young to the South!).

Somehow along the road, oil prices collapsed and the petro-economy did not sustain itself. The social and economic problems that were created by the massive arrival of petro-dollars got wider. Nostalgic of the good old days, Venezuelans re-elected the man that was in place when the bonanza started, Carlos Andres Perez, in a superstitious hope that he could bring back the good old days.

Perez was a man of his time. He understood that he could not use the same strategy this time around. He surrounded himself with young non-political professionals and started the hard job of fixing the economy. It was tough, the disappearance of some subsidies led to price increases. People from the slums got down to Caracas in desperate protest in what was called the “Caracazo”. Perez many political enemies got advantage of the situation and in veiled fashion supported the infamous coup attempt of Hugo Chavez on February 4, 2002. The Pandora box had been opened. The democratic rule had been cut.

Sadly, Venezuelan economic indexes were improving, a sign that the tough measures were making effect. Carlos Andres’ old foes helped by a sympathetic press found a reason to impeach him. The country lived at that time in a French Revolution like environment in which Perez and anybody that would defend him would almost be considered a traitor and be pointed out in public. The climate was so extremist that pictures of the Supreme Court judges that had voted against the impeachment appeared in the local press so that people would recognize them. I remember how I, who had never voted for Perez or AD (Accion Democratica, Perez' party), wrote on an e-mail a moderate view on how I disagreed with the situation. My mailbox was soon full of insults.

So, in the end, Venezuelans got what they wanted: they got rid of Carlos Andres and, in a few years, and after a suspicious pardon obtained from also former president, and Carlos Andres’ foe, Rafael Caldera, elected Hugo Chavez. He was a putchist but charismatic leader that, according to the people that voted for him, would lead Venezuela to change.

This time, they were not wrong. Venezuela has definitely changed.

For the worse.

Chutzpah award of the week

To Jesse "James" Chacon, Venezuela Interior (Homeland US equivalent) minister.

In some declarations published in El Nacional Monday, he simply states that the delays in the works for Vargas were due to the April "coup" and the general strike. Let's look at numbers a little bit closer and expose this liar.

Vargas 1: first two weeks of December 1999

Rescue efforts and basic communication with the shore reestablished by January 15 2000.

"First" useful recovery period of Vargas: From January 15 2000 until February 2002 when the currency is devaluated. Then we would give a couple of month for the government to readjust the budget EVEN THOUGH the monies for Vargas were already allocated. That gives TWO FULL years of work.

Allow me to remind the reader that for example Chavez had "promised" to build 5 000 subsidized housing in TWO YEARS. No more than 500 of these seem to have been built to date.

"First" suspension of works for Vargas: From February 2002 to June 1 2002. OK, so April was not a good time to restart the works of Vargas, even though the government HAD THE FULL MONTH OF MARCH 2002 to re-budget everything and give the order to restart the works even if more limited in scope. But by May 1 2002 the administration was functioning again, the country was in a relative peace and there was no excuse not to restart the Vargas works by June 1.

Restarting Vargas: From June 1 2002 until December 1 2002. For obvious reason, the start of the strike certainly would stop any Vargas work. Still this gives SIX more months of normal paced public works. Not to mention that oil prices were climbing by then.

"Second" suspension of works for Vargas: from December 1 2002 until, say, June 1 2003. OK, so the strike and its sequels certainly affected the ability of the government to continue the works in Vargas. So, why do I chose June 1 as a dead line to restart work? (I could have chosen as well May 1 or August 1, same difference)

1: oil money was again pouring in, at higher prices, compensating any lack of oil production. By June 1, as to the own government admission international reserves were up and THERE WAS THE MONEY to work again in Vargas, even at a lower speed.

2: the government certainly was willing and able to work. Those were days then the misiones went full speed, demonstrating without any ambiguity that there was the money and the capacity to work for anything that the government set its mind on.

