Venezuela

[Crafty_Dog]

http://caracaschronicles.com/2014/02/20/the-game-changed/  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFS6cP9auDc

[Crafty_Dog]

Summary

Venezuelans gathered in the streets in the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, Feb. 22, in the third major protest in 10 days. Demonstrations are ongoing in Caracas and throughout the country, including in San Cristobal, Valencia and Maracaibo. The list of grievances is long, but there is no single unifying theme behind the protests beyond a staunch rejection of the status quo in Venezuela. The country's leadership appears to be holding on, but it is showing signs of stress.

Analysis

The high-velocity Venezuelan rumor mill is filled with reports that Cuban troops have arrived in the country to help manage the protests, but such rumors are sketchy at best. Several photos of Venezuelan-owned Shaanxi Y-8 aircraft with troops offloading have been published in social media. The first such image was posted Feb. 16, and the most recent may show troop movements as recently as Feb. 21. The photos show the troops carrying substantial baggage, as if prepared for a long stay. There is nothing in the photos that clearly indicates that the soldiers are Cuban as opposed to Venezuelan, but the arrival of Cubans to aid the Venezuelans would not be out of the realm of expectation. The two militaries cooperate closely, and Cuba maintains a strong interest in the stability of the Venezuelan regime.
Venezuela's Protests Could Mark a Turning Point

What is clear at this point is that though the unrest is generally loosely organized, anger is widespread and intense enough to mobilize a broad swath of Venezuelans. But in a country as polarized as Venezuela, even the continuous appearance of tens of thousands of protesters is not a clear indication of widespread loss of support. The base of voters who supported the election of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in many cases have little in common with the opposition, and most have benefited in some way from the redistributive policies of the populist government. So these protests in no way prove that the government has lost control. Nonetheless, the persistence of the unrest could cause problems that cannot be dismissed.

Scarcity of basic goods is already a major challenge in Venezuela, and where protesters are disrupting traffic, delivery of essentials could be further threatened. Although acts of vandalism have been widespread, they have mostly targeted subcritical government-owned assets such as vehicles, stores and regional offices. Venezuelan protesters have not yet attempted to take over government buildings. Major infrastructure disruptions have been limited to road and highway blockages, including one on the Francisco Fajardo Highway in Caracas. Most of Venezuela's energy infrastructure is located far from the major urban centers and unlikely to be disrupted by regular protests.

Military deployments have so far been limited to San Cristobal, a city where the opposition managed to significantly disrupt commerce and transport. If the geographic spread or violence of the protests increases and the police and national guard become stretched thin, further military deployments could deemed necessary.

Still, the Venezuelan government is showing signs of stress. Maduro has blamed the U.S. government for sponsoring the protests, yet he has also called on U.S. President Barack Obama to send a high-level emissary to negotiate with the Venezuelans in order to end the crisis. Such a negotiation seems unlikely, since the United States has thus far attempted to refrain from public intervention in Venezuela's internal affairs. The Catholic Church has offered to negotiate, but there has not been a sign that it will be allowed to do so.

At this point, the crisis does not seem to have reached a critical peak, and the protests seem likely to intensify going forward. The government likely will not reach a breaking point until parts of Maduro's support base join the protests. However, the fact that essentially none of the issues that sparked the protests have been addressed indicates that Venezuela may be headed in that direction.

Read more: Venezuela: Mass Protests Continue to Intensify | Stratfor

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/02/24/

[G M]

http://www.daybydaycartoon.com/2014/02/24/

Heh.

[captainccs]

Not since 2002 has there been so much political violence on the streets. Back then it was led by the PDVSA employees upset that Chavez had fired their CEO. Later Chavez said he did it to incite them to have an excuse to fire them which he did. This time around the protest is much more grass roots, led by students. Back then threatened opposition leaders quickly went to exile. Now they are staying and defying the state to arrest them. Back then the protest were peaceful. Now there are burning barricades. Back then the Chavista militia were called Circulos Bolivarianos, now they are called "colectivos," the same armed thugs on state supplied motorcycles. When they fire on protesters the Bolivarian police and the Bolivarian national guard just watch. Venezuelans never lose their sense of humor.



Today the violence was at a high point. Even though the press is censored there are plenty news and pictures on Twitter. Today every citizen with a cell phone is a reporter. If you follow me on Twitter @captainccs you'll get to see a lot of them. I retweet them as often as I can.

Follow @captainccs

[captainccs]

There is another report of the same news by Reuters and it says the exact opposite of what happened. Not strange at all. Reuters published doctored photos during the Israeli Palestinian confrontations to show Israelis to be baby murderers. Don't ever trust Reuters, they are highly biased.


2 dead as Venezuelans clash at protest barricades

 By JORGE RUEDA and EZEQUIEL ABIU LOPEZ

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A National Guardsman and a civilian were killed Thursday as gangs of government supporters on motorcycles rode into east Caracas neighborhoods to remove street barricades placed by opposition protesters.

The pitched battle in a mixed industrial and residential district heightened tensions on the same day the Venezuelan government expelled foreign diplomats for the second time in a month.

More than 100 men on motorcycles carrying pipes and rocks swarmed Los Ruices in the incident, trying to force their way into some buildings. Residents screamed "murderers, murderers" from rooftops and the motorcyclists taunted them from below, urging them to come down and fight.

Venezuelans fed up with food shortages and unchecked violence have been staging nearly daily street protests since mid-February, snarling traffic with barricades of garbage, furniture and burning tires. At least 21 people have been killed in related violence, by government count, in the country's worst unrest in years.

President Nicolas Maduro's administration shows no signs of crumbling from several weeks of nearly daily demonstrations, but the country appears in a stalemate. Protesters are mostly from the middle and upper classes although they do include poorer Venezuelans who don't protest in their home districts for fear of pro-government paramilitaries.

Sucre Mayor Carlos Ocariz said residents of Los Ruices reported hearing gunshots after motorcyclists began dismantling the barricades. Some apartment dwellers began banging pots and raining down bottles to express their anger, he said. In the melee, a 24-year-old motorcycle taxi driver was shot dead.

"I'm not going to be irresponsible and accuse anyone," Ocariz said. "I condemn the violence and the shots must be investigated, but I also reject the brutal repression" of security forces.

When National Guardsmen arrived to secure the area, a 25-year-old sergeant was shot through the neck and killed. Ocariz said that according to district police, who report to him, in both cases the men's wounds seemed to indicate the shots came from above.

Pro-government motorcycle gangs who reside in slums served as street-level enforcers for the late President Hugo Chavez and continue to menace opponents of the ruling socialists. The opposition claims they are bankrolled by the government.

Maduro, meeting with U.S. actor Danny Glover, said on state TV that the slain motorcyclist, Jose Gregorio Amaris, used his motorcycle as a taxi and was clearing debris in order to do his job.

He called those who build street barricades "vandals who hate the people" and said a second motorcyclist was seriously injured.

Among opposition demands is that the government disarm the motorcycle-riding paramilitaries, called "colectivos."

A day after Maduro said he was breaking diplomatic relations with Panama over its push for Organization of American States-sponsored mediation in the crisis, his government expelled Panama's ambassador and three other diplomats, giving them 48 hours to leave.

Last month, Venezuela expelled three U.S. diplomats, accusing them of conspiring with the opposition, a claim that Washington denied.

Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said Venezuela also had suspended debt negotiations over $1 billion owed to Panamanian exporters.

In the latest development affecting what the opposition calls a full-scale government assault on freedom of expression, a newspaper critical of the government said it was the target of a criminal defamation suit filed by National Assembly President Diosdado Cabello.

Editor Teodoro Petkoff wrote in the paper, TalCual, that the Caracas judge overseeing the case had ordered him and three other executives as well as columnist Carlos Genatios not to leave the country without permission.

Cabello accused the newspaper of printing something he claimed never to have said: That if people don't like crime they should leave the country.

A conviction would carry a prison sentence of two to four years.

___

Associated Press writer Christopher Sherman and cameraman Marko Alvarez contributed to this report.


http://news.yahoo.com/2-dead-venezuelans-clash-protest-barricades-015253136.html

[captainccs]

Oliver Stone caricature by Rayma



https://twitter.com/raymacaricatura/status/442332089544105984/photo/1

[captainccs]

Biden says Venezuela 'concocting' bogus stories
 By FRANK BAJAK
23 minutes ago


Demonstrators lie on the ground holding statistics about the people murdered in the 14 years of Chavista government, at a protest in Caracas, Venezuela, Friday, March 7, 2014. Venezuela is coming under increasing international scrutiny amid violence that most recently killed a National Guardsman and a civilian. United Nations human rights experts demanded answers Thursday from Venezuela's government about the use of violence and imprisonment in a crackdown on widespread demonstrations. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)



CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden calls Venezuela's situation alarming in remarks published Sunday, suggesting its government is using "armed vigilantes" against peaceful protesters and accusing it of "concocting false and outlandish conspiracy theories" about the United States.

Biden's remarks, issued in writing to a Chilean newspaper in response to questions, drew an angry rebuke from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

"We reject their aggression," President Maduro told supporters at a rally the socialist-led government held at the presidential palace. "They were defeated in the OAS and now they want revenge."

The U.S. had strongly objected to a declaration of solidarity for Venezuela issued by the Organization of American States on Friday night.

Washington said the declaration contradicted the OAS charter, in part, by stressing non-intervention in Venezuela over guaranteeing that human rights and free speech are respected there. Twenty-nine states voted in favor of Friday night's declaration with only the United States, Canada and Panama objecting.

"The situation in Venezuela reminds me of previous eras, when strongmen governed through violence and oppression; and human rights, hyperinflation, scarcity, and grinding poverty wrought havoc on the people of the hemisphere," Biden told El Mercurio.

"The situation in Venezuela is alarming," he wrote. "Confronting peaceful protesters with force and in some cases with armed vigilantes; limiting the freedoms of press and assembly necessary for legitimate political debate; demonizing and arresting political opponents; and dramatically tightening restrictions on the media" is not what Washington expects from a signatory to international human rights treaties.

Rather than engaging the opposition in a "genuine dialogue," Biden added, "Maduro has thus far tried to distract his people from the profound issues at stake in Venezuela by concocting totally false and outlandish conspiracy theories about the United States."

Maduro claims student-led protests that ignited Feb. 12, mostly peaceful but including almost daily street clashes with security forces, are an attempt by the extreme right to overthrow him.

The demonstrations have been joined mostly by middle-class Venezuelans fed up with inflation that reached 56 percent last year, chronic shortages of some food staples, and one of the world's highest murder rates. But some poorer Venezuelans, students in particular, are taking part. The government says 21 people have died.

On Sunday afternoon in eastern Caracas, about 100 demonstrators threw rocks at police, who responded with tear gas and water cannon. Some protesters tore a bus kiosk from the sidewalk and set it ablaze, providing authorities with an opportunity to repeat on state media its accusation that anti-government activists are vandals.

Despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary, Maduro on Sunday denied that armed paramilitary supporters of the government have employed violence against protesters.

"The only violent armed groups in the street are those of the right," he told the crowd.

In a statement issued by the presidency, Maduro also accused the opposition was "receiving financing from the United States" to undermine "a solid democracy that has had the popular backing in 18 elections over 15 years." He offered no evidence.

The statement said Venezuela was nevertheless interested in renewing" full diplomatic relations with the United States based on "mutual respect" and "non-intervention."

The two nations have been without ambassadors since 2010 and Venezuela has expelled eight U.S. diplomats in the past 13 months for alleged meddling.

Maduro, the hand-picked successor of the late Hugo Chavez, later met at the presidential palace with actor-activist Sean Penn and Haiti's prime minister. Penn is an ambassador-at-large for Haiti, where he runs a nonprofit aid group. He was shown on state television and made no public comments.

