November 12, 2015

If Britain’s monarchy received 97% of all export revenues, would you just be arguing strengthening your institutions?

Sir, Francisco Rodriguez, the chief Andean economist at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research, one who provides investors with advice on whether to lend to Venezuela or not, one who has often recommended financing the Bolivarian Revolution, because the interest rates were attractive, writes that Venezuela’s “system could work very well when commodities prices (oil) were on the upswing but became problematic when oil prices started declining” "Lessons from Venezuela at a time of economic unease”, November 12.

The solution Rodriguez suggests, not only for the current government but also for “the country’s opposition if it manages to reach power”, “is probably to be found in a mixture of institutions that gives broad authority to the executive branch to make economic adjustments when these are necessary, but places effective limits on its political authority through a strong and autonomous judiciary and other bodies to hold power to account”.

As if that is possible in a country in which the government is the recipient of over 97 percent of the nations exports.

If in Britain the monarchy received over 97 percent of that nations exports, would you be arguing strengthening the institutions, or getting those revenues out of the governments hands and into the hand of British citizens?

Let me assure you that in Venezuela when oil prices are on the upswing, we citizens become less and less relevant to the governments; in fact we turn into a nuisance to them.

Now when oil revenues and borrowing capacity is dropping dramatically, the Government might even need all those young Venezuelans who they forced to migrate in order for them to have a chance of a better future.

There is but one way to give our nation a chance for a sustainable better tomorrow, and that is distributing all the net oil revenues among all the Venezuelans; and so that governments serve us instead of serving themselves.

PS. I am supposing that the title was placed by FT. We Venezuelans all know that the tragedy our country is facing goes worlds beyond "an economic unease"