Surprisingly many of those who could observe it from a distance, still fell for Chavez’ Banana 21st Century Socialism.

Sir, I refer to Andres Schipani’s “FT Big Read: New oil order: We are terrorized by the drop in oil prices”, August 10 2015. It is a good report but I must make two points.

First it sort of supposes that a country, during an incredible oil boom with prices over ten times those which the previous government faced, and where these oil revenues represents over 96 percent of all exports, and these all go into government coffers, is a system that has a chance to function in a sustainable way. It cannot!

Second, it mentions “the world’s cheapest petrol” and it talks about “hundreds of million dollars invested on social programmes. Less than 1 US$ cent per liter is not “cheap”, it is a giveaway… and the cost of that giveaway, when calculated at the international market price of petrol, is higher than all Chavez’ and Maduro’s social programs put together.

When Schipani mentions “The ruling Socialist party”, I hear most European Socialist parties trying to make the case of that brand of socialism having nothing to do with theirs. It would have been more helpful for the Venezuelans, if they had argued so fifteen years ago.

@PerKurowski

But the Venezuelans will not get their gasoline.

Sir, in your editorial “Chávez gets his oil” June 28 you mention that with current oil prices “it scarcely matter that the amount of oil produced has declined in Venezuela” and I would suggest you read Najmeh Bozorgmehr’s report in FT the same day on how “Fuel crisis increases pressure on Tehran” where Iran’s fuel rationing crisis is described.

For your information, according to projections based on the current sales of vehicles, Venezuela a country with only 26 million inhabitants and a GNI per capita of less than US$ 5.0000, will in the years of 2006 and 2007 have placed a total of 750.000 new gas guzzlers on its roads, partly thanks to the craziness of a domestic gasoline price of under 3 US cents per liter. Can you imagine what will happen when you have to start to adjust gasoline prices? One of the first symptoms of the existence of a purely populist government is that all planning gets thrown out the window and you live day by day.

European blindness

Sir, you must excuse me using Philip Stephens’ (November 3) “A bitter crop from our failure to tend to global warming” for a somewhat different discussion but when he says that “Europeans . . . are beyond rational calculation: bad for George W. Bush by definition must be good for everyone else” that must be exactly the reason for which many Europeans have not distanced themselves completely from a Hugo Chavez, who has positioned himself as a big time Bush foe, and have been turning a blind eye on issues such like that in a notoriously divided country the Congress of Venezuela has 167 members in favor of Chavez, and none, zero, zilch, of those who differ with him. I said a “somewhat different discussion” because in fact, with respect to global warming, they have also wanted to ignore that petrol is sold domestically in Venezuela for about three euro cents per liter and thereby producing runaway consumption and the transfer of about 10% of it GDP from the poor to those who have cars. Indeed, how hatred can make you blind!

Philip Stephens George Bush Hugo Chavez

Massachusetts, please show some dignity!

Sent to Boston Globe and Boston Herald, December 2005, destiny unknown

Late in 1998, the price of a barrel of oil fell under 7 US$, but we never heard anyone volunteering to help out Venezuela’s poor. In December 1999, Venezuela suffered some horrendous mudslides, but, when the US sent some well-equipped engineer corps to help out, Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, refused them. Massachusetts has a yearly per capita income of US$ 41,801, while Venezuela has slightly less than a tenth of that, US$ 4.020

The ad in which Citgo, the oil company in the United States owned by PDVSA, the Venezuelan state owned oil company, announces the program shows a picture of a large, two-story, typical Massachusetts detached house, with a small garden and a big tree in front, beautifully decorated with what looks like Christmas ornaments, and a completely lit up porch. Please compare that house with our shanty towns in Venezuela. Of course it is a wrongly chosen photo, and your Massachusetts poor do live in bad conditions, but, in fact, that they were not even able to choose the right picture just adds salt to our national injury.

The same ad, spelling out the partnership between PDVSA and the government of Hugo Chávez, ends with the statement: “The fuel assistance program isn’t about politics. It’s about offering humanitarian aid to those who need it. What could be more American than that?” The radical leftist Noam Chomsky recently described this as “one of the more ironic gestures ever in the North-South dialogue,” but I, as a Venezuelan, can only classify it as a gesture of utmost cynical insolence.

Many Venezuelans are upset with Chávez giving away money all over the world, while our own country has so many very much poorer people but, currently at least, there is very little we can do about it and much less so after the elections for congress held on December 4, 2005. Although everyone knows that Venezuela is a country where opinions are highly divided, the result was that 167 representatives who favor the government of Hugo Chávez were elected, and none, zero, zilch, of who differ with him. There are many explanations for these results, but, at the end of the day, they are all irrelevant since a 167-to-0 ratio is plainly not acceptable. Just as Democrats would not stand for a United States Congress made up 100% of Republicans, and just as Republicans would not stand for a Congress made up of 100% Democrats, this principle is just as true in Venezuela.

