The left behind Venezuela

"What ever happened to the new left in Latin America?" asked a friend when she was over here for dinner with a visiting Peruvian.

Remember those days of the Bolivarian Revolution?  Those were some heady days when Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and the Castro brothers made all the headlines, right?

Caption at the source:
President Nicolás Maduro, of Venezuela, at a rally in Caracas on Feb. 3.

Chavez has been gone for a while, and his anointed successor has been carrying the torch since.  Fidel is gone, with his brother carrying the torch since.  And, of course, Morales is still there.  But, as the Economist points out:

A bigger worry than regress in Latin America is political decay—“when political systems fail to adjust to changing circumstances” because of opposition from entrenched stakeholders, as Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, puts it. 

Political decay.  Of course, we here in the US have lost any moral high ground from which we can comment on political decay elsewhere.  But, I, who was consistently anti-trump and worried about him winning, and warned that the Berniacs will end up helping trump, have earned my privilege to comment on the decay anywhere!

Do you ever wonder though what the uber-liberals have to say about the disaster that has been the Latin American left?  Especially about Venezuela, after all the praises that they heaped on Chavez?  That left wing embrace of Chavez is why the the left is silent now.  Because, if they open their mouths about Venezuela, then they have to first acknowledge their error. 

As Bret Stephens, who I don't care much for, writes:

the Venezuelan regime was a cause of the left, cheered by people like Naomi Klein, Sean Penn and Danny Glover. Left-wing publications such as Glenn Greenwald’s “The Intercept” have gone out of their way to make excuses for the regime and treat its critics as Washington stooges. Jeremy Corbyn, who could yet be Britain’s next prime minister, memorialized the late dictator Hugo Chávez in 2013 for his “massive contributions to Venezuela & a very wide world.”

It is like how the left tied itself in knots after the Soviet Union came tumbling down.  Search all you want, but you will read practically nothing from those celebrities and intellectuals about contemporary Venezuela.  They have moved on to other topics that bring them fame and money.  Keep in mind that the likes of Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky are in the elite of elite when it comes to wealth that they accumulated from their writing and speaking about the favorite left causes of the day.

Stephens asks a good question:

How many more Venezuelans have to starve or drown before Western liberals do something more than merely shake their heads?

Ask your favorite Naomi Klein fan to answer that question!

From riches to rags! :(

It was once the richest country in the continent. Now, its people are fleeing. Some of its women try to make a living by doing sex work in the neighboring country.  Those who haven't fled are terribly undernourished.

No, it is not some cliched African country.  But, a country that until recently was a darling of the left.  Venezuela!

According to the International Monetary Fund, Venezuela’s GDP in 2017 is 35% below 2013 levels, or 40% in per capita terms. That is a significantly sharper contraction than during the 1929-1933 Great Depression in the United States, when US GDP is estimated to have fallen 28%. It is slightly bigger than the decline in Russia (1990-1994), Cuba (1989-1993), and Albania (1989-1993)

Just awful!

Venezuela is now the world’s most indebted country. No country has a larger public external debt as a share of GDP or of exports, or faces higher debt service as a share of exports.

So, where is the fucking intellectual left that used to adore Chavez, whose policies set Venezuela down this hell hole?

The list of Western leftists who once sang the Venezuelan government’s praises is long, and Naomi Klein figures near the top.
In 2004, she signed a petition headlined, “We would vote for Hugo Chavez.” Three years later, she lauded Venezuela as a place where “citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives.” In her 2007 book, “The Shock Doctrine,” she portrayed capitalism as a sort of global conspiracy that instigates financial crises and exploits poor countries in the wake of natural disasters. But Klein declared that Venezuela had been rendered immune to the “shocks” administered by free market fundamentalists thanks to Chavez’s “21^st Century Socialism,” which had created “a zone of relative economic calm and predictability.”

How about the big guy himself?  You know the one. Noam Chomsky?