Vargas 2: February 2005. Since work could have restarted as early as June 1 2003, and at full speed no later than January 1 2004, we can safely assume that 7 slow months of work could have been completed, with 13 more months of normal work following.

The grand total of time allocated for public works and subsidized housing in for Vargas is thus:

24 + 6 + 7/2 + 13 = 46 months (rounded down) which is:

3.8 years to rebuild Vargas

without ANY excuse.

3.8 years is enough to clean up, do a real highway along the shore, control more than half the streams, build 5 000 subsidized housing, restore utilities. The rest could have been taken care by the private sector AS IT DID wherever it could considering the slow pace of the Vargas recovery share allocted to the state.

But instead I will bet that part of the monies were allocated to the electoral effort of El Supremo, not to mention that the workers of Corpovargas had probably to go to marches or set up the campaign billboards instead of doing their job.

Yes, Jesse, it does not matter what spin you put, Vargas IS the symbol of how little your side really cares about the people, besides buying their votes.

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Since I have less chutzpah as the "personeros" of the regime, I must worte that I owe a thank you note to Jorge and Mora, a note coming shortly. But today's outrage had to come out first :-)

Squatting in Venezuela: worse than ever

Chavez celebrated his 9th year in office earlier in February. Grieving comes to a lot more folks around this fateful day. I was wondering what kind of comment I could write up to commemorate (?) such a date. But how do you reminisce about the date when Venezuela started its final road on becoming a broken country, a failed state if it were not for the thin glue that is still coming courtesy of high oil prices?


And then a couple of weeks ago I got an idea: discuss the squatting epidemic in Venezuela, 9, NINE years after Chavez reached office. Before getting into the why of the squatting pandemic, to enlighten the reader about this Venezuelan drama I will report on the two recent instances in San Felipe, which I managed to photograph without upsetting the natives who understandably are not too happy when someone comes to take a picture of their precarious living conditions. Note: the pictures were taken on two different days; click on them to enlarge for some of the worthy details.

The general set up

First, squatting rarely takes place away from central urban areas, or at the end of some dirt road. It is always on some worthy land, next to some major highway or some land suitable for housing projects. I will thus start first with a picture of San Felipe from Goggle Earth where I point out the two "invasiones" that I will describe today, invasion 1 offering the picture that introduces this post, with drying laundry included.


It is thus relatively valuable land, as close as possible from already established real estate, even if that real estate is for popular neighborhoods, as is the case for invasion 1. Invasion 2 is closer to a a middle class set up.

In the end an "invasión" is simply a blackmail to force the owner to shell off money to get back the land. If the owner does not have the money it is then expected that the municipal council will decide that it goes against the general interests of the community to let slums proliferate randomly. Again, blackmail. It has been reported often that some people have made a career of this: they invade an area, stick around for enough time and when some "compensation" will come they transfer their "rights" to someone else and go elsewhere to start the process anew. If it is a tragedy for some it is also a business for many.

Because this is the real problem that makes the situation so intractable: there is a genuine, dramatic, housing shortfall that has gotten much worse under Chavez. Mix with it a few unscrupulous low life adventurers and you get for a heady mix of corruption, violence, blackmail and human misery, while the state suffers from an increasing paralysis. It is important to note that the average housing construction under Chavez is below those of any recent democratic president.

The time table of construction

It always starts like that, a group of people set a few picket fences, a few plastic covers on top of 4 sticks. Even if it looks like it, it is not that random. This picture is on a portion of invasion 1, its current expansion toward the North. Now that the southern part is relatively settled, newcomers keep arriving and boldly creep toward the main avenue North. Note: this is the third try I remember on this very same piece of land which might be from a different owner probably as the one that finally took root, as we will see below. That is about the only explanation on why of two adjacent pieces of land one succeeded at first try and the other is still finding its ways.