Biden and Maduro are both scheduled to attend Tuesday's swearing-in of Michelle Bachelet as Chile's president.

Bachelet, who was also Chile's president in 2006-10, recently said her administration will support Maduro's government and the Venezuelan people so they can "search for the democratic means to social peace."

___

Associated Press writers Fabiola Sanchez in Caracas, Josh Lederman in Washington and Luis Andres Henao in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/biden-says-venezuela-concocting-bogus-stories-232842054.html

[captainccs]

For the record, this is not yet the time for talks - Denny Schlesinger.


Protests and talks widen rifts in Venezuela opposition
By Daniel Wallis

CARACAS (Reuters) - As violent protests in Venezuela alienate moderates in the opposition and show no signs of toppling President Nicolas Maduro, the socialist leader's call for talks is deepening divisions between his rivals.

The country's worst civil unrest in a decade has killed at least 20 people, including supporters of both sides and members of the security forces, since early last month.

Day after day, thousands of opposition supporters march peacefully in cities around the nation, demanding political change and an end to high inflation, shortages of basic foods in stores, and one of the highest murder rates in the world.

Then every night, hooded opposition militants emerge around a square in eastern Caracas brandishing rocks and Molotov cocktails, clashing with riot police and turning one of the capital's most affluent neighborhoods into a battlefield.

The violence is fueling tensions inside the opposition, with moderates scared it could spin further out of control and tarnish the cause of peaceful political change in the future.

Maduro appears to have weathered the worst of the demonstrations on the streets for now and is repeatedly offering talks, creating a new dilemma for opposition leaders.

So far, they have put tough conditions on any discussions, saying they refuse to be part of a "photo opportunity" and that they fear the government has no intention of addressing issues such as corruption, impunity and political prisoners.

The Democratic Unity opposition coalition said on Friday it would only sit down for dialogue with Maduro if the meeting were mediated by someone "of good faith" - and broadcast live.

"We're sick of violence. Everyone is being attacked," it said in a statement. "We're showing our hand to the public ... (We want) true dialogue, a clear agenda, and equal conditions."

But with pleas for talks coming from as far afield as the White House, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Pope Francis, the refusal to attend any discussions to date has drawn criticism, including from within the coalition's ranks.

Opposition lawmaker Hiram Gaviria quit his party Un Nuevo Tiempo (A New Time) and the coalition on Friday over its ban on attending talks at the Miraflores presidential palace.

Gaviria blamed the unrest on the government, which he said had imposed a broken social and economic model and used 15 years of "hate speech" to undermine its opponents.

But he said he would meet anyone, anywhere, to try to avoid more violence, even if dialogue stood little chance of success.

"How many more deaths must there be before we talk and find understanding?" asked the legislator from central Aragua state. "There has to be dialogue."

The opposition was deeply divided for years until it showed remarkable cohesion ahead of the 2012 presidential election and again last year when a new vote was called to succeed socialist leader Hugo Chavez after his death from cancer.

The current protests, however, have reopened old rifts between those who advocate street action to force the president from power, and others with a slow-boil strategy of building support in the cities and states they govern while letting the dysfunctional economy weaken the government.

'VERY DANGEROUS'

Maduro's critics, some of whom have vowed to stay in the streets until he resigns, are demanding the release of political prisoners, justice for victims of what they call repression, and the disbandment of armed pro-government militant groups that are accused of attacking opposition protesters.

Another opposition lawmaker, Ismael Garcia, said the majority of Democratic Unity were in favor of serious talks.

"Nobody has rejected dialogue, but there have to be very clear rules to the game, and we must work together," he said.

But it is not clear how opposition leaders want to handle the demonstrations. Though Maduro's opponents condemn the violence by a small but vocal minority, they continue to support street mobilizations that often lead to such clashes.

Plaza Altamira, site of the nightly battles with riot police, once enjoyed its reputation as one of the capital's nicest spaces. Now the street corners are piled with burnt trash and charred wires, broken bricks and shattered glass.

The barricading of roads by demonstrators has led to fist-fights, fatal shootings, more teargas, and incensed cries of "repression" from more shrill voices in the opposition.

While they understand the frustration, others disagree.

"Rejecting the barricades doesn't mean one supports the government," said local political analyst Luis Vicente Leon.

Maduro appears to have survived the short-term challenge to his rule. Coinciding with the emotional anniversary of Chavez's death, the protests have even given him a chance to unite the ruling Socialist Party against a common threat.

At an event to mark International Women's Day on Saturday, Maduro consoled the sobbing wife of a pro-government actor who described how they were screamed at in a Caracas restaurant by dozens of opposition supporters who walked in banging pots and pans and yelling that her husband was a murderer.

Maduro offered again to sit down with the opposition.

"If you want, we'll do a closed-door session first and tell each other everything we need to say, and then we'll speak to the country together," he said in a nationally televised speech.

He was worried, he said, that the opposition's leadership was crumbling and creating an unpredictable power vacuum.

"I don't say this as a joke ... it's very dangerous. Anyone could take over who has violent plans, and that would be worse."

In a sign of increasing confidence, an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that many in the opposition had hoped would prove to be a disaster for Maduro, pleased the president so much that state TV has re-run it in its entirety two nights running.

The answer which most outraged his foes in the opposition: when Amanpour asked Maduro what kept him awake at night, and he replied that he slept "peacefully, like a child."

"It was a very good interview, forgive my immodesty," he told Saturday's rally. "But any of you, if you sat with Amanpour, would answer as well or better than me, because it's the truth of the people, the true story of Venezuela."

(Additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth; Editing by Kieran Murray and Eric Walsh)

http://news.yahoo.com/protests-talks-widen-rifts-venezuela-opposition-050600262.html

[captainccs]

World Bank's ICSID Rejects Venezuela "Appeal" over ConocoPhillips


CARACAS -- In a 2-1 decision, the World Bank's arbitration panel, the International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), has rejected Venezuela's request for "reconsideration" of ICSID's September 2013 finding that it had jurisdiction and that Venezuela was liable for the expropriation of ConocoPhillips' investments in the Latin American nation.

ConocoPhillips originally brought the biggest case to date against Venezuela in December of 2007, seeking $30 billion in compensation for stakes in two Orinoco projects - Petrozuata and Hamaca - and two joint venture exploration agreements in the Gulf of Paria, all of which Venezuela expropriated in 2007.

After years of briefs and hearings -- including an attempt by Venezuela to disqualify one of the 3 arbitrating judges and the death and replacement of another -- on September 3, 2013, ICSID ruled that it had jurisdiction to hear the claim and that Venezuela had indeed breached its obligations under the Netherland's Bilateral Investment Treaty "to negotiate in good faith" to compensate ConocoPhillips for the expropriation and was therefor liable to pay damages for the expropriation.

In an unusual move that the majority of the panel ruled was not allowed, Venezuela sought to have the panel "re-consider" the jurisdiction and liability decision, after writing a letter 5 days after the decision, on September 8, 2013 (below), and claiming that new evidence had come to light via a U.S. Embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks that Venezuela had not stopped negotiating.

After examining the ICSID treaty and past rulings, "the majority of the Tribunal concludes that it does not have the power to reconsider the Decision of 3 September 2013," the majority made up of Judge Kenneth Keith, President, and L. Yves Fortier, CC, QC, wrote. "Section 3 of Part IV of the ICSID Convention sets out the Powers and Functions of the Tribunal, with nothing among its provisions even hinting at such a power."

The judge appointed by Venezuela, Egyptian Professor Georges Abi-Saab, dissented.

Abi-Saab, who replaced English barrister Sir Ian Brownlie after Brownlie died in 2009, has a law degree from Cairo University, an MA in Economics from the University of Paris, an MA in Economics from the University of Michigan, a Masters of Law (LLM) and SJD from Harvard Law School, and Doctor of Political Science from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, according to his biography.

"A strong case can be made for the existence of a general power of reconsideration by an ICSID tribunal of its interlocutory decisions (within certain limits or under certain conditions all the same) in a case still pending before it," wrote Abi-Saab in his lone dissent, that contained many typographical and grammatical errors. "However, if the answer to the question whether such a power exists or not were to be in the negative, there remains the possibility ... that the Tribunal possess a specific power for dealing with requests based on a particular or certain particular legal grounds."

The ICSID panel then ordered Venezuela and ConocoPhillips to move on to arguing over how much the award should be. ConocoPhillips, which says it invested over $4.6 billion in the oil ventures starting in the 1990s, is now reportedly seeking $6.5 billion for the siezed assets. Venezuela has offered $2.3 billion.

ConocoPhillips is to file their damages brief ("Memorial on Quantum") by May 19, with Venezuela's damages brief due 10 weeks later. After that, both sides will have another 8 weeks in which each will file Reply Briefs, with ICSID fixing a hearing for oral arguments after that.

Another U.S. oil giant, Exxon Mobil Corp, has been seeking up to $10 billion at ICSID also for the expropriation in 2007 of a large heavy crude project in the Orinoco region. In February of 2012, Venezuela was ordered to pay ExxonMobil about $908
million in compensation by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in lost contractual earnings because of the expropriations (decision below).

"The ICSID decision on the actual losses suffered by ExxonMobil from Venezuela's expropriation is expected soon," says Russ Dallen, an international lawyer and banker who follows the cases and studied under ICSID judge Sir Ian Brownlie at Oxford University. "Venezuela and ExxonMobil filed their final post-hearing briefs almost 2 years ago in May of 2012."

In the ConocoPhillips case, Venezuela may keep stalling for time, says Dallen. "Apparently, Venezuela now intends to try to disqualify the 2 judges that ruled against them on the panel -- even after they had already challenged one and lost."

In October of 2011, Venezuela filed a challenge to Canadian Judge L. Yves Fortier, QC, who had been appointed by ConocoPhillips. A tribunal heard the challenge and ruled against Venezuela 4 months later in February of 2012.


http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1756923&CategoryId=10717

[captainccs]

Narrated in Spanish but the images need no translation. In America a video such as this would have a warning label.

I'm amazed that it has taken some people fifteen years to realize that peaceful elections is not the practical solution to dictatorship any more than prayers are the cure for cancer.  Cancer is fought with deadly force, surgery and chemotherapy. Dictatorship is a social cancer that needs to be destroyed with deadly force.

Denny Schlesinger


To Those That Think Maduro Is Not A Dictator: ¿Qué Pasa en Venezuela? by Foro Penal Venezolano
March 14, 2014

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgu_mCT-wgY[/youtube]

I am still amazed by the number of people that are still saying we should wait for elections, bla, bla bla. The video above proves beyond any doubt that Nicolas Maduro has become the Dictator of Venezuela. He has to go. Period.

And if you still have doubts, read Gustavo Coronel’s article “Approaching the Unthinkable” about Venezuela importing oil and you will realize that indeed, under Chavismo, all that oil underground will always stay there.


http://devilsexcrement.com/2014/03/14/to-those-that-think-maduro-is-not-a-dictator-que-pasa-en-venezuela-by-foro-penal-venezolano/#respond

[ccp]

Denny,

Didn't you used to post on the infamous Gilder Tech Board yrs ago?

Do you ever feel in danger in Venezuela?

[captainccs]

Denny,

Didn't you used to post on the infamous Gilder Tech Board yrs ago?

I most certainly did!

Do you ever feel in danger in Venezuela?

No more than elsewhere if you know how to stay out of unnecessary trouble. But on occasion one does feel a terrible pressure of not being in control. You have to remember that good news is not news and sells no papers. The lost Malaysian plane is getting hundreds of headlines but the thousands of flights that arrive safely get none at all.

Life goes on.

