July 25, 2003
From the desk of Jane Galt:Fun facts of the week
* You're whining about the current recession? By the end of this year, Venezuela's economy will be almost 20% smaller than it was at the end of 2001.
* In 2001, public debt made up about 20% of bank assets in Argentina. Now it's nearly 80%.
Posted by Jane Galt at July 25, 2003 11:52 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksI was in Caracas in mid-2001; you could tell, even in only a few days there, that serious shit would hit the fan in 6-18 months.
The city is in chaos; we were told not to go out in groups of less than 3-4, and to not hail a taxi from the street (in case of kidnapping).
I'm actually surprised Chavez survived this long.
On another note: middle-class Venezuelan women almost all seem to have had plastic surgery, and go out heavily made up & dressed to the nines (I'm talking gold lame dresses at the mall at 11 am here).
Well, let's not start comparing ourselves to Argentina and Venezuela, just yet...
“On another note: middle-class Venezuelan women almost all seem to have had plastic surgery, and go out heavily made up & dressed to the nines (I'm talking gold lame dresses at the mall at 11 am here). “
Does this indicate that these women do not take themselves seriously? An adult female who has got a life---simply does not have time to get “dressed to the nines” simply to go shopping at the mall. Is Venezuela still the land of the male chauvinist pig? Are their males only a step ahead of the Muslim fanatics?
What happened to change the assets bank held in Argentina?
During the forced pesification, the government issued the banks bonds to make up for the losses they took on the exchange rate. Meanwhile, foreign private assets (and a fair number of domestic ones) fled the banks as fast as they could. It was a temporary fix that has essentially outsourced a big chunk of the government's risk to the banking system, the fate of which now pretty much moves in lockstep with the financial fate of the government. Since the government's finances are still extremely shaky, and their default risk is very high (although they've met their IMF primary surplus target for the first six months of this year), this is a very, very dangerous thing.
latin america and two income households aren't exactly common...
also, middle class is a misnomer...
its more a edwardian situation: there's a decent class of people who work but are not phenomenonally who can still afford servants and stay at home wives
whereas north america you're needing 200+ in household income (maybe 400+) to start having material comfort and domestic help (fulltime, not just a maid one day every other week)
Ah, ok. I'm curious, though; was the change the banks holding quadruple the government bonds, or more of all the private assets fleeing?
Private assets both fleed and lost a lot of their value; the bonds were issued to make up for the lost value of the pesified accounts.
David Thomson wrote:
'“On another note: middle-class Venezuelan women almost all seem to have had plastic surgery, and go out heavily made up & dressed to the nines (I'm talking gold lame dresses at the mall at 11 am here). “
Does this indicate that these women do not take themselves seriously?'
No, they take themselves *very seriously*.
BTW, Chavez's could have lost his election in..ermm..1998, I think, to a former Miss Universe, who was a mayor of one of the boroughs of Caracas, and had done quite a good job of it (she'd brought down crime by firing the old police and hiring new policemen on 3-4 times the old salary, so they weren't as easily bought off).
Unfortunately, she looked for endorsements from some of the older, corrupt political parties (like Accion Democratico) [Chavez gained power as a reaction against those parties; he'd tried another coup in 1992]. So she lost support, and Chavez won. Shame.
And yet the press still whitewashes the fact that Chavez is a brutal communist dictator. And condemns Bush for leaving Charles Taylor to rot on a vine at the hands of his own people -- oh excuse me, "rebels."
Why the blind love affair with really bad dudes?
And while you're chewing on that, just remember, Citgo is owned entirely by Venezuala. Remember that next time you're wondering how pump prices got so high -- got nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with Chavez's communist BS.
"Chavez is a brutal communist dictator"
False.
GT is always so helpful. I think here he dislikes the word "brutal".
Or maybe he's thinks "Communist" is wrong here. After all, Chavez said back in early June:"Fidel Castro, my friend and brother, is a communist, but Venezuela's project is not communist," Chavez said. "At this moment in Venezuela, the program cannot be a communist one." (from Yahoo news)
Hey, if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, but says it isn't a duck, it must be something else. At least "at this moment". Check back tomorrow.
BTW, Thursday (the 24th) marked the 220th birthday of Simon Bolivar.
The primary Latin American studies expert in my school's Liberal Arts division, and her husband -- both of which have extensively consulted with governments all over the South American continent and follow news there religiously in its native Portuguese and Spanish -- would have no problems whatsoever with the statement.
I wonder what experiences/information GT bases his counterassertion on.
Brutal?
How do you define that?
Several people have died in protest clashes but this is something that happens to this day in the rest of Latin America. there is no secret police carting people off to prison at midnight to be tortured, a la Cuba.
Same with Communist. Chavez may very well consider himself a communist but for the time being he has done precious little. The economy, heavily dependent on oil, is already very controlled by the govt through PDVSA, the state-owned oil company.
Finally, dictator? He has won every election he has run in and clearly so. He has never cancelled an election and is not due to do so for several years.
Chavez may become, with time, a brutal communist dictator. But to say he is that today is simply false.
If "Private assets flee" from a banking system, that would show up on the liability side of the balance sheet of the banks, not the asset side. The actual reason that the private/public asset mix has changed is that there are no viable borrowers in Argentina to lend to.
"He has never cancelled an election and is not due to do so for several years."
It's always a sign of honesty in a politician when he schedules cancelling elections in advance.
hehe
Yeah, I should have proofed that.
I meant that another presidential election is not due for several years.
Not in this case, D^2; there were a number of foreign banks in Argentina that have effectively pulled out. It's a significant, but not major, contibutor. But the biggest cause is not that there's no one to lend to, unless you've got sources in Argentinian banking with better info than mine; the banks in Argentina are not interested in making new loans. The primary cause of the divergence is the pesification and the loss of the peg, with losses made up by the abovementioned bonds.
there's lots of people who want to be loaned money
there's no one who's willing to loan money
and, um, setting up thug groups of bolivarian circles, visiting fidel nearly every month, and supporting FARC, a communist rebel narco-terrorist group, are all things associated with being a brutal communist dictator. he's only killed a "few" people... right...
and demanding the resignation of the supreme court is a good thing (but but fdr did it... and your point is?? he was but a few steps from being a commie and from handing the government over to communists, and the new deal was pretty bolshie)
GT if you're whole argument is that he hasn't, quite, done enough to be called brutal communist dictator, but that he'll get there soon, you've pretty much lost
and why do you think PDVSA hasn't been nationalised? cause everyone (EVERYONE) that works there has openly revolted against the government and is inches away from doing it again... those "bolivarian circles" aren't exactly up to snuff.. and there ain't no foreign source to help his ass out...
but venezuela is a good instruction piece: when you overthrow a gvernment, and you capture the president, kill him immediately! at least he won't come back... it's like those guys were complete idiots!
if you're whole argument is that he hasn't, quite, done enough to be called brutal communist dictator
The argument is that he is neither brutal, nor communist and certainly not a dictator. But I would be curious what your definition is of each term and how it applies to Chavez.
why do you think PDVSA hasn't been nationalised?
Because it was nationalised some 30 years ago.
Can anyone tell me if there is any truth to the rumour that the CIA was instrumental in the failed Chavez ouster? What evidence is there?
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