Over a few weeks the settlement starts taking form. The settlement can be as primitive as log cabins (on the right side) to a mishmash of old zinc sheets, street signs, cardboard (on the left) to higher investment in new to semi new zinc sheets (in the middle). They are always one room at first although very soon a second room is added. Since it is Yaracuy and rains are heavy, they are careful from the start to build a slope on the roof. The one on the left is particularly interesting even though it is the one with the cheapest "recycled material": is is the one with the best engineering of the scene, with even a small open air area on the very left for people to spend the afternoon.

This next picture is a little bit further to the South and here you can see another example of log cabin on the left and a truly rag tag assembly of whatever from the right. Clearly, the background and means of these "settlers" can be quite different. Also note the log cabin one: think about where does that timber come from? Which land has been deforested somewhere? In case you do not know, in theory you need a permit in Venezuela to fall any tree, even in your backyard. If at my work place or a the family farm we were to cut down enough trees to build up a log cabin for the kids to play, the Nazional Guard would be immediately on us for a fine, or more likely for some baksheesh. These people, I am pretty sure, did not get bothered by the Nazional Guard, whereas the ex owner of these trees might be questioned about it about where his trees went..... Ecology under the bolivarian fraud is an empty concept.


The life style

Now, let's move on to the southern part of invasion 1. As you can see from this first picture it is more settled, more developed. People now are actually living in it whereas in the pictures above usually a single guardian stays the 24 hours in the "home". the reason is that since some authority or some thug group might come in the middle of the night and bring all down, the "claim" could be lost to either another "invasor" group, or to public authorities and even in some cases the owner. Yes, "invasiones" are not necessary an easy business, and can be fraught with risks.

But there comes a time where the owner for some reason cannot get the authorities support (usually because he cannot afford the lawyers and the right bribes) and the settlement can start to prosper, so to speak. In this picture below you can see a Saturday afternoon family scene where, stroller and all, the family retreats to their home. Shacks look bigger behind the grass, more densely settled with pickets to bring in electricity. Many, if not most, will by this stage have a TV and a refrigerator. The highway is a double road and in front you can see the well worn pass where the grass is topping to grow. There is now significant human traffic, and probably either a bus stop or some "bodega" not too far which justifies that folks go always through this 'pass'.


Because it should be clear that there is no service, no running water, no drains, no electricity. Water can soon be bought in by trucks (usually offered by the municipal social programs though purchasing them is faster and they can pull together resoruces) and all the settlers will soon acquire some large enough containers for water, stored INSIDE the shack because they are a prized possession and the envy of the neighbors. There is enough water so that folks can even do their laundry as the opening picture showed you clearly.

Sewers you can forget for a while and I confess that I am not tempted to go inside and inquire. I suspect that they must dig latrines or walk to the wooded area in the back though this is snake country. Maybe they use the old fashioned basin system? Maybe they put it in plastic bags? 'Showers' might not be too much of a problem. Washing with a few cups of waters does not wet too much the soil, the water will not be too dirty and this being the tropics within hours all will be dry anyway. In Caracas it is less of a problem since the big slopes allowed for drainage in the middle of the 'street' to the 'quebrada' (wadi). But here in flat land I am a little bit concerned for the health of the folks.

Fortunately electricity is an easy thing to fix: steal it from the aerial lines across the highway. In this picture you can see how they place high bamboos or tree pickets to carry electricity inside the settlement. Guess who pays for that? Yours truly since the electricity charges are all split under registered customers who must shore up the burden of all the stolen electricity of the country. The government rarely cuts off these people. If hey did within hours they would restore the cables anyway. The rear pages of the newspapers carry regularly reports of guys dead from electrocution.

Unfortunately garbage is another matter. The municipality cannot charge them for garbage disposal and thus it is collected only on occasion, when it becomes a traffic hazard. The picture below speaks for itself.