Denny Schlesinger

[Crafty_Dog]

BTW Denny,  I want you to know, and I think I speak for the collective effort here, that your posts are greatly appreciated. I would chalk up the rather small number of rejoinders to the fact that we do not have much to add-- but note that the read to post ratio on the Venezuelan threads (about 150/1 on this one) is quite strong. 

[ccp]

"your posts are greatly appreciated"

Agreed.

[captainccs]

BTW Denny,  I want you to know, and I think I speak for the collective effort here, that your posts are greatly appreciated. I would chalk up the rather small number of rejoinders to the fact that we do not have much to add-- but note that the read to post ratio on the Venezuelan threads (about 150/1 on this one) is quite strong. 

When one is not in the trenches or in the command post there is not much one can say beyond reporting what one perceives as the facts specially if the news are about a distant land. I'm not expecting replies to my posts, I'm quite happy that in a small way I'm able to overcome the tyrant's censorship. If the members of this forum were to rebroadcast these news to other forums and social networks, that would be highly appreciated.

Marc, I appreciate your continued friendship.

Denny Schlesinger

[captainccs]

I just got this email:

I just signed this petition -- will you join me?

United Nations: Issue a resolution condemning Human Rights violations in Venezuela
To: To The Office of The United Nations High Commissioner of Human Rights, Ms. Navanethem Pillay

The petition is really important and could use our help. Click here to find out more and sign:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/To_The_Office_of_The_United_Nations_High_Commissioner_of_Human_Rights_Issue_a_resolution_condemning_Human_Rights_violati/?kOUtfhb

Thanks so much,

The link

United Nations: Issue a resolution condemning Human Rights violations in Venezuela

Post it to your favorite social network!

[captainccs]

Many in the opposition were wishing Chavismo would disappear with the death of Chavez. They may get their wish. Chavez was a smooth and charismatic operator, something which Maduro most certainly is not. Last year while riding on the subway I heard  a Chavista lady saying that Maduro would be  disaster because he was not like Chavez, whom she adored. Her words are turning out prescient. Many of us figured that the succession wars inside Chavismo would weaken the regime. I don't recall anyone predicting the violent protests that are taking place. I don't recall ever seeing urban warfare in Venezuela with Molotov cocktails. Never before had a judge admitted being pressured to jail a political opponent (it went viral on Twitter). While I would not bet on "The death of ‘Chavismo’" the odds are growing.


The death of ‘Chavismo’ in Venezuela

Under Nicolas Maduro, student protests against the late Chávez’s policies have boiled over into violent street battles

by David Agren


Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters


Caracas-based bond trader Russ Dallen looks for small signals with which to gauge Venezuela and its economy. He found one last year when he ran out of toilet paper and searched for it unsuccessfully in three stores. “I found this great Argentine wine,” he recalls, but no toilet paper. The government subsequently ordered 50 million rolls of the stuff, including some from Costco, which, according to Dallen, it bought retail in the U.S. and imported—all of which sold out in short order.

Such shortages are common in Venezuela, and spark discontent in the long lines that form at supermarkets running low on everything from paper products to corn flour to cooking oil. Inflation, meanwhile, registered at 56 per cent last year, among the highest rates in the world, although the unofficial tallies reach the triple digits.

For the past five weeks, anger has boiled over into deadly street protests, with 25 lives lost and the government cracking down hard. In one instance this month, a group of armed men on motorcycles fired into a crowd of protesters, killing three.

The backlash started with a protest over an attempted rape on a college campus in the city of San Cristóbal. Police forcibly broke up the protest and jailed a handful of students in faraway prisons, which provoked even more protests throughout the country. The situation quickly spiralled beyond outrage over a sexual assault and into a fight for the future of Venezuela and the consequences of 15 years of “Chavismo,” the political and economic policies of the late president, Hugo Chávez.

Students see limited opportunities in a country with a state-controlled economy and increased insecurity. “It’s about students realizing that for them it’s a very difficult path after university,” says Carlos Cárdenas, deputy head of Latin America forecasting with IHS in London. Protesting law student Agnly Veliz recently told Reuters, “What’s the point of graduating while the country is in chaos?”

President Nicolás Maduro, who won a tight 2013 election and claims Chávez has appeared to him in prayer as a “little bird,” has dismissed the protests as an attempt to overthrow his government and called the students “Nazi fascists.” But he sees a growing threat in the student protests to the “chavista” system and he has used the unrest as an excuse to censor the media. He pulled the plug on Colombian cable news channel NTN. Many Venezuelans took to Twitter, only have the Internet cut and the site allegedly blocked.

The regime Maduro inherited from Chávez, who succumbed to cancer last year, appears to be teetering after years of mismanagement. Chávez promoted “21st-century socialism” and showered money on the poor from what was treated as a bottomless barrel of petrobucks. He also gave oil to allies in the region—allowing them repay with beans, if they bothered to repay at all. “Chavismo is durable because it tapped into a deep history of economic divide in Venezuela,” says Eric Farnsworth, vice-president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas. “But the model is financially unsustainable.”

State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA’s output is down by nearly a million barrels per day since Chávez took office in 1999. Venezuela sells fewer barrels to the United States, which pays more than other customers but has needed less oil from Venezuela due the growth in North American production. Venezuela has borrowed some $40 billion from China since 2008, says Dallen—with some of the money going toward providing poor households with Chinese-made appliances on the eve of elections. Venezuela now sends the country 650,000 barrels per day as repayment—half of which are sold at steep discounts. “Venezuela borrowed beyond its ability to pay,” Dallen says, adding that enormous amount of refined petroleum products are consumed domestically, with gasoline selling for just pennies a litre.

Maduro’s response to the protests has reinforced the former bus driver and union boss’s reputation as a brute—unlike Chávez, who maintained his own popularity (to the point there are St. Hugo shrines) while keeping the opposition off balance. “There were things that kept Chávez from being so overly authoritarian and openly violent: his rhetorical prowess and money,” says Francisco Toro, a Montreal-based author of the Caracas Chronicles blog. But with Venezuela’s troubles worsening fast, “it’s obvious that Maduro isn’t going to have either.”

The political opposition is split between hardliners supporting the students and those encouraging dialogue. Chávez could manipulate the opposition: “He knew how to push our buttons,” Toro says. But with Maduro, the crackdown may be a sign of what’s to come. “The point of increasing the pressure, from the government’s point of view, has been to create a new normal,” Toro says. “If you go out and protest, you will be repressed and thrown in jail.”

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/worldpolitics/the-death-of-chavismo-in-venezuela/

[Crafty_Dog]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/venezuela-wants-to-spread-the-suffering

[G M]

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-01/venezuela-wants-to-spread-the-suffering

Andrez needs to explain to the Venezuelian people that marxism is scientific!

[captainccs]

Dismembering frogs to find out what makes them tick is scientific.

Yesterday I almost found myself in a protest being dispersed by government assassins using tear gas and other means of violence. The protest had started out peacefully enough, the violence was started by the government assassins sadly misnamed Bolivarian National Guard and Bolivarian National Police. Clearly Bolivarian means wicked.

On the way home I passed a group of some six open trucks of Bolivarian National Guards waiting for their turn to crack skulls. They were smiling and apparently having a good time. If you take the time to have a good look you see that their  vehicles are brand new as are their uniforms and weapons. There is no lack of dollars to buy protection for the illegitimate state but not enough to buy food for the people they swore to serve.

Machiavelli states that an unpopular Prince will tumble. Not if he has enough violence on his side which clearly the illegitimate Venezuelan state has. Some ten or twelve years ago several soldiers were killed with flame throwers during "exercises." It was claimed to be an unfortunate accident and the killers were never tried. In my opinion it was part of an indoctrination campaign to scare the soldiers into unquestioning obedience under threat of torture and death. At higher levels officials are allowed to commit crimes but these are zealously recorded. Should in time an officer refuse to follow orders the evidence against him is used for blackmail. Just recently a judge confessed to her childhood friend that she ordered Leopoldo Lopez jailed under order to do so and under threat to lose her job if she didn't.

One has to question where such well oiled machinery of repression came from. Did the local Chavistas dream it up or was it imported from Russia, Cuba and China? Again a bit of history is illuminating. In his early years as president a globe trotting Chavez visited every long lived tyrant he could find including Mugabe, Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein not to mention his dearly beloved Castro brothers. What was Chavez looking for? What had these failed states to offer? One must be naive to think anything besides how to stay in power come hell or high water.

A regime based solely on the ideology of staying in power cannot be removed with flower power and peaceful marches. Socialism in Venezuela is a red herring but there is not enough time and space  here for a full discussion. As martial arts practitioners you must realize that the time comes to counter force with force. Against well armed military and police that means bloodshed, bloodshed that does not guarantee success, only suffering. A dozen years ago I didn't want foreign help but the realization that the tyranny in Venezuela has global roots, global backers, has made me change my mind. A little bit of help from our friends would be appreciated. Not that it's likely to come from the OAS or the UN which are dominated by petty tyrants.

Denny Schlesinger

[ccp]

Denny says,

"the tyranny in Venezuela has global roots, global backers"

Besides Sean Penn who are these global roots and backs?

[G M]

http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-obama-americas20-2009apr20,0,1717554.story

[captainccs]

Sorry for the delay in replying but I'm breaking in my new Mac and it's taking up a lot of my time. I have to buy new version of just about all my software and get used to all the changes.

Denny says,

"the tyranny in Venezuela has global roots, global backers"

Besides Sean Penn who are these global roots and backs?

In LatinAmerica the socialist governments of Cuba, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua at a minimum. In Africa, Mugabe. Putin loves to replace America in arms sales. China loves to buy our oil. Belarus is erecting the "dignified housing" projects in Caracas (their workers are transported in luxury air conditioned busses). Iran set up car and bicycle factories that so far have produced nothing but it is rumored that they are buying our uranium, there is a lot of traffic between our two countries. The countries that are getting cheap Venezuelan oil. And just about any nation that loves tweaking America's nose. Many American Democrats have recanted their support for the Venezuelan regime but Jimmy Carter is not one of them.

Socialism, as opposed to nationalism, is an international movement. There is very much of that "new age" idea of world government of world order. In Europe you see it in the huge powers Brussels has collected for itself. The guys in Brussels mostly are not elected but appointed (like the most powerful person in America the Fed chair[wo]man). Just imagine what the UN would to the the USA if it were not for the veto power. Countries can put criminals in jail but the UN won't sanction most criminal nations. How do you put North Korea in jail?

Denny Schlesinger
 

[ccp]

Thanks Denny.

With regards to the New Age World Government it does seem Obama is a true believer.

Wikipedia's One World Government history:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_government

[captainccs]

New Age World Government is about the Elite (a self selected group of people) lording it over the rest of us for our own good. It is not only the Socialists who think this way. To a lesser extent, the Founding Fathers didn't trust the electorate and created the Electoral College to make sure no "mistakes" were made. And, of course, they didn't thrust women, poor people and other substandard specimens of Man to vote at all.

If you haven't already, you might want to read

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell 

Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.
 

Democracy has its limits and its dangers but for all that I would not replace it by a tyranny of the Elite. Yet some people welcome such tyrannies. Some are so stupid as to become suicide killers or martyrs for some celestial spaghetti monster. Or they go to their death like the ones did with "revered" Jones in Guyana. It does have a plus side, stupid dead genes don't reproduce.

The most capitalist group is not immune. The Fed is an unelected Elite of Rich Bankers. Read The Creature from Jekyll Island : A Second Look at the Federal Reserve by G. Edward Griffin

Or watch the video. If you want to skip the Fed part and see the New World Order part, skip to 1:30

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu_VqX6J93k[/youtube]

Denny Schlesinger
 

[ccp]

Health Care "policy" is all about the elites as well.

[captainccs]

Not the best way to attract foreign investors...

Nor the best way to improve the country...

