Simplistic's Robert Plummer economic report on Venezuela
When I read the report done by Robert Plummer as business reporter for BBC News, I was surprised for the lack of some details so necessary for the understanding of Venezuela economic behaviour and the internal and external interaction of the main economic factors.
The first quick appreciation of Mr Plummer is that Caracas is full of Bags of rubbish "piled up on patches of waste ground, while many walls were adorned with pro- and anti-Chavez graffiti". The garbage is not a new problem, it's a long lasting deficiency that a chaotic badly planned city has been still unable to solved, but what is the impression if I walk for London's streets on a day of recollection before the truck pick the bins up? exactly the same. London is "piled up on patches of waste ground", so his rush appreciation just add spice to a picture that some opinion maker are very keen to portrait. But he added "many walls were adorned with pro- and anti-Chavez graffiti". How on earth a "dictator" like Chavez is supposed to be measure when everybody is using all the means possible to put their message across, once the media is very selective of the message they wants to portrait. I am sure the goods pals of Mr Plummer behind his wonderful article understand what I mean when I say that many media choose a selective version of reality to mask their own interest. The culture of street's graffiti is a gauge on the political sphere. Unfortunately, with the exception of the unidentified British street artist Banksy, who is under prosecution for do what is a democratic right, Londoners may never understand what means write on a wall what is a meaningful message to your fellows. Of course, Mr Plummer don't take the time to reflect which are the contents of those graffiti's. In his first class mind, he may see just ugliness.
But Mr Plummer is very useful in many ways. He stated that "centre shops are now subject to raids by soldiers, checking to make sure prices have not been artificially raised in the wake of this month's currency devaluation". Which is not exactly true. Venezuela has a especial force to enforce the law, named National Guard, they are not the Army as Mr Plummer wants to portrait them.
Mr Plummer is very keen to highlighted the opinion of the Venezuelan opposition: "Opposition politicians have been quick to accuse the Chavez government of underinvestment, just as they did in 2006 when a viaduct collapsed on the main road from Caracas to the airport, rendering the highway impassable for more than a year". The Venezuelan opposition can says whatever they please, in a democratic system even the most cynical bastards are allow to refresh themselves. While in the viaduct collapsed for a wrong decision of bail out the bridge before take the right decision of bridge's demolition. There were more investment than ever, and was lost. By the way, the reconstruction efforts of the new bridge took less than a year, and again Mr Plummer fail the thrust to benefit his dramatization which aimed to portrait a incompetent government.
Now, finally taking about economics, Mr Plummer and his carelessness to the facts and details is outrageous. When he express that "more worrying is Venezuela's apparent inability to get to grips with persistent inflation, which is now the highest in Latin America, reaching an annual rate of at least 27% in 2009". He omitted on purpose or ignorance the fact that the structural inflation in Venezuela has a very strong anchor in the dependence of oil revenues. Too much money available on the hands of the Estate made all the economic factors live lazy on the back bone of the Estate, like blood suckers. This is not the first time that an attempt to encourage the industrial sector to be more responsible with the country is on the table. Always, the lack of real entrepreneurs, loyal to Venezuela, is dragging our possibilities in favour of external factors, giving the back to the Venezuelan population. The same factors that live in the political opposition, and are constantly receiving from the Estate Policies, productivity stimulus benefits.
The control of the inflation will never be possible without a internal production of goods and services. But unfortunately, an irrational personal benefit has always drive the industrial and service sectors. Such interest has set that a moderate profit of 10% like in UK or any other country is unacceptable, in Venezuela is a fool target when they can suck as much as a minimum of 40% profit from the population. I call that usury, and is a disgraceful culture in Venezuelan business sector. Nobody is happy with less than a solid floor of 40% profit. When in heaven, a supposed to be rational economic factors, will stop of dragging an entire population into their knees for their satisfaction's sake. That is exactly the point that is defended by President Chavez, but Mr Plummer rather avoid all this reasons and keep his eyes in the surface, where the speculation and sensational lays. The Exito supermarket chain is just one example of a notably known usury offender. They where used to play with the food like casino prizes.
In defence of the Exito supermarket chain, Mr Plummer said: "Yet there is little evidence that Exito was doing anything other than reflecting the higher costs of imported goods that now have to be paid for with Mr Chavez's devalued bolivars". But again Mr Plummer fails to establish the origin of the offences accumulate by Exito supermarket. The over marking of prices, food hidden, doubling prices and so on was an old practice of this chain. Many were the public sanctions against them. Any journalist can see their history, but Mr Plummer omitted it. As many speculators in Venezuela, that live from the profit they can milk from the Estate, they received dollars on a preferential rate and import goods that then priced 300% up according to a "market dollar" that was supposed to reflect the reposition value, but they came back to the Estate and received again more dollars on preferential rate, then they imported and priced 400% up the goods to be sale to the Venezuelan people. Such "market dollar" governed by a black market do not represent more that 5 to 10% of the real transaction of importation, but as matter of fact, all the Venezuelan business sectors used it as a valid reference to price everything. Obviously, to milk the pocket of the Estate and the people in such magnitude, is always a good business. That is a key difference between Venezuelan and Brazilian businessmen. The money voracity and the commitment to develop the national industry are inversely distribute in very opposite proposition in each country. Venezuela enjoys the money suckers champions, that usually run and put that money in Miami.
This situation is even sweeter, if that debilitated your political enemy. In that line, Mr Plummer has done a perfect job, when he vanished without see the details, praised to meet the expectations of foreign eyes. A concurrence of interest between Venezuelan coup d'état plotters and foreign right wing is not a coincidence. For sure Mr Plummer is aware of that, otherwise, the situation is worst.
No comments:
Post a Comment