Invasión 2

The second area, invasion 2 in the map above, is a very recent one. It is placed right next to a new development project, of course bringing down the value of whatever folks are trying to build there. It is also next to a potentially dangerous "quebrada" who could overflow someday (hence the wooden nature of the area, clearly seen on the satellite image, since humidity is not too far below ground. And to complete the whole picture it is next to San Felipe historical archaeological park, ruining the tourist attraction. This area should remain wooded and become eventually a new park of sorts. Now it is ruined, an ecological crime and will cost the municipality a lot to recover, if it can ever come around to do it. And of course, if the stream overflows and destroys a few "homes" and takes a few lives, well, tax payers will have to foot the bill for something that started illegally.



The picture above repeats what was described above, even though it is hidden from view by the trees and because it is below highway level.

And the picture below shows how the folks spend their Sunday afternoon, guarding their take over. You will notice that we are at the early stage, no real inhabitation yet, one of the shacks has its 'walls' made of black trash bags (on the right side).

Is it cold in Boston in February?

Conclusion: what Joe Kennedy does not tell you

The first thing that the reader must be aware of is that these pathetic scenes of human misery are everywhere in Venezuela. In San Felipe, with not even 200 000 folks, you can count at least a half dozen new squatting events in the last three years. In fact, it has mushroomed since the state house was taken by chavismo three years ago. In all fairness Gimenez has built a lot of housing, but then again he got the means that were always denied to Lapi. Thus he probably ended up attracting people from far away in their desperate hope to find a home.

"Invasiones" also happened heavily in Carabobo after the Salas were evicted three years ago. The Southern approach to Valencia is dotted with huge squatting settlements for hundreds and hundreds of plots. I even allow myself to suspect that such squats are a deliberate maneuver from the new chavista administration to change the electoral makeshift of some areas.

Thus when you drive from San Felipe to Caracas you could easily count a couple of dozen of squats in 3 hours drive. Impressive by any standard.

Since I am aware that it is a reflection of human misery, of an incompetent state unable to promote economic policies that would allow these people a better way to solve their housing problems, I am not mad at them at all. Even though I know that my tax money will be used some day to try to solve somewhat this huge problem, I feel pity for these people and wish I could help them. It remains that the best thing that could happen to them is for Chavez to go and for a new economical system to come up, one that creates real jobs with real wages and not a "Mision" dependency of failing social programs that allows people to survive in such settlements, making them support the local chavista apparatchiks least they lose sustenance and any meager hope they might have to hold to their land claim.

No, my anger is well directed at Chavez and the sycophants that leach from him. Because the pictures that you saw above were all taken this past month, NINE YEARS after Chavez came to power. What has he done with all the oil money he received and all the taxes the SENIAT has collected? How come that after NINE YEARS of rule we see MORE SQUATTING SETTLEMENTS than 9 years ago? Where do these people come from? What are they refugees from? Because this is what it looks like, that Venezuela is becoming a refugee center of sorts. Are we seeing a massive exodus of the rural population that is chased away from the extraordinary failure of Chavez agricultural policies?

But what irks me more is that with the oil money we give to Boston alone we could build a small and cheap house for all of these people, in better land that could be purchased at a discount price from any owner instead of staling it form them, and if we must keep the dirt roads we could at least provide every house with a single faucet of clean water and at least a central line of sewer. And heck, even a Barrio Adentro module could be tossed in. And I bet you that some money would still be left to build a sheltered bus stop and expand the nearest school from the settlement. And why not, even clothe, vaccinate, buy school books for the kids.

Meanwhile leaches like Joe Kennedy play politics with Venezuelan oil in Boston where none of the recipients of the oil aid would put up for a minute with the living conditions of the people you saw on these pictures.

Where is the Boston Globe sending a reporter to make a good study of these squatters in Venezuela and show Joe why he is such an asshole? Where are the Delahunt and other Chavez apologists? Where is the stupid Obama campaign worker with a Che poster in her nice Air Conditioned office with working toilets down the hallway?

These are the people that deserve all the contempt that I was feeling when I took all of these pictures.