Lomas de Niquel as apparently not fared well under its new management. An investigation last year by former planning minister Teodoro Petkoff's newspaper Tal Cual found that, after one year of government management, Lomas de Niquel's furnaces were "operating at minimum capacity for lack of electrode paste, an important input to produce nickel," that they were unable to sell the nickel abroad "because it does not meet international standards," that "heavy equipment stood idle due to lack of oil and filters," and that "the purchase of supplies, spare parts and raw materials is paralyzed by lack of money."



Anglo American Files Suit Against Venezuela at ICSID
Venezuela now has 28 cases pending against it – the most of any nation in the world. Argentina, which had previously held the number one spot, now has only 24 cases listed as pending.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Global mining company Anglo American PLC has become the latest corporation to file suit against Venezuela over its treatment of investors.

The World Bank’s International Center for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) has accepted a request for arbitration against Venezuela filed by Anglo American’s lawyers, powerhouse law firms Baker & McKenzie and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

According to the ICSID docket, Venezuela now has 28 cases pending against it – the most of any nation in the world -- after a rash of expropriations and nationalizations by Venezuela's late firebrand President Hugo Chavez. Argentina, which had previously held the number one spot after defaulting on $100 billion in debt, now has only 24 cases listed as pending.

Anglo American, one of the world’s largest diversified miners, had held a 91.4% share in the Loma de Niquel mine in Venezuela until 2012 when the Chavez government cancelled 13 concessions and refused to renew 3 others. “Despite attempts to enable a continuation of operations, our last application for renewal was refused and the concessions and permits granted by the government expired on 10 November 2012,” the company explains. “As of 10 November 2012, therefore, Anglo American’s mining and production activities at Loma de Niquel ceased permanently.”

Loma de Niguel had accounted for 13,400 metric tons of Anglo’s 29,100 tons of nickel production in 2011. The mine’s proved and probable ore reserves totaled 4.6 million metric tons at the end of 2011, Anglo American said in 2011's annual report, adding that it took an $84 million charge “mainly arising” from the Venezuelan concessions.

“The accelerated depreciation charge at Loma de Níquel has arisen due to ongoing uncertainty over the renewal of three concessions that expire in 2012 and over the restoration of 13 concessions that have been cancelled,” the company said at the time.

Anglo American, which had revenue of $33.063 billion last year, had been the largest investor in Venezuelan mining. In 2010, Anglo sold its 25.5% ownership in Carbones del Guasare S.A. which operates the Paso Diablo Mine to Peabody Energy. Paso Diablo is a surface operation in northwestern Venezuela that produced thermal coal for export primarily to the U.S. and Europe.

Lomas de Niquel as apparently not fared well under its new management. An investigation last year by former planning minister Teodoro Petkoff's newspaper Tal Cual found that, after one year of government management, Lomas de Niquel's furnaces were "operating at minimum capacity for lack of electrode paste, an important input to produce nickel," that they were unable to sell the nickel abroad "because it does not meet international standards," that "heavy equipment stood idle due to lack of oil and filters," and that "the purchase of supplies, spare parts and raw materials is paralyzed by lack of money."

Venezuela had been a member of ICSID since 1993, but Chavez formally removed the country from ICSID jurisdiction in January of 2012, saying he would not accept any further rulings from the arbitration court. However, clauses in bilateral investment treaties and individual contracts continue to give ICSID jurisdiction to hear cases against Venezuela.

Other companies with pending ICSID arbitrations against Venezuela include Gold Reserve Inc., Rusoro Mining Ltd., Tidewater Inc., Williams Cos. Inc., Koch Industries Inc., Owens-Illinois Inc., Tenaris SA, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.

ICSID is an autonomous international institution established in 1965 under the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States (the ICSID or the Washington Convention) with over one hundred and forty member States. The Convention sets forth ICSID's mandate, organization and core functions. The primary purpose of ICSID is to provide facilities for conciliation and arbitration of international investment disputes.


http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=1926189&CategoryId=10717

[captainccs]

We Protest In Style!

[captainccs]

Chavez's Farming Utopia Withers as Pet Projects Abandoned
By Anatoly Kurmanaev  Apr 28, 2014 11:11 AM GMT-0430



Photographer: Meridith Kohut/Bloomberg
Rows of new farm equipment, imported from Belarus, sit unused at the "William Lara" agro-industrial commune in the... Read More


The harvesters imported to overcome food shortages are gathering cobwebs near a burnt corn field in central Venezuela. A short distance away is the shell of a fertilizer plant and rows of empty red-roofed bungalows.

This is the William Lara agricultural commune, the first of five such projects that former President Hugo Chavez said were going to reverse a 11-year rise in food imports and put products back on the nation's shelves. One year after his death, the last 30 workers on the site are removing equipment, surrounded by 4,300 soccer fields-worth of cleared land baking in the savanna heat.

"The president dies and the project dies with him," Eumir Perez, William Lara's former coordinator, said in an interview in Calabozo, a town in Guarico state 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the project. "The government is too busy staying in power, fighting against the capitalists' economic war. No one dreams big anymore."

The $300 million commune is one of the many projects on which the government has squandered the $50 billion Venezuela receives each year from oil exports, said Anabella Abadi, an analyst at public policy consultancy ODH Grupo Consultor. The national comptroller office's 2013 annual report says there are 4,381 unfinished public infrastructure projects in Venezuela, a quarter of them started before 2006.

The projects include 100 kilometers of an elevated train line from Valencia, Venezuela's third biggest city, to Cagua that was halted in 2010, and Steel City -- a town with houses, shops and steel plants in Bolivar state, which remains flatland.

No Water

Work on William Lara, the rural version of the Steel City, stopped last year after about $120 million was spent on clearing the land and building the first 176 houses.

The construction will resume after the government figures out a way of bringing water to the site 125 miles south of Caracas, Agriculture Minister Yvan Gil said.

"This is a technical problem, that our specialists are working to resolve," Gil, 41, said in an interview in his Caracas office on April 10. "The project is advancing."

Perez said construction began without checking water availability and now a dam would have to be dug to make the project viable.

Spokesmen for Maduro's office and the Information Ministry declined to comment on project delays in Venezuela.

Chavez set up off-budget funds that are not subject to parliamentary oversight to finance infrastructure projects. The funds have spent $112 billion since 2005, including the resources for the William Lara project, according to the Finance Ministry's annual report.

Broken Promises

"These are part of this government's unfulfilled promises," Abadi said in an interview in Caracas.

Ribbon-cutting ceremonies at new housing blocks and playgrounds helped Chavez's hand-picked successor Nicolas Maduro win election in April 2013, while failing to revive industry, said Abadi. Non-oil exports fell to 4 percent of the total in the first nine months of 2013 from 19 percent 10 years earlier, according to central bank.

The decline of local industry and dollar shortages pushed inflation to 59 percent in March and emptied shelves of basic goods such as milk and soap, fueling two months of protests that have left at least 41 people dead.

Venezuela's dollar bonds trade at the highest risk premium in the world, with investors demanding 10.41 extra percentage points to own the country's notes instead of U.S. Treasuries. The country's bolivar slumped 88 percent against the dollar when the government opened a new currency market last month to ease trading restrictions.

Belorussian Communes

Chavez's plans for agricultural communes began with a visit to Belarus in 2007, when his counterpart Aleksandr Lukashenko took him on a tour of projects dating from the Soviet Union's 1930s collectivization, said Perez, who now advises the president of Venezuela's state agriculture fund.

Belarus shares similar economic problems with Venezuela. The country, which former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the "last dictatorship in Europe," has seen its currency weaken 70 percent against the dollar since 2011 and has the world's third fastest inflation after Venezuela and Iran, according to its central bank.

Belorussian construction company BelZarubezhStroy, known as BZS, began work on William Lara in 2011 and was scheduled to complete the project by the end of 2012, according to the Agriculture Ministry's annual report for that year. The plan envisaged 500 houses, a school, grain silos, sports grounds, shops, a power substation, a milk factory and a slaughterhouse. The project is named after a Guarico governor and Chavez ally who died in 2010 when he drove his car into a river.

Setting an Example

The commune would "set the example for the development of agro-industry of Venezuela," Chavez said in July 2012 after meeting a Belorussian delegation.

Farmers from the nearby towns of Calabozo and El Sombrero never came to the project amid the water and funding shortages. Meter-high dry grass now covers acres of fields cleared of stones and spindly dwarf trees, as new gravel roads snake across the featureless terrain. Some corn fields were burnt to chase away rodents because local workers weren't sure how to use the Belorussian machines to harvest the crop.

Agriculture and food supply were at the heart of Chavez's poverty reduction campaign during his 14 years in power, including land redistribution, farm credits and investment in rural infrastructure, Agriculture Minister Gil said.

Grains and corn production has doubled in the past 15 years as a result, he said. "Very few countries in the world can say this."

Food Security

Higher grains volumes have failed to make up for the stagnant production of more expensive products such as milk and beef, said Alejandro Gutierrez, a professor of agricultural economics at the University of the Andes in Merida. Venezuela imports 70 percent of its food today, compared with about 50 percent in the late 1990s, according to the National Agriculture Industry Association, known as Fedeagro.

"Production hasn't kept up with demand, pushing the country's food security to critical levels," Gutierrez said by telephone on April 21.

A decade of price controls on basic goods has exacerbated the situation. A kilogram of meat costs 8 bolivars (12 U.S. cents at the black market rate) and rice is 3 bolivars a kilogram in the Mercal state supermarket chain, fueling hoarding and smuggling to neighboring Colombia and leaving shelves bare.

More than one in four basic goods was out of stock in Latin America's fourth-largest economy in January, the most since records began, according to the central bank. The bank stopped publishing up-to-date scarcity data last month.

"The legacy of this government is a very low rate of execution," Jose Guerra, economics professor at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, said by phone April 21. "They have tried to do too many things at the same time, causing inefficiency and waste."

To contact the reporter on this story: Anatoly Kurmanaev in Caracas at akurmanaev1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Andre Soliani at asoliani@bloomberg.net; Philip Sanders at psanders@bloomberg.net Philip Sanders

 
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-28/chavez-food-utopia-withers-as-development-plans-left-unfulfilled.html

[ccp]

"Perez said construction began without checking water availability and now a dam would have to be dug to make the project viable."

We here of government project over runs here too.  I don't know the statistics but we here all the time of defense cost "overruns" on basically every single project.

Stadiums always cost more to build then "projected".  I don't understand why we don't have contracts that limit the amount available and the entity that accepts the contract must meet those limits.  Or they borrow money privately and then pay the overdrawn balance back.

[captainccs]

I don't understand why we don't have contracts that limit the amount available and the entity that accepts the contract must meet those limits.

You would wind up with a lot of unfinished projects and bankrupt contractors. The solution is to go back to basics, get government out of where it does not belong. As Ayn Rand suggested, the proper roles for government are limited to security, defense and the arbitration of disputes.

[captainccs]

Governments are the same the world over, inefficient because the people who work there have no incentives to be frugal, quite the contrary. Take American public education, where did all the loan money go? To teachers? No, to school administrators. Yesterday I read about Japan, same thing. It's all about the Tragedy of the Commons.


Things That Make You Go Hmmm... by Grant Williams

“Everything makes sense once you realize Japan is a communist country.”

Aki Wakabayashi’s book Komuin no Ijona Sekai (The Bizarre World Of The Public Servant) sprang from her 10 years working at a Labour Ministry research institute and lifted the lid on some of the peccadilloes of Japan’s civil service.

Wakabayashi told of being scolded for saving her department ¥200 million, as her effort put that amount in jeopardy for the following year’s budget allocation; of senior managers taking female subordinates on first-class, round-the-world trips to “study labour conditions in other countries”; and of the mad dash by all departments to spend unused budget before year-end — the collective result of which saw monthly total expenditures by government agencies jump from ¥3 trillion in February to ¥18 trillion in March.