Chomsky, whose anti-capitalist teachings have inspired millions of American college students, praised Chavez's "sharp poverty reduction, probably the greatest in the Americas." Chavez returned the compliment by holding up Chomsky's book during a speech at the U.N., making it a best-seller.
Is Chomsky embarrassed by that today? "No," he wrote me. He praised Chavez "in 2006. Here's the situation as of two years later." He linked to a 2008 article by a writer of Oliver Stone's movie who said, "Venezuela has seen a remarkable reduction in poverty."
I asked him, "Should you now say to the students who've learned from you, 'Socialism, in practice, often wrecks people's lives'?"
Chomsky replied, "I never described Chavez's state capitalist government as 'socialist' or even hinted at such an absurdity. It was quite remote from socialism. Private capitalism remained ... Capitalists were free to undermine the economy in all sorts of ways, like massive export of capital."
What? Capitalists "undermine the economy" by fleeing?

Chomsky has always been good with words, and knows how to use them in order to make sure he comes across as the wise sage.  Godawful!

Just because I will not forget nor forgive the 63 million who have unleashed trump and his demons on us, does not mean that I will be soft on the near mirror image on the left: the Berniacs, whose economic policies are nearly as insane with their anti-globalization and America-first rhetoric.  Which is why I will wrap up this post with this:

In the age of Trump, Brexit and a wider backlash against globalization, left-wing economic populists are enjoying a resurgence in mainstream credibility by railing against free trade and “neoliberals.” This is a scandal. For in the form of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the world has a petri dish in which to judge the sort of policies endorsed by Jones, Klein, British Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, homegrown socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and countless other deluded utopians.
There, the ghastly failures of their ideas are playing out for everyone to see; a real-time rebuke, as if another were needed, to socialism. That these people are considered authorities on anything other than purchasing Birkenstocks, much less running a country, is absurd.

When you buy the socialist rhetoric, Caveat emptor, as "neoliberal" economists like to say!

93 percent of the population cannot afford food

No, not in some sub-Saharan African country.

It is not in India.

It is in Venezuela!

Venezuela was once the richest country in South America, but food prices have skyrocketed in recent years, forcing many to scavenge for things to eat.

We humans are remarkably creative on the destruction that we can bring about :(

Everything was going well.  So well that a horrible human being--no, not this guy--stepped up to ruin it all.

Elected in 1998, President Hugo Chávez became widely popular for his promise to share the country’s oil wealth with the poor and to guarantee food security. To fund his “21st Century Socialism” agenda, he relied on oil revenues, which accounted for 93 percent of exports in 2008.

In one decade, chávez turned that country around, yes.  But, heading in the wrong direction.

During the oil price boom, the percentage of households in poverty fell to 29 percent from 53 percent. The government has not released poverty data since 2015. But a survey by three of the top universities in the country indicates that in recent years the government underestimated the level of poverty, which reached 82 percent in 2016.

"Put simply, many Venezuelans are starving to death. And their government often can’t or won’t do anything to help."

Two years ago to this date, the madman announced his candidacy for the presidency, and since then we have not been able to focus on serious issues like Venezuela.  What a tragedy!

The Maduro Diet

The fuhrer is trying to suck up all the energy.  It is a daily struggle to look past him, and to make sure I don't accidentally let his voice come through on the radio.

I cannot believe that 63 million voters, including past commenters at this blog, voted for him!

But, hey, I will survive, yes.  There are plenty others, even in this country, who won't--some even literally.

South of us--way south--things are getting worse.

Venezuela has the world’s highest inflation—estimated by the International Monetary Fund to reach 720% this year—making it nearly impossible for families to make ends meet. Since 2013, the economy has shrunk 27%, according to local investment bank Torino Capital; imports of food have plunged 70%.
Hordes of people, many with children in tow, rummage through garbage, an uncommon sight a year ago. People in the countryside pick farms clean at night, stealing everything from fruits hanging on trees to pumpkins on the ground, adding to the misery of farmers hurt by shortages of seed and fertilizer. Looters target food stores. Families padlock their refrigerators.
Three in four Venezuelans said they had lost weight last year, an average of 19 pounds, according to the National Poll of Living Conditions, an annual study by social scientists. People here, in a mix of rage and humor, call it the Maduro diet after President Nicolás Maduro.