-The end-

Chavez deus ex machina

With the flurry of recent events one is in need of reviewing which Chavez’s real intentions are. Well, readers of this blog have known long ago what this is all about, to install Hugo I. But maybe it is time to evaluate the last couple of months, a check point of sorts, to see where we are going. First, we need a summary of what must be comprehended if you want to make sense of current events.

Principles of chavista grammar

I know, I know, this is going to be repetitive for many of you but I think on occasion it is worth listing again what are the moving forces behind what we see unfolding.

Chavez wants to remain in office for ever. This is clear, and it is the main driving force of all that happens, from the people that think they will benefit from Chavez hold on office from the mistakes of many in the opposition who amazingly seem not to have quite gotten that, not forgetting those who have already accepted that as a fact of life and pretend that all is fine as they dodge bullets daily, you know, like a Panglossian silence.

Chavismo cannot leave office peacefully. After ten years of larceny and corruption and outright looting, too many within chavismo know that without Chavez in power they will not be able to enjoy the loot they have accumulated. At least not inside Venezuela. Since many of them are “resentidos sociales” they do want to enjoy their new wealth inside Venezuela, not in Miami. Otherwise many of them would have already left, having by now ensured their financial future. No, most chavista want to be rich IN Venezuela to rub it off the faces of the many folks they hate.

The people that rule are thugs. I do not mean this in a pejorative sense, believe it or not. No, I mean this in a psychological sense. Chavez and his entourage are ruling Venezuela exactly as if this one were the gang in charge of some bad neighborhood. They also feel their turf under constant threat from other street gangs. What this means is that they are unable to see people that disagree with them as just that, a disagreement that needs to be discussed in public so that people can decide which is the way they want to do things. They are unable to see anyone that disagrees with them as anything else but a personal threat. In a way, so far, this has been our salvation from totalitarianism: these people are not ideological enough to have such a driving goal, what they want is control and loot. As long as you are not perceived as threatening them, or do not provoke their envy, you are fine. Por ahora.

Chavistas are competently incompetent. Forgive the purposeful oxymoron. The general lack of education or experience in things of the world for most if not all chavista officials are for all to see. After 10 years they are still learning on the job. Unfortunately learning is difficult for them because, well, they do not have the proper education tools, the ones that taught you how to learn and how to evaluate ideas. However they do have the cunning, and they have raised cunning to value status, erasing most other values such as honesty, hard work, openness and transparency. The mystery here is how come a government was able to survive mostly on cunning: no real creativity, no follow up, no nothing, only cunning and day to day improvisation, with the only long term goal being retaining Chavez on top. Look for example at the misiones, the only semi creative thing chavismo ever did. These days Chavez is satisfying himself with renaming them. Chavismo has survived because the political opposition goes from mistake to mistake and because of generous oil prices. Chavistas have proven themselves exceedingly competent on their cunning maneuvers, in order to bend and twist all that stands in their way. For the rest? Forget it!

Chavez’s problem

As far as he is concerned, Chavez has a single problem in life: he lost the 2007 referendum and according to the constitution he must go February 2013. Any constitutional change to remove that expiration date can only be done through further constitutional violation. Of course, that does not bother him a bit, but you know, you still need to make that change believable enough to force people to accept it. Thus all his measures aim at:

Psychological war to make folks believe he will not go, that he is indispensable.

Controlling everything in society in such a way that if he violates the constitution there will be no way for a political challenge to rise and block his takeover. This has a side benefit: if he manages to control society but for any reason he fails to retain power in 2013 he would at least be able to put someone in place to rule by proxy, à la Putin.

Application of the chavista grammar rules

Now that we have reviewed how chavismo is motivated and how it perceives its challenges let’s look at some examples on how he tries to solve intractable problems, the chavista deus ex machina.