In these circumstances, I wonder, would it be too much to ask for some dignity in Massachusetts? Do you really take any gifts from anyone? Where is the limit?

What is the financial world to do with a Venezuela?

Sir, In Venezuela, as in most other countries, Congress is supposed to exercise control over the executive branch and its Constitution establishes that ‘No contract in the municipal, state or national public interest s determined shall be entered into with foreign states or official entities, or with companies not domiciled in Venezuela, or transferred to any of the same, without the approval of the National Assembly.’

Now, even though Venezuela is currently known as a very polarized nation, after the elections of December 4, 2005, its Congress includes 167 members who are in favor of and obedient to him who wishes to be called ‘Commander’, and none, zero, zilch, of those many who are not in the least in agreement with Chávez´s confused vision of a twenty-first-century socialism. This should pose some serious questions about the Congress legitimacy and therefore serious challenges for those who issue those opinions needed by the financial sector.

For instance, what are legal counselors or credit-rating agencies to do after they might receive a letter from a Venezuelan citizen (or perhaps even read this letter in FT) informing them that sooner or later the debts now contracted by Venezuela might be questioned as ‘odious debt’, as they are not duly approved by a legitimate congress (167-0), nor are they needed, as can be evidenced by the many donations Venezuela, with its own so many very poor, has recently made, among them, to the somewhat poor of Massachusetts.

Sir, if a company like Nike has to worry about the labor conditions in the factories to which they outsource their production, why should the financial world be allowed to ignore civil representation issues in those countries it helps to finance?

Sent to FT, December 18 and December 28, 2005

Fuel advertisement rubs salt into Venezuelans' wounds

Published in FT, December 7, 2005

Sir, Andy Webb-Vidal got it absolutely right when he pointed out the incongruence of Venezuela, with its abounding extreme poverty, distributing subsidies through cheap heating oil to the less well-off in a Massachusetts, US, that has more than 10 times its per capita income.

But as Mr. Webb-Vidal most probably did not see the advertisement that ran last week in some US newspapers, he left out some details about what really rubs salt in the Venezuelans' wounds.

First, the picture in the ad, which is the one to be compared with the shanty towns in Venezuela, depicts a large, two storey, typical Massachusetts self-standing house, with a small garden and a big tree in front, beautifully decorated with what looks to be Christmas ornaments, and completely lit up, porch included.

Second, the ad ends with the statement: "The fuel assistance program isn't about politics. It's about offering humanitarian aid to those who need it. What could be more American than that?"

Chavez 21st-Century social vision! My oh my!

Sir, if Mugabe’s Zimbabwe had Venezuela's oil, would he perhaps also be associated with a “vision” of “21st-century socialism”? When writing about Chavez promoting his vision, don’t forget that we Venezuelan citizens would all be much happier if indeed Chavez really had a vision, of any sort? Then we would at least know where we were heading, and what to do about it. What we now have is just plain confusion, ineptitude and corruption financed by the mother of all oil curses, and that is as far away from a vision as you could possibly be. To really understand the Chavez phenomenon you need to think of him as the most fabulous stand-up improvisators ever; performing in front of an audience with an immense and justifiable appetite for hopes about a better future; and finally drawing most of his material from the traditional anti-Americanism tree, and which as you know has lately been able to provide unusually much energy for its parasites to munch on. Under such favorable conditions, can you doubt Chavez’s success?

Outside “objective” observers though, like FT, would also do good to also reflect upon the media’s huge capacity of inadvertently advancing the voice of figures like Chauncey Gardiner in Jerzy Kosiński’s Being There. Chavez is a haunted man, running ever faster forward and, any day now, the majority of his followers are going to suffer an immense deception. Honestly, they don’t need or deserve that.

Today, unfortunately, I am truly disappointed with FT

Sir, I am absolutely flabbergasted with Andy Webb-Vidal’s report “Chávez puts chocolate factories back on map” and that praises a “cocoa revolution” and concludes that for a “small chocolate factory in the tropics, life has never been sweeter.” I cannot understand how a sophisticated paper like FT would fail to identify that this is but another perfect example of how haphazardly leaders of developing countries, especially when their egos are insufflated by a well endowed checking account fed by the oil, can come to consider themselves as visionary economic planners and perfect substitutes for the decision making process of the private sector. You’d be surprised by how many exact replicas of this chocolate project you could find over the last five decades in Venezuela and, in fact, when we read about “reopen a derelict chocolate factory”, it could very well be referring to a project that might initially have been advanced in exactly the same way, by for instance a Carlos Andres Perez government, 1974 - 1978. It is so sad that you fell for the anecdotal Willy Wonka cuteness of the story, instead of writing it from the perspective of a country in desperate need of some rational economic behavior. The need for a strong and effective government that helps to create a climate propitious for investments cannot be satisfied by a government making the investment themselves.

Sent to FT, September 27, 2005