In normal times, we would have paid attention to the unfolding events in Venezuela--despite the typical American attitude to not care about the rest of the world.  But, these are extraordinary times.  Unchartered waters.  So, now we couldn't be bothered with the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela.

Please, please read the entire WSJ report

Perhaps you are wondering whether the president has done anything regarding Venezuela.  Yes, he has--he took the half-million dollars that were donated to his inauguration gala.

Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, took a principled stand in US dealings with Venezuela, imposing sanctions to rein in rogue behavior, a policy that drew broad bipartisan support. The Trump administration needs to stay the course, especially as lower oil prices have weakened the Venezuelan government’s hand. Instead of bashing Latin America, the US needs to show it can be a steady and principled friend that will not be swayed by corrupt bribes of any type.

"principled"?  This pussy-grabbing president? This president who mocked a disabled reporter?  Hah!

Meanwhile, more agony in Venezuela :(

Not this shit again

Julian Assange and James Comey have delivered all the October surprises that we did not need.  It didn't matter to me; I was done with my ballot last weekend, and signed, sealed, and delivered it last Monday.  If everything goes well, on the evening of November 8th, the world will breathe a sigh of relief that the US dodged electing the guy who could be the greatest recruiting poster for all the disaffected crazies in the troubled Islamic countries.

The American elections have been one heck of a reality TV show around the world.  But, there are far more compelling human dramas unfolding in real time.  Tragedies, with no end in sight.  No, this post is not about Syria. Nor about the migrants. Nor about Yemen. Nor about ...

It is about Venezuela:

a relatively large, relatively sophisticated major oil producer just three hours’ flying time from the United States has just become the second all-out, no-more-elections dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere.

The courts have suspended what would have been a referendum to recall the "loathed authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro."

A referendum that Maduro would have lost; there were eight voters lined up against him for every supporter, according to surveys.  Given such intense opposition,

how does Maduro retain enough support going forward to hang on to power? Where is his genuine source of support at this point?

You want a nanosecond to think about it?

People with guns. That includes the military of course, which has been given enormous privileges during the last 18 years. [It has] been put in charge of mining businesses, been part of the oil industry, and smuggling, and cocaine, and a lot of other things.

"Includes the military" because it is not merely the military:

It’s the paramilitarization of the ruling party. So [the] PSUV, or Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela, has what are called colectivos. [These are] sort of grassroots supporter civilians who are armed and organized. What they are is paramilitaries. They are armed civilian groups that support the government. The degree of tactical cooperation between the armed security forces and these paramilitary groups is shocking now and really, they’re not trying to hide it. And these days there’s Twitter—you can’t hide things even if you want to. 

So, ... what next?  If life in Venezuela has already gone from bad to worse to worst, ...?

We are in deeply uncharted territory here, so to try to forecast it now is really, really dicey. There’s a sense in the opposition now of learned helplessness. [A sense of,] “we’ve done a lot, we’ve done a lot to try to get rid of these guys and they’ve worn us out every time, and we’ve failed every time and the country has gotten worse and worse and worse.” So in a way, that’s the hardest thing to get over. Part of the reason that people reacted to the offer of the Vatican mediation the way they did is precisely that: Not this shit again.  

"Not this shit again" can equally apply to the presidential campaign here in the US too.

Venezuela's Hunger Games

Three months have gone by.  So, of course, it is time to blog about Venezuela!

How bad is the situation there?

“Venezuela Doesn't Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money.”

Yes, you read that right.

The situation is so bad that the government appears unable to pay for the new bills it has ordered from foreign currency makers (because, like almost all things, Venezuela has to import its money).

I don't think any dictionary has enough words to describe the conditions there.  I so want to ask the colleague who was always in utter praise of the architect of this mess--Hugo Chavez--what she now thinks about him and the successor, Nicolas Maduro, that he handpicked.