Inhabilitaciones. Barring popular leaders form running for office is the latest trend. And yet chavismo is not creative there as it is a method already in wide use among some of Chavez friends. But in this case the peculiar competence of chavismo is clearly in example: they do not even need to jail or put their opponents on trial. A simple administrative decision by what is nothing more than a bureaucrat is enough to stop the run of, say, Leopoldo Lopez for Caracas Mayor. Now, his 20 to 30 points lead is of no use for the opposition as Leopoldo is more worried about benefiting of his victim status rather than solve the candidature problem he left in his wake. We could even say that chavismo made Leopoldo act more like a self serving thug than a responsible long term politician, validating their outlook on life.

Nationalization of the cement industry (and others to come along that line). No sane government has any need to nationalize the cement industry of the country. There are many ways to control prices, and supply, and priorities. For example the government could decree that for its own needs it gets in priority so many tons of concrete a year. Thus the private producers will need on their own to increase their production to satisfy their own customers which can only be served after the state has been served. And they can charge them more if needed as the government can negotiate a “special” price. So, why take over cement industry?

Well, here we have at play the incompetence in chavismo in building housing and major public works. The need to blame another is in part solved by pretending that the government is nationalizing the cement industry because we are led to think Cemex, Lafarge and Holcim where not following this well established capitalist principle of selling the rope to the guy about to hang you.

But we also have the fear of losing power. See, in 4 years Chavez will have to support a successor election, in case he has not found a way to change the constitution and run again himself. As such the nationalization of the cement industry is an admission that the coming local November election will mark a defeat for chavismo, and give 4 years exposure to an eventual successor at some state house. The new crop of local authorities will have four years to prove their worth, for example building the housing that the central government is unable to do (see, by the way, the case of Acosta Carles who is the only chavista governor with a significant public housing track record and who is now able to challenge chavismo in Carabobo!). The solution is thus simple: from now on chavismo will control who will get what cement and at what price. I bet you anything that the new governors will get near nothing, and at high price. You want bridges, houses, hospitals and schools? Vote Chavez! The ultimate blackmail.

This scenario is applied to the nationalization of the steel industry, on the nationalization of the main refrigeration complex in Venezuela, on other food concern nationalization to come who will send their production to PDVAL and MERCAL in priority, and thus to chavista mayors and governors and officials. You are hungry? You want a Mercal near you with full shelves? Vote Chavez! The ultimate populism!

Last minute enabling law decrees. No, the government was not that incompetent to issue on the last day of its 18 months period the 26 decrees it emitted a couple of weeks ago. No, the government was not deliberately violating constitutional principles as a provocation: the constitution has lost its virginity as early as late December 1999 and for thugs repeated rape does not count. No, the real reason for the late publication is that the government needed to tailor them as useful as possible considering polls. It was good to also void any discussion that could have forced a withdrawal of some of the decrees, an event that could have taken place easily if there was a public uproar before the enabling law expired. Now, only painfully long process can change these laws and thus chavismo can apply them for a while at least, long enough to give a few blows.

The enabling law decrees. It is very simple: passing many of the social and economic controls that Chavez wished for in December 2007. He did not get them, people rejected them, so he did the thug way: I am the strong guy here, my way of the highway. That is how Chavez solves the problem he got on December 2: a distinct possibility of weakening about to become much worse November 23. Now, the result of the elections in November 2008 will not mean that much as chavismo will retain the main power tools in all states and cities no matter who is elected there, opposition or chavista as many of them seem to desert Chavez after 4 years.

These laws carry a whole lot of goodies for chavismo, the kind of goodies that populist of the past had wet dreams about. Just to give an example: now Chavez can expropriate whomever he wants. It is not in the constitution but it is in the law. Chavistas come, take your business away with the lamest of excuses BUT you will be paid something, someday. Promised!

Chavez now can decide to lower your prices because “the people” need your goods. He can lower that well below costs if needed if he can prove you were hoarding. Since it is chavistas bureaucrats who decide, not even judges, who is hoarding, well, you are screwed. And if you stop production because you cannot afford it, then you are expropriated.