The facts unearthed by Wakabayashi are remarkable:

(Japan Times): The national average annual income of a local government employee was ¥7 million in 2006, compared to the ¥4.35 million national average for all company employees and the ¥6.16 million averaged by workers at large companies. Their generosity to even their lowest-level employees may explain why so many local governments are effectively insolvent: Drivers for the Kobe municipal bus system are paid an average of almost ¥9 million (taxi drivers, by comparison, earn about ¥3.9 million).

School crossing guards in Tokyo’s Nerima Ward earned ¥8 million in 2006. (Such generosity to comparatively low-skilled workers may explain why in the summer of 2007 it was discovered that almost 1,000 Osaka city government employees had lied about having college, i.e., they had, but did not put it on their resumes because it might have disqualified them from such jobs!) Furthermore, unlike private sector companies, public employees get their bonuses whether the economy is good or bad or, in the case of the Social Insurance Agency, even after they lose the pension records of 50 million people (2008 year-end bonuses for most public employees were about the same as 2007, global economic crisis notwithstanding).

In addition to their generous salary and bonuses, public servants get a wealth of extra allowances and benefits. Mothers working for the government can take up to three years’ maternity leave (compared to up to one year in the private sector, if you are lucky). Some government workers may also get bonuses when their children reach the age of majority, extra pay for staying single or not getting promoted, or “travel” allowances just for going across town. Perhaps the most shocking example Wakabayashi offers is the extra pay given to the workers at Hello Work (Japan’s unemployment agency) to compensate them for the stress of dealing with the unemployed.

http://www.mauldineconomics.com/ttmygh/gyver-guffin

[captainccs]

Shortages

The shortage problem is not universal as the following picture shows:



That truck is full of locally grown produce, generally of good quality, that farmers are free to sell with no price regulation. Prices swing wildly, last December a kilo of white onions was selling at close to BsF. 100 and earlier this year it had dropped to BsF. 35. The shortages exist in regulated wares such as coffee. But the coffee shortage was easily solved by rebranding the coffee "Gourmet" (it's the exact same coffee) which sells for BsF. 87 for a half kilo vs. the non existent regulated coffee at BsF. 26 for half a kilo. Regulated plain white rice is nowhere to be found but you can get plenty of parboiled and flavored varieties at prices well above the regulated stuff. Most of what is scarce are industrialized products like milk, flour, vegetable oil, and toilette paper because often the regulated price is below cost or because it is made or imported by the government. There are also shortages of imported goods for which the government is not willing to sell regulated dollars.

I've lost track, I think we have three oficial exchange rates plus the black market. To figure out the black market price you look at a Colombian website which shows their rates for dollars, euros and bolivars. There is a new exchange but it is so complicated and the government wants so much information that many people are quite willing to pay 20% more in the black market.

Some examples: There used to be a good local brand of canned tuna which was taken over by Chavistas. I bought a can of it made under the new management and it was a kind of paste, not "chunky" which is what you expect. For a while there was a Cuban brand of rice but it cooked into such an ugly mush that not even the poorest people were willing to buy it. There is no wheat flour but there is plenty of bread and pasta -- figure that one out! After 15 years of Chavismo I have finally run out of powdered milk and now I make home made soybean milk. Oh well.

Some good news, razor blades are back!

I just got this email today. Water shortages in the East where my marina is:

Interesante a ver que el problema del agua esta afectando a todos

LECHERÍA 29 DE ABRIL DE 2014
CONVOCATORIA
 
Se convoca a los propietarios y residentes del Parque Residencial Villamar Lecheria Barcelona a Reunión Extraordinaria que tendrá lugar el Sábado 3 de Mayo de 2014.
 
LUGAR: Oficina de Administración
 
PUNTOS A TRATAR:
 
1. Problemas con el suministro de agua por parte de Hidrocaribe
2. Vigilancia

Hora:   10:30 A.M:
 
Junta de Condominio

Queues, shortages hit Venezuela's homeless and hungry
Reuters By Carlos Rawlins
April 29, 2014 7:32 AM



A voluntary worker gives a bowl of soup to a man at the Mother Teresa of Calcutta eating center in Caracas .


CARACAS (Reuters) - Huge queues at supermarkets and shortages of basic products have become the norm in Venezuela over the last year - and the most needy are increasingly at the sharp edge.

Workers at soup kitchens for the homeless and hungry face an ever-more difficult task to find rice, lentils, flour and other staples to provide a free daily hot meal.

"I queue for hours every day because you can only get one thing one day, another the next," said Fernanda Bolivar, 54, who has worked for 11 years at the church-supported "Mother Teresa" soup kitchen in a back-street of downtown Caracas.

"The situation's got terrible in the last year," she said, in a dingy kitchen at the center named for the Roman Catholic nun who helped the poor and dying in India.

Inspired to help because of her own experience of going hungry a decade ago, Bolivar cooks lunch every day for the 50 or so people who sit on long concrete tables inside the dimly-lit refuge that often gets flooded during the rainy season.

To get the ingredients, like many other Venezuelan shoppers, she rises at 4 a.m. to start queuing - normally for several hours - at a supermarket nearby with hundreds of others. A number marking her place in the queues is scrawled on her hand.

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro's government say the queues are a national embarrassment and symbol of failed socialist economics similar to the old Soviet Union.

But officials say businessmen are deliberately hoarding products as part of an "economic war" against him. They point to popular social welfare programs, and a halving of poverty levels since Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, as evidence that Venezuela's poor are better cared for than ever.

The government this month began an ID system that tracks shoppers' purchases at subsidized prices in state-run supermarkets. Officials say that will thwart hoarders and guarantee an equitable distribution of cheap food to those who need it, but critics are decrying it as a Cuban-style ration card that illustrates the shocking state of the economy.

Venezuela's government runs a network of shelters and feeding centers known as the Negra Hipolita mission, which operate alongside church institutions like the Mother Teresa center under a bridge in the San Martin district of Caracas.

There on a recent day, some of those eating a free lentil soup grumbled that there was no meat - but still gratefully wolfed down several bowls of food each.

"I've been coming every day for years, I'm one of the family here," said jobless Vladimir Garcia, 56, taking his time over a large bowl of soup.

Garcia has been helping organizer Bolivar to queue for the center's food. "Maybe socialism has done a lot for Venezuela, but we never had these huge long lines for everything before. Nor this scarcity of food products," he said.

"It's madness for such a rich nation."

(Writing and additional reporting by Andrew Cawthorne; Editing by Brian Ellsworth and Kieran Murray)

http://news.yahoo.com/queues-shortages-hit-venezuelas-homeless-hungry-113232960--business.html

[captainccs]

Venezuela currency woes hit Herbalife and other US consumer brands

Venezuela's convoluted currency exchange system – which has one 'official' rate for the government and another for importers of non-essential goods – has hurt foreign companies.
Christian Science Monitor By Stephen Kurczy
8 hours ago
 
The actions of the Venezuelan government are undermining earnings for foreign companies and the positions of US investors.

The latest example came Monday evening when the nutritional-supplements maker Herbalife reported that first-quarter profit fell 37 percent due to a foreign-exchange loss tied to the devaluation of Venezuela’s bolívar. The loss was a hit to Herbalife’s 17 percent owner Carl Icahn, the activist investor who has in recent months taken to defending Herbalife from accusations that it’s a pyramid scheme.

Herbalife’s first quarter earnings, however, suggest that Mr. Icahn might have been wise to watch Venezuela more closely.

“I don’t think US Investors are exactly itching to get involved,” says our correspondent in Caracas. “What I’m taking away from all this is that US companies that are still here are in it for the long run. They’re willing to incur these losses as they weather out the storm that is ‘21st Century Socialism’ as they likely posses a huge market share.”

Herbalife, which competes with Weight Watchers International, Nutrisystem, and Medifast, has benefited from a focus on emerging markets such as Venezuela and its well-known “Miss” culture, says our correspondent in Caracas, referring to beauty pageants, such as Miss Venezuela and Miss Universe.

“Herbalife is very popular down here,” our correspondent says.

But Venezuela’s convoluted currency exchange system has hurt foreign companies, which was forewarned last year by US hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP’s William Ackman.... For the rest of the story, continue reading at our new business publication Monitor Global Outlook.


http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-currency-woes-hit-herbalife-other-us-consumer-155051214.html

[captainccs]

This Hilarious Slide Perfectly Demonstrates Corporate America's Venezuela Strategy
 SAM RO   
MAY 1, 2014, 10:36 AM    1,815 2

Emerging market economies offer fantastic growth opportunities for multinational corporation.

But conducting business in these markets comes with all sorts of risk. They tend to experience high inflation rates and volatile currency swings.

In February, Venezuela undertook a massive currency devaluation that instantly wreaked havoc for companies doing business in the country. In Q1, Coca-Cola took a $247 million charge because of Venezuela's bolivar.

Most of the companies that dodged this were probably quietly celebrating.

The executives at Church & Dwight — the owner Arm & Hammer, OxiClean and Trojan — celebrated quite vocally during the CAGNY Conference earlier this year.

"I wanna talk about our entry strategy into Venezuela," teased Matt Farrell, Church & Dwight's CFO. "Come on! We're not doing it! What're you stupid?!"

"I'm writing a letter to the president of Venezuela to thank him for all of the pain and suffering and distraction he's causing all of my major competitors," he said.

Farrell said that Church & Dwight would not be going into Venezuela in his lifetime.

Here's the blunt slide Farrell used to communicate his sentiment.


Venezuela

Church & Dwight


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/church-and-dwight-venezuela-map-2014-5#ixzz30WI1SJ00

[captainccs]

Sometimes one needs a break but I'm still here


Venezuela official seeks immunity in Aruba ruling
Associated Press By DILMA ARENDS GEERMAN and JOSHUA GOODMAN
14 hours ago
 
ORANJESTAD, Aruba (AP) — A judge in Aruba was expected to rule Friday on whether the highest-ranking Venezuelan official ever arrested on a U.S. warrant will remain behind bars pending an extradition request on drug charges.

Hugo Carvajal, a former head of Venezuelan military intelligence and close confidant of the late president Hugo Chavez, was arrested Wednesday upon arriving at Aruba's airport. U.S. authorities allege he's one of several high-ranking Venezuelan military and law enforcement officials who provided a haven to major drug traffickers from neighboring Colombia and helped them export large quantities of U.S.-bound cocaine through Venezuela.

Carvajal's surprise arrest is casting a spotlight on what's known in Venezuela as the "Cartel of the Suns," a reference to rogue, high-ranking military officers believed to have grown rich from drug-running. Top Venezuelan officers wear sun insignia on their uniforms.

Together with the unsealing Thursday of a drug indictment against two other Venezuelan officials, Carvajal's arrest is likely to ratchet up tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela's socialist government, which frequently accuses Washington of conspiring against it and using the drug war to exert pressure on Latin America.

"Carvajal's only option to avoid going to jail for a long, long time is going to be to cooperate, and that is going to be devastating for a lot of senior Venezuelan officials," said Frank Holder, a Miami-based expert on narcotics trafficking who is chairman for Latin America of FTI Consulting, a business advisory firm.

President Nicolas Maduro has already threatened to retaliate against Aruba, just 15 miles off Venezuela's coast, unless Carvajal is freed. The president likened Carvajal's arrest to an "ambush" and "kidnapping" that violates international law because he had been appointed the country's consul to the Caribbean island. Prosecutors in Aruba say that while Carvajal was carrying a diplomatic passport he isn't entitled to immunity because he was not yet accredited by the Netherlands, which runs foreign affairs for its former colony.

"We won't let our honor or that of any Venezuelan be sullied by campaigns orchestrated from the empire," Maduro said in a speech Thursday night.