When President Hugo Chavez passed away in 2013, he left behind a stunted national economy almost wholly dependent on oil production. As a result, the collapse of crude prices has been disastrous. All the while, an ill-advised system of currency and price controls, partly meant to curb inflation, have led to shortages of basic goods and a thriving black-market economy.  

And what is the inflation rate?  Sit down and take a deep breath before you find out!

No food, no toilet paper, no condoms, and now?  No electricity!  So, what is Maduro's temporary fix?

Venezuela's years-long economic disintegration hit a sad new milestone on Tuesday, when President Nicolas Maduro announced that government employees would work only on Mondays and Tuesdays for at least the next two weeks to save scarce electricity.

Under these circumstances, you wouldn't expect the people to just sit back and wait for life to unfold, especially when it is already one of the most violent countries, right?

Angry residents in darkened towns around the country took to the streets Tuesday night, setting up flaming barricades and raiding shops for bread and other scarce food.
On Wednesday, more than 1,000 police fanned out around the western city of Maracaibo after a night of riots.

And to think that less than thirty years ago, I was in Maracaibo, enjoying arepas with cheese :(

Caracas is being spared from the rolling blackouts and has not seen violent protests. Some Venezuelans complain that the country is starting to resemble the dystopian series "The Hunger Games," in which districts suffer for the benefit of a heartless capital city.

"Dystopian" is the word, yes.  

Dear Venezuela: "I wish I knew how to quit you"

In a national survey, the pollster Consultores 21 found 30% of Venezuelans eating two or fewer meals a day during the second quarter of this year, up from 20% in the first quarter. Around 70% of people in the study also said they had stopped buying some basic food item because it had become unavailable or too expensive.

That is in Venezuela, not in some stereotypical sub-Saharan African country ravaged by decades of civil war after gaining independence from the colonial White supremacists!

I am not even from Venezuela and I get worked up reading such news--all because it was the first ever country that I visited after leaving India and making myself at home here in these United States.  In many posts, the last one in April, I have written about my intellectual and personal experiences in Venezuela, and about my utter disappointment with the recent developments.  I suppose for my own health, I should cease my relationships with countries and people; but then, to quote that wonderful line from Brokeback Mountain, "I wish I knew how to quit you."  Thus, here I am reading up and blogging about Venezuela!

Food-supply problems in Venezuela underscore the increasingly precarious situation for Mr. Maduro’s socialist government, which according to the latest poll by Datanálisis is preferred by less than 20% of voters ahead of Dec. 6 parliamentary elections. The critical situation threatens to plunge South America’s largest oil exporter into a wave of civil unrest reminiscent of last year’s nationwide demonstrations seeking Mr. Maduro’s ouster.

Even as I read that, I recalled a colleague rambling on and on a few years ago about how Hugo Chavez--Maduro's predecessor and mentor--was the best thing that ever happened to Latin America.  "He is not any dictator like how he is presented here" she--an uber-left White American academic--argued.  I suppose every sociopath has his defender!

Caption at the source:
A woman holds up a giant hundred Bolivar note with the word, “Hungry” written on it in Spanish during a gathering to protest the government of President Nicolas Maduro, as well as economic insecurity and shortages, in Caracas, Venezuela, August 8, 2015.

The messed-up Chavez policies that Maduro has continued with were underwritten by high oil prices, which have fallen way down from their triple-digit highs.

A year ago, the international price per barrel of oil was about $103. By Monday, the price was about $42, roughly 6 percent lower than on Friday.

Indications are that the oil prices will not bounce back up any time soon.

David L. Goldwyn, who was the State Department special envoy and coordinator for international energy affairs in the first Obama administration, said that if the Brent global oil benchmark price stays below $45 a barrel, that is “a red flag for stability issues across the oil producing world.”
“The hemorrhaging of government budgets reliant on oil will force dramatic cuts in spending or dangerous increases in borrowing, if not both,” Mr. Goldwyn said. “The countries without significant foreign exchange reserves are most at risk, and they include Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Venezuela and Iraq."