If by any chance you considered starting a protest or something then you will have the militia getting in your place of work, because see, now Chavez is again a military by law and as such he has the right to go above any general or any officer to force any militia or troop to enter and loot your store, or protect chavista looters. Until then he could only declare wars or guarantee public order. Now he can loot. Be happy that you are not sent to jail because you could end there easily, for more years than if you had killed your spouse.

And I let you imagine what will happen to your business if you are caught financing some opposition politician. May the good Lord take you in his mercy!

--- --- --- ---

I can keep going on with more examples from the decrees, or how some of these things are used as decoys to distract people from taking about the very real problems of the country such as the murder rate and the murderous inflation rate. But I trust that the reader got the point.


-The end-

Why I am not blogging much lately: the "gimme!" culture of Venezuela

I am not inclined to blog lately because the uselessness of it all on occasion is too much to bear.  Not that I think that my blogging would do much good, but I am reaching a point of getting too embarrassed about "la veulerie" (spinelessness?- 1) of the Venezuelan electorate to write more about it.  The fact of the matter is that in spite of 12 years of mismanagement Chavez has been able to bounce back to parity and up with the opposition in the polls by the mere launching of a "mision vivienda" which cannot be executed properly (a brief calculation of the promise yields that result that the country needs to build, DAILY, 900 housing units for the next 6 years when I know personally that I get into all sorts of trouble to get a couple of cement bags to fix the driveway at work).

Fortunately for us this week Weil at Tal Cual has drawn a BRILLIANT series of cartoons illustrating fabulously well how the largest chunk of the Venezuelan electorate works.

The political culture within chavismo (red berets) and opportunists: DAME = GIVE ME.  With a long nosed Pinocchio doll bait Chavez has no problem fishing for votes.  Extraordinary way, if you ask me, to make the point that even if they know that Chavez is lying once again, well, they still will extend their open hand to receive whatever falls for free.  That cartoon made me sick at heart...

This one in the same vein let's you know that the housing mirage of Chavez is going to work at getting votes even if the result of "mision vivienda" is more than predictable, and disappointment is certain.  But after 2012 when Chavez will be so entrenched in his castle that we are looking at a Libya/Iran/Yemen scenario.

This one is a simple take on the mirage of that latest mision: we all know it is impossible, and even those who ask here know that, as they sense that few will get a cheap to free home.  But they do not care, it is like the lottery, they think all that they will be the lucky winner as long as the regime remains in place.

But why have we become such a "gimme!" culture?  The next cartoon give us the answer: 12 years of "red" discourse, symbolized by that red mosquito.

Observe the nice allusion to the famous say "teach a man to fish...."

For Weil there is no doubt that chavismo has been a cancer on our spirits and he is blunt about it.

"Pancreas Cancer"; "Lung Cancer"; "Conscience Cancer" (with the allusion to chavista "Uh!Ah!, Chavez no se va" as something that will remain in our country psyche long after Chavez is gone).

And finally a clear allusion at how inept and maybe impotent the opposition is at countering such a discourse   But for more on that you will need to wait for a future post :)

"Justice!  Values!  Work!" against the Chavez promises of everything and the sink.

And you want me to keep posting?  What for?

1) I cannot find a good word for the French "veule" which means at the same time weakness of spirit but also the willingness to be weak, spineless, almost amoral.

Tasconian musings....

The current mayor of Washington DC is under fire because during his 2010 campaign he, or his staff, used a database of 6,000 public housing recipients so as to contact them for whatever electoral purpose his campaign wanted.

Let's think about this for a few seconds, shall we?

And they shall go to jail

I am not sure if people outside Venezuela truly measure how miserable it is to live here. However one thing is certain, the political situation makes it impossible for things to improve any time soon. Even more certain are the odds of things getting worse. The photo below is National Assembly chair Ramos Allup showing on TV the picture of the defense minister Padrino Lopez in bowed deference to Fidel. This is the clearest sign that the confrontation with the regime is reaching pitch fork level.

Why is this picture, which has widely circulated in the web months ago, back in front?