On Friday afternoon, judge Yvonne van Wersch emerged from the hearing to announce that she would take several hours to decide whether Carvajal had immunity.

"I want to make my own decision," she said.

Carvajal, who earned Chavez's trust as a military cadet in the early 1980s, has long been a target of U.S. law enforcement.

In 2008, he was blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury along with two other senior military officials for allegedly providing weapons and fake Venezuelan identity papers to Marxist rebels in Colombia so they could travel easily across the border. The U.S. has classified the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as a terrorist organization and has indicted its top leadership on narcotics charges.

While Chavez always denied that officials in his government were aiding the FARC, material retrieved from a computer belonging to a senior rebel commander and seized by Colombian forces in a 2008 air raid seemed to place Carvajal front and center in what appears to have been a fluid relationship between the rebels and Venezuela's military.

In one communication from January 2007, the rebel leader known by his alias Ivan Marquez recounts for fellow commanders how he met with Carvajal and another army general and was promised delivery of 20 "very powerful bazookas."

The indictment against Carvajal doesn't discuss ties to the FARC. Instead, it focuses on payments he and other senior military officials allegedly received from Wilber Varela, one of Colombia's biggest kingpins before his 2008 murder in Venezuela.

Carvajal's attorney Chris Lejuez told The Associated Press on Friday that his client denies all charges against him and will seek diplomatic immunity from extradition. Even if freed, a final ruling on the U.S. extradition request could take several days.

Carvajal was being held in the central town of Santa Cruz in Aruba. Heavily armed officers were posted outside the police station where Friday's hearing will take place, due to security concerns. A reporter noted what appeared to be a sniper on the roof.

Carvajal's arrest follows the unsealing in southern Florida this week of an indictment against two other Venezuelan officials for allegedly working to protect another Colombian drug trafficker.

According to a criminal complaint, police officer Rodolfo McTurk was serving as the director of Interpol in Venezuela when he confronted an unnamed trafficker arrested in February 2009. After negotiations, the trafficker allegedly agreed to pay McTurk $400,000 in cash immediately and $75,000 a month to be released and allowed to continue his activities.

Three traffickers told a special agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that the operations could not have continued without McTurk's help.

Each month, McTurk allegedly went to the home of the trafficker and received $75,000 in cash, once demanding payment in the form of armor-plated SUVs.

The Colombian trafficker was later arrested again and extradited to the U.S.

McTurk is believed to be residing in Venezuela. But his co-defendant, Benny Palmeri-Bacchi, was arrested last week trying to enter the U.S. with his wife and 5-year-old son for a two-week vacation at Disney World, his attorney, Edward Abramson, told The Associated Press. A former judge and attorney, Palmeri-Bacchi pleaded not guilty at a Thursday hearing. His attorney declined further comment on the allegations against his client.

A spokeswoman for the Miami U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment.

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman reported this story from Bogota, Colombia, and Dilma Arends Geerman from Oranjestad, Aruba. AP writers Christine Armario in Miami, Hannah Dreier in Caracas and Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed to this report.

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-official-seeks-immunity-aruba-ruling-174006174.html

[DDF]

"Carvajal's only option to avoid going to jail for a long, long time is going to be to cooperate, and that is going to be devastating for a lot of senior Venezuelan officials,"


Or... the Venezuelan government could grow a pair, invade Aruba on grounds of hostility toward Venezuelan citizens, and tell the US to pound sand.

The US does use the drug war to push their agendas and influence in other countries, and as an employee to one of the parties, I can say, many view US intrusion as unwlecome, and not always due to corruption either... sometimes it's just called minding your own business and taking care of problems that actually have to do with one's own citizens.


My two cents.

[captainccs]

DDF:

American "intrusion" is both welcome and not welcome, depending on what it is and depending on who minds and who does not mind.  In any case, The US is losing LatAm with Obama's extreme "flexibility."


One day's Yahoo Latin-America headlines:

Japanese PM opens LatAm tour with Mexico energy deals

Chinese president ends regional tour in cradle of Cuban Revolution

Chinese leader signs accords, wraps up Cuba visit

Chinese president backs Cuba's economic reforms

China, Venezuela deepen economic ties during visit

Cuba hopes for more investment as Chinese president arrives

China, Russia leaders seek South American inroads

Chinese leader woos Latin America with deals

Brazil, China sign several trade, business deals

Russia set to reopen Soviet-era spy post on Cuba: source

China seeks to build railways in Brazil to ship out commodities

BRICS meet South American leaders after bank deal

Putin, Kirchner seek 'multipolarity' in Argentina visit

China's leader Xi departs for South America tour

Putin signs nuclear energy deal with Argentina

Putin in Argentina, building Russian ties

Putin in Cuba, Nicaragua to rekindle Latin America ties

BRICS to launch bank, tighten Latin America ties

Putin kicks off Latin America tour with Cuba stop

Putin pledges to help Cuba explore for offshore oil

Putin in Cuba to rekindle Latin America ties

http://news.yahoo.com/latin-america/

[DDF]

DDF:

American "intrusion" is both welcome and not welcome, depending on what it is and depending on who minds and who does not mind.  In any case, The US is losing LatAm with Obama's extreme "flexibility."

Obama is a chump. I can't state the disdain I have for him.

[captainccs]

Too bad Aruba ket the guy go. 

Aruba releases Venezuelan diplomat sought by US
Associated Press By JOSHUA GOODMAN and DAVID McFADDEN
22 minutes ago
 
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A former Venezuelan general detained in Aruba on U.S. drug charges was released by the Dutch Caribbean island and sent home Sunday night, authorities said.

Venezuela's government said Hugo Carvajal was flying to Caracas with Deputy Foreign Minister Calixto Ortega.

Earlier in the day, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua read parts of what he said was a letter from the Netherlands' ambassador in Caracas agreeing with Venezuela's position that Carvajal's detention violated international law because he had been sent to Aruba as Venezuela's consul and was carrying a diplomatic passport.

Authorities in Aruba had argued previously that Carvajal didn't have immunity from arrest because he had yet to be accredited by the Netherlands, which manages the foreign affairs of its former colony that sits off the coast of Venezuela.

But at a hastily called news conference in Aruba's capital, the island's justice minister said Carvajal was being let go under a decision Sunday by the Dutch government. Dowers said Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans had decided Carvajal did have immunity but also declared him "persona non grata" — a term used by governments to remove foreign diplomats.

"The fact is that Mr. Carvajal was granted diplomatic immunity, but he is also considered persona non grata. He has to abandon our territory as soon as possible," Dowers told reporters at a news conference in Oranjestad that was streamed live on the Internet.

Aruba's justice minister and Chief Prosecutor Peter Blanken stressed that Carvajal had no accreditation to serve as a diplomat locally on the island so officials had decided to comply with the detention request from Washington based on an international treaty between the U.S. and the Dutch Kingdom.

"But that information changed today based on what Minister Timmermans of the Netherlands said. And Aruba has to follow instructions," Dowers said.

He said U.S. officials were "very disappointed" with the decision to free Carvajal.

Carvajal served for five years until 2009 as the late President Hugo Chavez's head of military intelligence. The two met in the early 1980s at the military academy in Caracas and later took up arms together in a failed 1992 coup that catapulted Chavez to fame and set the stage for his eventual rise to power.

His arrest Wednesday and possible extradition to the United States had threatened to further damage already fractious relations with Washington.

Carvajal was the highest-ranking Venezuelan official ever arrested on a U.S. warrant. In 2008, he was one of three senior Venezuelan military officers blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury for allegedly providing weapons and safe haven to Marxist rebels in neighboring Colombia.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are classified a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. U.S. prosecutors have indicted all of the movement's top leadership, including senior commanders with whom Carvajal purportedly conspired, on charges of smuggling large amounts of cocaine.

Carvajal has denied any wrongdoing on those counts as well as charges unsealed this week in southern Florida that he was an associate of Wilber Varela, a major Colombian drug trafficker who was murdered in Venezuela in 2008.

The U.S. warrant has rallied supporters of Maduro's socialist government, who regularly accuse the United States of conspiring against it.

Maduro this week condemned Carvajal's arrest as a "kidnapping" orchestrated by the U.S., while Jaua on Sunday said the former general's only crime "is having defended the life of ex-president Chavez during 15 years."

___

Associated Press writer Joshua Goodman reported this story in Bogota, Colombia, and David McFadden reported from Kingston, Jamaica.


http://news.yahoo.com/aruba-releases-venezuelan-diplomat-sought-us-005342920.html

[Crafty_Dog]

 Venezuela's Faltering Oil Sector Could Drag Down Petrocaribe
Analysis
August 27, 2014 | 0414 Print Text Size
Venezuela's Faltering Oil Sector Could Drag Down Petrocaribe
The Petrocaribe summit in Managua in June 2013. (INTI OCON/AFP/Getty Images)
Summary

The decline of the Venezuelan oil sector could have wider effects in Central America and the Caribbean. Venezuela supplies crude oil and refined fuel shipments at reduced cost to 15 countries in the region under the Petrocaribe pricing mechanism. Some of these countries depend on Venezuelan supplies for most of their energy use. Caracas has so far been able to maintain fuel supplies to these states because their low energy demands do not strain Venezuela's refining capacity. However, as Venezuela's energy sector declines -- and public finances deteriorate -- Venezuela eventually could change its terms for financing such shipments or reduce them altogether.
Analysis

The Petrocaribe oil financing scheme began in 2005 under former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Petrocaribe was conceived as a means of securing political allies among Caribbean and Central American states that depend heavily on fossil fuel imports. From the start of Petrocaribe, Venezuela offered financing that varied according to the international price of Venezuelan crude oil. The amount financed by Venezuela drops as the price of oil falls and rises as the price increases. For example, when Venezuelan oil prices equal or exceed $80, the buying nation pays 50 percent of the total cost of each oil shipment agreed upon, and the remainder is payable over 25 years at a 2 percent yearly interest rate. Under the current terms of Petrocaribe financing, member states must pay 40 percent of each shipment's cost up front, and 60 percent can be paid off over 25 years. Venezuela has accepted food, services and goods as payment for the oil, leading to undisclosed accumulated debts from pending payments.
Venezuela's Export Priorities

Overall, Petrocaribe is a small part of Venezuelan oil exports. In 2013, the outflow of oil products to Cuba, Petrocaribe and an additional preferential deal with Argentina totaled only about 240,600 barrels per day of the country's 2.1 million bpd of overall exports. Petrocaribe that year accounted for nearly 112,000 bpd. Because many Petrocaribe client nations lack the refinery capacity to effectively process Venezuela's heavy crude oil, more than half of products shipped to Petrocaribe countries are more expensive refined products such as fuel oil, diesel or gasoline. Since 2002, Venezuela has maintained an agreement with Cuba that currently provides the island with 99,000 barrels of oil and refined products per day -- more than half the country's oil consumption. The energy relationship with Cuba is crucial to the security of the Venezuelan government and is a higher priority than the Petrocaribe shipments. Unlike Petrocaribe, most of what Cuba receives is crude oil. In 2012, 85,000 of the 91,000 bpd that Cuba received were crude oil.
Venezuela Oil Production
Click to Enlarge

Venezuela continues to supply oil and refined fuels under the Petrocaribe scheme because those shipments do not significantly burden state-owned energy firm Petroleos de Venezuela, which is known by its Spanish acronym, PDVSA. However, Venezuela's depleted public finances and declining energy production have cast some doubt over the company's future willingness and ability to continue providing these shipments. Because of the fear of public backlash, Venezuela is unlikely to take decisive economic measures to alleviate the financial pressure on the energy sector anytime soon. Venezuela likely will continue Petrocaribe for as long as it can but will not hesitate to raise prices or reduce shipments if they threaten supplies to Cuba or its domestic market.
Domestic Financial Difficulties and Petrocaribe

The Venezuelan government's growing need for cash could eventually force Caracas to decide on the future of Petrocaribe shipments. Venezuela's reduced public finances mostly resulted from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela's using Petroleos de Venezuela to fund high levels of social spending. This has placed significant pressure on the company, which has increasingly required transfers from the central bank to plug gaps in its finances. Despite reducing direct social spending from $30 billion in 2011 to $13 billion in 2013 and having Venezuelan oil prices steady at around $100 per barrel for most of 2013, the company still required assistance from the Venezuelan central bank. For 2013, the company posted a $15.8 billion net profit, of which about $12 billion appeared to be a direct transfer from the central bank.