So, what is Venezuela doing?  Adding more zeroes to its currency in order to counter hyperinflation! 

Many Venezuelans have to carry wads of cash in bags instead of wallets as soaring inflation and a declining currency increase the number of bills needed for everyday purchases. The situation is set to get worse. Inflation, already the fastest in the world, could end the year at 150 percent, said the official.

Larger denominations will help those people from having to carry bags of cash to buy bread and milk!

The new notes -- of 500 and possibly 1,000 bolivars -- are expected to be released sometime after congressional elections are held on Dec. 6, said a senior government official who isn’t authorized to talk about the plans publicly.

When oil prices were high, Venezuela's Chavez sent highly subsidized oil across the waters to his pal, Castro.  What an irony that the Castro brothers have all but ditched their socialist rhetoric and now want to make friends with the US, while Venezuela is adrift in a hyperinflationary socialist mess where supermarket shelves are bare.  

Hey, at least capitalism helps us wipe our shit!

The last time I blogged about Venezuela, which was less than a hundred days ago, I wrote:

As in the old Soviet Union, Chavez and Maduro have no understanding of price.  All they know is the empty flame-throwing rhetoric attacking "capitalism," whatever that means to whoever listens to them! 

The comparison with the Soviet Union seems like an eternal gift that keeps on giving.  Writing at Cato (yes, the libertarian think-tank, in case any of my faculty union "comrades" are reading this!) David Boaz notes (ht):

In 1990 I went to a Cato Institute conference in what was then still the Soviet Union. We were told to bring our own toilet paper, which was in fact useful advice. Now, after only 16 years of Chavista rule, Venezuela has demonstrated that “Socialism of the 21st Century” is pretty much like socialism in the 20th century

Yes, toilet paper.

What happened, you ask?

 “For over a year we haven’t had toilet paper, soap, any kind of milk, coffee or sugar. So we have to tell our guests to come prepared.”…

Boaz comments:

But what I never understood is this: Why toilet paper? How hard is it to make toilet paper? I can understand a socialist economy having trouble producing decent cars or computers. But toilet paper?

Chavez's "Bolivarian Socialism" gift to the people!

But, of course, one can always pay a high price in the black market, thanks to bachaqueros.  Who are they, you ask?

Often moving in motorized packs, bachaqueros specialize in ferreting out what items are available and where they can be found among the various government-sponsored food outlets and privately run stores. The bachaqueros depend on inside informants and satiated buyers who tip them off before word gets out to most people.
Purchasing the goods with cash, they resell them through informally arranged delivery networks set up through social media. They sell milk powder, chicken and disposable diapers at outrageous markups, counting on Venezuelans to pay premiums to avoid the hassles of la cola, which means standing in line but which has become a synonym for the act of shopping itself.

Maduro, the heir selected by Chavez himself, is making sure that when he is done, the country will be FUBAR.  What is FUBAR, you ask?  Fucked Up Beyond All Repair!

So, how does Maduro respond?

President Maduro blames Washington and "imperialism."

Saint Chavez can't be wrong, and neither can his anointed one, right?

But, Maduro does not stop with that.  No sir.  He is one hell of a nutcase.

President Nicolas Maduro is drumming up a petition, to be signed by Venezuelans opposed to the measure, to hand Obama in person at the Summit of the Americas in Panama April 10-11.

But, that is only a few more days to go.  How can Maduro get this done, you ask?

Well, he began last week by ordering all Venezuelan schools to hold an "anti-imperialist day" against "U.S. meddling" in the oil-rich but bitterly divided nation's internal affairs.
Activities would include — you guessed it — the "collection of the signatures of the students, and teaching, administrative, maintenance and cooking personnel."
Maduro's next step, according to the opposition and human rights groups, was to order state workers to join in, or be sacked.

Ah, yes, will make Hugo Chavez smile from that socialist heaven!