Petroleos de Venezuela President Rafael Ramirez has promoted a series of economic reforms to turn around the company's deteriorating finances, one of which is cutting down on cash transfers to off-budget funds. However, the government has shied away from implementing more decisive measures, largely because of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's reduced popularity, caused by rampant inflation and growing food shortages. For several months, Ramirez has promoted economic adjustments, such as raising the price of subsidized gasoline, which costs Petroleos de Venezuela about $12.5 billion yearly. However, key members of the country's economic Cabinet -- such as Vice President Jorge Arreaza, Foreign Minister Elias Jaua and Central Bank President Nelson Merentes -- oppose major decisions because of their potential to cost the party public support ahead of the December 2015 legislative elections. With no decisive economic measures on the horizon, reductions in Petrocaribe shipments could free up cash to benefit the public sector.

The most immediate impact of a reduction in Petrocaribe shipments would be energy supplies rapidly becoming more expensive for small states. Because of their extreme dependence on Petrocaribe for energy, Nicaragua, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Haiti likely would be the most affected by such a measure. Of the four countries, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica appear to be the best positioned to withstand a reduction or cutoff of Petrocaribe shipments. The Dominican Republic relies on Petrocaribe supplies for about 23 percent of its imports, and Jamaica relies on the discounted energy from Venezuela for about 32 percent of its imports. The other two receive more than 90 percent of supplies from Venezuela. In case of changes to Petrocaribe financing or volumes, these countries would be able to procure oil from the United States, although it would be at full price.

In the case of Nicaragua, the removal of Petrocaribe pricing or supplies would likely result in the loss of a significant source of off-budget funds. The ruling Sandinista National Liberation Front relies on Petrocaribe to fund Albanisa, a joint venture held by Petroleos de Venezuela and the government of Nicaragua. In 2013, Nicaragua paid Venezuela $1 billion for imports of crude oil and refined products and received half that payment back in the form of a direct transfer to Albanisa. Under the terms of Albanisa, 40 percent of this total can be employed directly by Nicaragua, and the remainder is used for projects approved by Petroleos de Venezuela. This arrangement likely left Nicaragua with at least an additional $200 million in 2013, and with Nicaraguan budget expenditures for 2013 at $2 billion, the infusion of cash from Petrocaribe likely provided the ruling party with an additional financial cushion. The loss of this financing would force Nicaragua to finance public spending using government revenue and the undisclosed amounts saved in Albanisa accounts.

Petroleos de Venezuela likely will continue supplying Petrocaribe energy supplies under the current terms for as long as it can. A reduction in Petrocaribe shipments probably is not imminent but will become more plausible if the Venezuelan government does not relieve the financial burden on Petroleos de Venezuela. Some of the financial measures under consideration, such as moving dollars from off-budget funds to the country's foreign reserves, could give Petroleos de Venezuela room to continue Petrocaribe, but such moves will not have a decisive effect on Venezuela's overall decline. If Venezuela experiences problems in maintaining oil exports under its political agreements, it is likely to reduce supplies to Petrocaribe members before it chooses to reduce similar shipments to Cuba.

Read more: Venezuela's Faltering Oil Sector Could Drag Down Petrocaribe | Stratfor

[DougMacG]

It looks like Stratfor has already covered this.  I wonder what Denny S. sees happening there.  Does this weaken the regime or just make things worse?

http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/10/venezuela-not-russia-will-be-the-first-domino-to-fall-with-the-price-of-oil/
Venezuela, Not Russia, Will Be The First Domino To Fall With The Price of Oil

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2014/12/10/venezuela-us-flooding-market-with-fracking-produced-oil/
Venezuela: U.S. flooding market with fracking-produced oil

[captainccs]

Thanks for asking. Let's start with the basics:

African saying: When elephants fight the grass gets trampled. At the OPEC meeting Saudi Arabia and its Sunni allies carried the day.

Nicholas Maduro is a bus driver and you can expect bus driver wisdom from him.

Oil prices are set at the margin but that is not the price at which the bulk of oil is sold. Spot is the speculators' price. Most real buyers and sellers have hedged their trades. Notice that the Fox article correctly talks about average selling price.

The Daily Caller article is a political commentator doing his job, speculating on worst case scenarios.

The power play: The purpose of cartels is to exert control, in the case of OPEC to control oil prices. The power to do so comes from the capacity to flood the market. For decades the Saudi's had that power specially with full OPEC backing. Iran is an OPEC member but Russia is not. For all practical purposes, while an important player, Russia is not and has not been a key player. That role belonged to OPEC and within OPEC to Saudi Arabia. I use the past tense because fracking upset the equilibrium.

On a side note: I have been advocating American energy independence for years and when fracking came online I predicted both the recovery of the American economy and a lessening of the power of the oil exporters (without predicting any details). When everyone was predicting the demise of the US dollar, my position was that if the dollar failed the whole world would plunge into chaos (for a while). I also commented that trying to replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency would have dire consequences. Saddam Hussein wanted to sell oil in euros, he ended, soon after, hung. Coincidence? Maybe.

The current situation, as I see it, is that Saudi Arabia and its Sunni OPEC allies are trying to give US frackers a "good sweating" to use a Rockefeller phrase. It is important to note that while the Arab oil producers are monarchies the US producers operate in a free market where collusion is illegal. It's not equal combat, the Arabs stand as a block, the Americans as a swarm. the outcome will be interesting! In any case, Russia and Venezuela are bit players of little consequence despite their large output. Should the Arabs win, the situation goes back to the previous state. Should the Arab "good sweating" fail, it will be the US frackers, turn to give the Arabs a "good sweating." That could break OPEC's power. I'm not making any predictions except to say that in price wars the "arms suppliers" and the consumers are the beneficiaries. Economists will worry about deflation but it is good deflation.

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

The question was about Venezuela.

First, during Chavismo Venezuela has not received the full price for its oil. The discounts and special deals with Cuba and PetroCaribe to buy international votes is well known. What special concessions the Chinese got is less well known. Chavismo has a slogan:  "Venezuela es de todos" referring to the oligarchy. In truth now  "Venezuela es de los nica, de los cubanos y de todos los amigos del chavismo."

Second, at the current black market exchange rate it costs 3 US cents to fill the tank of my Toyota Corolla, tip included. Some Chavista factions wanted to raise the price of gas as part of the crisis management. Maduro nixed it. He is a bus driver, not an economist.

Third, from Black Friday, February 18, 1983, to Maduro, the bolivar/dollar exchange rate increase by 30 to 35% annually. Over the past 5 or 6 months it doubled! Inflation is presumably running at 70%.

A Short Note On My Hyperinflated Arepa Index



Two weeks ago, as I left Caracas on Nov. 22nd. to be precise, I wrote about the cost of a breakfast which I found expensive for Venezuelans, which included cheese arepas. As I returned to Caracas two short weeks later, I went to have a single cheese arepa at the same place. Imagine my surprise when I found that the Bs. 120 cheese arepa of fifteen days ago, now costs Bs. 156.

That is a 30% increase in two weeks. A year ago I would eat two for Bs. 120.

Thus, I will keep reporting on the hyperinflated arepa in the future.

BTW, they are still delicious…

http://devilsexcrement.com/2014/12/07/a-short-note-on-my-hyperinflated-arepa-index/

Fourth, in Chavista ideology, small farmers are good while industrialists (capitalists) are bad. This has consequences. Fresh fruit and farm produce including fresh eggs are abundantly available but packaged good are not, specially price controlled ones. While rice is price controlled and nowhere to be seen but you can buy parboiled or flavored varieties at several times the controlled price. Pasta you can generally find both price controlled and market priced varieties. Price controlled cleaning products are scarce and there are no "fancy" ones. But you can buy them from scalpers (black market) at four times the controlled price.

All sorts of things appear and disappear: toilette paper, car batteries, roasted coffee, medicines, spare parts as price controls and dollar availability cause scarcity and crisis management by Maduro temporarily solves the problems.

Fifth, The above is what you can see on the street. What happens inside Chavismo and the balance of powers in government I'm not privy to. But you get some glances: A drug dealer is named ambassador or something to Aruba, the US tries to get him but the Dutch let him go home.

Netherlands Says Venezuelan Detained in Aruba Has Immunity

http://interamericansecuritywatch.com/netherlands-says-venezuelan-detained-in-aruba-has-immunity/

Then Hugo Carvajal is rumored dead, the government denies it:

http://noticiasvenezuela.org/2014/09/alcaldesa-de-cedeno-desmiente-muerte-de-hugo-carvajal/

Since then Carvajal has dropped out of the news. On to the next crisis.

Cuba and North Korea are just two example that show that economic collapse does not mean the government must fall, that depends on the ruthlessness of the government. I have often said that Venezuela is a democracy by the consent of the military. The military is entrenched in Venezuela and they are given free rain to run drugs or any other money making scheme or scam. That was partly the basis of Hugo's hold on power.

Venezuela has a serious cash flow problem which will be made worse by the falling oil prices. Maduro's envoy to China begging for more loans was sent packing. In fact, the Chinese are pissed off that Venezuela is giving other loans preference over the Chinese debt. Venezuela started selling PetroCaribe bonds to Goldman Sachs at half par value. But with a bus driver in charge, who can tell what foolishness will follow?

Beer is back! Hurrah!

Denny Schlesinger

[DougMacG]

Rough translation (through google) of Denny's Spanish language post today:

Maduro was humiliated in Russia

DolarToday / Jan 6 , 2015 @ 7:00 a.m.

Nicolas Maduro was humiliated in Russia when received by an official of third rank of the Putin administration , Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation , Sergey Ryabkov Alexeevich.

Despite the humiliation received, Maduro expressed " solidarity with the government of President Putin to claim destabilizing USA ", he said the minister.

The Minister for Communication and Information, Jacqueline Faria, reported that this visit of Venezuelan president to Russia is a pre-destined for an international tour that will take work to China and nations of OPEC (OPEC).

" Technical stop in Moscow at the top of this presidential tour of China, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Algeria ," he wrote in his JacquelinePSUV account , which also published photos of the game , which can be seen participating in the meeting Minister for Economy , Finance and Public Banking, Rodolfo Marco Torres, and Chancellor Delcy Rodríguez .

Maduro began Sunday trip to the People's Republic of China to strengthen bilateral cooperation relations diplomatic, economic and commercial character with this nation.

During his visit to China , Maduro will meet with President Xi Jinping and also participate in the first China - ministerial forum Community of Latin American and Caribbean States ( CELAC) which will be held on 8 and 9 January in Beijing.

Later, he will tour countries of the OPEC in order to address the issue of falling oil prices.

[captainccs]

Defying U.S., Cuba stands by Venezuela on eve of regional summit
Reuters By Nelson Acosta
38 minutes ago

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba said on Wednesday it would remain steadfast by Venezuela even as it seeks to improve ties with the United States, criticizing Washington's Venezuela policy before a summit meeting where the U.S. and Cuban leaders will meet face-to-face.

Cuban Vice-President Miguel Diaz-Canel chastised Washington over its decision last month to declare Venezuela a national security threat and order sanctions against seven Venezuelan officials.