Discussing his petition this week, he said: "I believe that the threat from Obama has awoken the greatest love for what we are doing for the fatherland."
"History books will recall him, President Obama, as the one who attempted to threaten a people and what he did was lift up their national, patriotic and Bolivarian spirit."

There is not enough toilet paper to wipe the shit that comes out of Maduro's mouth!

God does not care for Venezuela!

There is one huge problem that I end up with after traveling to a country--I end up worrying about that country, too.  As a kid, life was simpler for the only reason--in this context--that all I worried about was, well, India, though I was fascinated by other countries also.  Then, from the moment I landed in Los Angeles, my worries about the US began.

The first on this list of my "special" countries--other than the old country and the adopted one--was Venezuela.  In the summer after the first year of graduate school in Los Angeles, I went to Venezuela with a group of fellow graduate students.  As I have blogged more than once, I have warm memories of that country and its people, and how that experience was even a part of my growing up in so many different ways.

It pains me--and such empathy is no good for my heart--when I read about the chaos there, thanks to the resource-curse and the dirty rotten scoundrels who have governed Venezuela.  I don't know enough about its history to figure out whether Hugo Chavez was the worst of them all, but I bet he is up there in the hall of shame.

“I’ve always been a Chavista,” said Ms. Noriega, using a term for a loyal Chávez supporter. But “the other day, I found a Chávez T-shirt I’d kept, and I threw it on the ground and stamped on it, and then I used it to clean the floor. I was so angry. I don’t know if this is his fault or not, but he died and left us here, and things have been going from bad to worse.”

Indeed, from bad to worse!

In the old days, we used to joke about life in the Soviet Union, with its shortages.  Like this one:

A customer walks into a shop and says, "oh, you don't have any fish".
The shop worker angrily retorts with, "you have come to the wrong shop, comrade.  This is a butcher's shop where we don't have any meat."   And then he adds "the store where they don't have any fish is in the fish shop across the road!"

Those were the days that I was sure we would not return to.  But then, well, there was Hugo Chavez!

Venezuelans have put up with shortages and long lines for years. But as the price of oil, the country’s main export, has plunged, the situation has grown so dire that the government has sent troops to patrol huge lines snaking for blocks. Some states have barred people from waiting outside stores overnight, and government officials are posted near entrances, ready to arrest shoppers who cheat the rationing system.

Lines and crowds like in this photograph:

What a tragedy!

Chavez died and made sure that his chosen successor would further screw things up for the people:

President Nicolas Maduro stuck to the party line, blaming oil's ruinous price plunge on the global capitalism "of the north.""The capitalism of the world of the north is trying to destroy OPEC, to control sources of energy, to destroy the just prices that we need and have been assimilated by the entire world," said Maduro. 

As in the old Soviet Union, Chavez and Maduro have no understanding of price.  All they know is the empty flame-throwing rhetoric attacking "capitalism," whatever that means to whoever listens to them!

Venezuela has the world’s largest estimated petroleum reserves, and when oil prices were high, oil exports made up more than 95 percent of its hard currency income. Mr. Chávez used the oil riches to fund social spending, like increased pensions and subsidized grocery stores. Now that income has been slashed.
“If things are so bad now, I really cannot imagine how they will be in February or March” when some of the lowest oil prices “materialize in terms of cash flow,” said Francisco J. Monaldi, a professor of energy policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Mr. Maduro spent 14 straight days in January traveling the globe in an effort to court investment and persuade other oil-producing nations to cut production and push the price back up.
“We have serious economic difficulties regarding the country’s revenue,” Mr. Maduro said to the legislature during his annual address, which had to be pushed back because of the trip. “But God will always be with us. God will provide. And we will get, and we have gotten, the resources to maintain the country’s rhythm.”

Aha, so there lies the difference between the Soviets and the Chavistas: at least the Soviets didn't believe that god will provide and rescue them from their terrible sins!  

Two boys who wanted to pose for me during that trip in 1988