"Nobody could think that in a process of re-establishing relations, which we're trying to move forward on with the United States, Cuban support for Venezuela could be made conditional," Diaz-Canel, the heir apparent to Cuban President Raul Castro, told reporters in Havana.

"If they attack Venezuela, they're attacking Cuba. And Cuba will always be on Venezuela's side above all things," he said.

Under late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Venezuela became Cuba's closest ally and its most important benefactor.

When Raul Castro and U.S. President Barack Obama announced in December that the longtime enemies would restore full diplomatic relations and seek to improve trade, the move was widely applauded by Latin American governments.

But the praise of Obama's policy shift was tempered when the United States imposed the Venezuela sanctions on May 9, and the controversy now hangs over the Summit of the Americas in Panama this week.

Ahead of the meeting, the U.S. government has tried to persuade Latin American leaders that declaring Venezuela a security threat was a prerequisite for the sanctions, not a signal of U.S. aggression.

"The wording ... is completely pro forma," Ben Rhodes, a national security advisor to Obama, told reporters on Tuesday. "This is a language that we use in executive orders around the world. So the United States does not believe that Venezuela poses some threat to our national security."

Thomas Shannon, a top aide to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, was in Caracas on Wednesday to meet with senior Venezuelan leaders in an effort to ease tensions.

(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Kieran Murray)

http://news.yahoo.com/defying-u-cuba-stands-venezuela-eve-regional-summit-022934119.html

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

Under late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Venezuela became Cuba's closest ally and its most important benefactor.

Not ally, exploited colony! While Venezuela is broke we still give away our oil to our Imperal Masters, the Cubans.

[captainccs]

The rate at which the bolivar is falling is unprecedented. Today the parallel market is quoted at Bs 423.39 to the dollar is down in just a week from 285 or so. That's a 33% drop in a week or ten days. This is getting really scary!


Currency tumbles as Venezuelans look to offload bolivars
Associated Press By HANNAH DREIER
3 hours ago

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — A staggering plunge in the free market value of Venezuelan currency sent people scrambling to sell off their depreciating bolivars Friday.

The widely followed website DolarToday, which tracks exchanges along the Colombian border, reported that the South American country's currency lost a quarter of its value over the last eight days.

The site's app has become so ubiquitous that everyone in smartphone-obsessed Caracas seemed to find out about the crash through 400 to the dollar at the same instant, as DolarToday sent out a series of alerts announcing the new numbers under the headline "hyperinflation!"

Venezuelan currency was trading at 415 bolivars per dollar Friday, according to the site. That's down from 300 bolivars per dollar on May 14. It stood at 173 when the year started.

While many black market dealers paused transactions until the rate stabilizes, some Venezuelans said they had changed money at the 400 bolivar rate Friday.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the sudden drop, though a Barclay Capital Inc. report issued Friday described the underlying cause as government expansion of the money supply.

"We do not see any signal of change from the authorities but these risks should make them reconsider their policies," it said.

Barclays projected the Bolivar could dip as low as 600 to the dollar this year.

The administration of President Nicolas Maduro keeps tight control over the legal exchange of bolivars, using a byzantine three-tier system. It is meant to subsidize crucial imports, but has led to widespread corruption and speculation.

The strongest rate is 6.3 bolivars per dollar. The weakest official rate, which was billed as an alternative to the black market when it was rolled out earlier their year, has inched up to 200 bolivars per dollar. The fact many are willing to pay double that price for black-market dollars indicates the supply is limited.

The Maduro administration has been hoarding dollars as it grapples with falling oil prices. That has contributed to shortages and other economic distortions.

DolarToday is openly hostile to the socialist government and carries news stories attacking it. But the site insists its exchange rate reports are based on actual trades at exchange houses on the Colombian side of the border and are not manipulated to undercut the government.

In April, Maduro repeated his assertion that the site's shadowy managers, whose identities are not public, are collaborating with the speculators and opposition leaders he blames for the country's problems. He accused them of purposely sowing chaos and promised to have them arrested.

"We're going to put those people at DolarToday who are waging an economic war against Venezuela behind bars, sooner rather than later" he said.

The site, which is sometimes blocked within Venezuela, responded with a cheeky video documenting its popularity set to the club hit "Turn Down for What."


http://news.yahoo.com/currency-tumbles-venezuelans-look-offload-bolivars-161058938.html

[captainccs]

When exchange controls were introduced holding dollars or trading in dollars were made illegal, a move as stupid as banning drugs or alcohol in the USA. It does not work! Not even the Bank of England could protect the pound sterling against market forces, instead it made George Soros rich. Prohibition made the Mafia and Canadian distillers rich. The War on Drugs is making drug cartels, including Venezuelan officials, rich.

Because it did not work, the government set up bond trading schemes that effectively bypassed the bans. Until recently inflation/devaluation was held to around 30 to 35% annually but with the falling oil prices, rising dollar and Maduro's falling popularity (not that he ever was popular even with Chavistas), the bolivar has crumbled and there is nothing that the government can do about it.

I have long held that Venezuela's salvation was bankruptcy, the inability of government to buy votes. That is now coming to pass. The danger is that the uprising can be cruelly violent as was the case of the French Revolution.


Businesses quietly switch to dollar in socialist Venezuela
Associated Press By HANNAH DREIER
18 hours ago

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — It's still possible to buy a gleaming Ford truck in Venezuela, rent a chic apartment in Caracas, and snag an American Airlines flight to Miami. Just not in the country's official currency.

As the South American nation spirals into economic chaos, an increasing number of products are not only figuratively out of the reach of average consumers, but literally cannot be purchased in Venezuelan bolivars, which fell into a tailspin on the black market last week.

Businesses and individuals are turning to dollars even as the anti-American rhetoric of the socialist administration grows more strident. It's a shift that's allowing parts of the economy to limp along despite a cash crunch and the world's highest inflation. But it could put some goods further out of reach of the working class, whose well-being has been the focal point of the country's 16-year-old socialist revolution.

The latest sign of an emerging dual-currency system came earlier this month when Ford Motor Co. union officials announced the company had reached a deal with officials to sell trucks and sports utility vehicles in dollars only.

A few weeks earlier, American Airlines said it had stopped accepting bolivars for any of its 19 weekly flights out of Venezuela. Customers must now use a foreign credit card to buy the tickets online. Virtually all other foreign carriers have made the same switch with the government's consent, according to the Venezuela Airlines Association.

Driving the shift is the crumbling value of the bolivar, which has lost more than half its value this year, plunging to 400 per dollar on the free market as Venezuelans scramble to convert their savings into a more stable currency. Desperate, people are selling bolivars for a rate 60 times weaker than the strongest of country's three official exchange rates.

It's a politically uncomfortable situation for President Nicolas Maduro, who regularly leads chants of "gringo go home" and says currency speculation is one of the main tools used by enemies to try to sow chaos and force him from power.

It's not just businesses chasing greenbacks. Real estate contracts are still drafted in bolivars to satisfy a requirement imposed by late President Hugo Chavez, but in upscale neighborhoods most owners operate outside the law and sell and rent in dollars only. A group of realtors in tony eastern Caracas has established a password-protected website for listings in dollar prices.

Analysts say the administration likely sees a limited dollarization as the only way to prevent multinationals from leaving the county altogether, as Clorox did last year, citing problems brought about by decade-old currency controls, supply shortages and inflation that hit 68 percent last year, and economists believe is now well into the triple digits.

Production at Ford has fallen by 90 percent as the company struggles to gain access to dollars needed to import parts. Customers will now transfer Ford dollars in advance to pay for the import of the parts needed to assemble the cars in Venezuela, according to union officials.

Foreign airlines made their switch to dollars after the government refused to let them convert and repatriate $4 billion in ticket sales held in the country.

Meanwhile, inflation is racing so fast that ATMs have failed to keep pace. Many deliver a maximum of just $1.50 worth of bolivars per transaction. Some shoppers stay away from cash altogether, according to reports in local media, leaning more heavily on credit cards so they can pay for purchases later, when they'll cost less in dollar terms thanks to inflation.

Decade-old price controls make staple items ridiculously cheap for all Venezuelans. A bottle of vegetable oil costs 20 cents at the black market rate, a package of rice costs half that, and a sack of sugar costs even less.

Still, many working-class Venezuelans are looking for ways to accumulate their own stockpile of the U.S. currency by offering services to wealthy or foreign clients.

"It's the only way we can try to stay ahead," said one gym teacher who supplements his $25 a month salary by offering personal training to clients who can pay in dollars. The teacher, who asked that his name not be used to protect his safety, keeps his bills hidden around his home until a friend or obliging client can deposit them in his Miami bank account.

The move toward currency substitution doesn't sit well with hardcore government supporters, many of whom cut their political teeth listening to Chavez's tirades against the "dictatorship of the dollar."

"How is it possible that in the face of the U.S. effort to sabotage the revolution, we are allowing transnational companies to conduct business with the imperialist dollar in our country?" wrote Omar Hernandez, an engineer who works for Chavista community programs, on the influential pro-government website Aporrea.

But outside economists say Maduro would be wise to embrace the dollar outright.

Steve Hanke, a Johns Hopkins University economist who has long advised governments facing currency crises, says replacing the bolivar with the dollar would nip Venezuela's inflation problem almost overnight and become an anchor of economic stability, though it could also force austerity measures. He points to the example of Maduro ally Rafael Correa in Ecuador, who has railed against the U.S. during his eight years in office but has so far shown no desire to bring back the old national currency, which the country did away with in favor of the dollar.

At the Ford factory, workers are optimistic that the new deal will save their jobs, according to union leader Gerardo Troya. In fact, they have an idea for more dollarization: They'd like to be paid in U.S. currency now too, starting at $8 a day.

http://news.yahoo.com/businesses-quietly-switch-dollar-socialist-venezuela-040219420.html

[DougMacG]

"I have long held that Venezuela's salvation was bankruptcy, the inability of government to buy votes. That is now coming to pass. The danger is that the uprising can be cruelly violent "


For even a town to be too dependent on one industry often leads to demise.  And I would argue that having the government sell off the natural resources does not fully count as production or industry.

With a 6 year term, it is 2019 before voters can knock Maduro out?

It is much like our problems here only so much worse.  Very frustrating that people can't just vote in the policies that would address and correct the known ills even when they finally do have the chance.  Maduro, I assume, governed essentially the way people knew he would.  He and his supporters were just badly mistaken about the results of those policies.

[captainccs]

The first thing to know is how and why Maduro came to power. My background as a management consultant helped me figure out local power structures. Often owners trust certain people more than they trust checks and balances which results in trusted but not necessarily competent people in key posts. I saw it often in business.

Maduro was the most harmless lackey Chavez could find to fill the post of vice president. When Chavez died Maduro took his place. For the next election there was a lot of strange maneuvering, probably some of it illegal, to make Maduro the official candidate. During the campaign I heard loyal Chavistas declare that Maduro would be a total failure. Maduro is imitating Chavez but he does not have his organizing skills. In any case, it is hard to know where power really sits, most likely in Havana. But while Cuba is opening up the the US, Maduro is sticking with anti-imperialism as his political motif.

The other thing to consider is that drug running is big business which does not benefit the country but it sure enriches the drug barons. These are the people running the country. The US would be a big help in defusing the world's problems if they abandoned the totally useless, worse, counterproductive, war on drugs.

The next election coming up is for the National Assembly and it's supposed to be this year but the dates have not been announced. The consensus is for the opposition to win a majority but my prediction is the opposite, not based on the vote count but on fraud. In any case, amazing as it may seem, Chavismo still has a lot of popular support because the official propaganda has been able to pin the failure on capitalist greed. If economists don't understand economics, what can you expect of ordinary people?