Hugo Chavez – The Pull Of The Land

Understanding the Cuba – Venezuela Nexus V: Fidel’s Revenge III

August 18, 2021August 18, 2021 Richard Barnes

“The ‘continuity of the great work of Chávez’ does not rest on Maduro’s shoulders only. A large supporting politico-military cast of Fidel Castro devotees is key to maintaining the Communist regime in place. Above all, these powerful and dangerous functionaries admire and keenly study the Cuban regime’s ability to maintain herd control over the Cuban people while ensuring their perpetual grip on total power, all under the complacent gaze of a great part of the world.” — Diego G. Maldonado (pseudonym)

In this, our final post in the series on the Cuba – Venezuela nexus, we address the question asked in the prior installment: Cuba’s reason for these asymmetrical exchanges and contracts with astronomical profit margins is “to provide the island with needed currency. But what is Venezuela’s reason for them?”

In these posts, we’ve gotten a glimpse of Venezuela’s financial rescue of the bankrupt Cuban fiscal house. Reliable, recent figures are hard to come by and sketchy when obtained; however, most intelligence sources as well as financial publications agree that Venezuela has been Cuba’s principal source of revenue since the turn of this century. And that, at devastating financial and productivity cost to Venezuela.

But, as far as the Venezuelan regime is concerned, this devastation to the country has been well worth the pain because it has enabled the imposition of the Cuban political model onto Venezuela. A model which, above all else, maintains the rulers in perpetual power through electoral fraud, economic and social devastation, and intimidation.

As noted in other posts, the Venezuelan electoral process is “owned” by the long-dead Chavez, thereby assuring perpetuity to the state. As per Stalin, “It doesn’t matter who votes (or how many people vote), what matters is who counts the votes.” This aphorism has been vindicated time and again in Venezuela, and only cynics and fools discount it or ignore it. The effects of the collapse of Venezuela’s currency, the utter scarcity of foodstuffs, and the frightening level of crime have had the effect of propelling the largest ever emigration in Latin American history. But some have also discerned an incipient silver lining: the regime is actually talking about some electoral reforms. We’ll see.

As for the economic devastation visited on the country, Amherst Professor Javier Corrales well summarizes its purpose: “Maduro prefers economic devastation … because misery destroys civil society, and that in turn destroys all possibility to resist tyranny.” I would add that the terrible crime now rampant in Venezuela also reduces the will to resist tyranny. How effective would you be in promoting opposition to sitting politicians or filing complaints against a corrupt, unjust bureaucracy, when most of your time is focused on keeping vandals away from your front door?

Finally, to mount a truly effective opposition, the Venezuelan people would have to first overthrow a very well rooted, multi-faceted Cuban intelligence apparatus and its control accoutrements that are now pervasive. This domination pervades all civil institutions in Venezuela, even including the issuance of passports and cédulas, the Venezuelan internal passport card, without which a citizen pretty much is barred from everyday life (a powerful argument against anything even approaching this in the United States, by the way).

It betrays ignorance (and insensitivity) to minimize the deleterious impact of the cuban regiment’s experience in corralling (figuratively and literally) and demoralizing dissidence to the administrative state, i.e., the bureaucracy that was spawned with the advent of democracy in the late 40s and early 50s and has been thoroughly co-opted by the Cuba – Venezuela Nexus. Sowing fear and desperation are very valuable tools to those whose raison de e’tre is to perpetuate themselves while accumulating ever increasing power over others.

There is much more to Castro’s interest in Venezuela, an interest which predates his notoriety and which has had nefarious effects on both Cuba and Venezuela, as well as the rest of Latin America. We will touch upon this interesting and ever current subject on occasion.

Banner at Venezuela oil refinery: *Alianza Bolivariana Para Los Pueblos de Nuestra América*. A Cuba – Venezuela project seeking to integrate all Latin American countries. Other posts will address this age-old dream which actually existed during the Spanish colonial era.

Ghosts II

June 2, 2021June 2, 2021 Richard Barnes

“The Roman Empire is luxurious, but it is filled with misery. It is dying but it laughs — moritus et ridet.” — Salvian (5th century)

As noted elsewhere, the title of this blog, The Pull of The Land, is borrowed from Whittaker Chambers of whom I’ve posted only once (Ghosts), where I noted my intentions to post more of or from him. This is the second such post.

Chambers was considered a pessimist who believed that in leaving Communism he was leaving the winning side to join the losing side. One need not share his melancholy to nevertheless correspond with or comprehend it. After all, Salvian would be considered an extremist today and yet he was not far from the truth, as a mere few decades later would confirm.

Chambers quoted Salvian in his essay on St. Benedict in 1952 and went on to write:

“What, in fact, was the civilization of the West? If it was Christendom, why had it turned its back on half its roots and meanings and become cheerfully ignorant of those who had embodied them? If it was not Christendom, what was it? And what were those values that it claimed to assert against the forces of active evil that beset it in the greatest crisis of history since the fall of Rome? Did the failure of the Western World to know what it was lie at the root of its spiritual despondency, its intellectual confusion, its moral chaos, the dissolving bonds of faith and loyalty within itself, its swift political decline in barely four decades from hegemony of the world to a demoralized rump of Europe little larger than it had been in the crash of the Roman West, and an America still disputing the nature of the crisis, its gravity, whether it existed at all, or what to do about it?”

In another context, he wrote that the conflict of the age is not really Communism vs Capitalism, but rather God vs atheism or, more precisely, submission to God vs submission to man personified by the state. Possessing a strong sense of history, Chambers understood that there is nothing new under the sun and he saw that Rome was beset by three great alienations which are present with us today as well: “They are the alienation of the spirit of man from traditional authority; his alienation from the idea of traditional order; and a crippling alienation that he feels at the point where civilization has deprived him of the joy of simple productive labor.”

He pointed to the parallels between AD 410 and 1952 when “three hundred million Russians, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, East Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, and all the Christian Balkans, would tell you” the same “if they could lift their voices through the night of the new Dark Ages that have fallen on them.”

The fall of the Iron Curtain brought great changes to the political geography since Chambers wrote the above, however, not to the basic conflict: God or man? Hence, Chambers’ point still stands. And in such a conflict, we know Who the Victor is, although we may not be able to see His triumph at the moment.

But here is a hint: a sign of divine judgment on a people or nation is evidenced by the anomaly of such having rulers who do not love or appreciate them. In effect, of being ruled by their enemies: “…. they that hate you shall reign over you…. (Lev. 26:17)”. That can refer to rulers who are foreign to the nation or rulers who are internal to the nation.

In Rome we saw an empire often ruled by emperors whose cruelty is unimaginable. Gaius Suetonius wrote The Twelve Caesars in AD 121 and the events he records in his work, still considered a reliable primary source, often make chilling reading. Although some historians believe he was sensational and biased, other contemporary works, including works of art, substantiate his biographies in many essential points. Rome’s cruelty to Christians is well known and attested to (although increasingly ignored in today’s age of savagery and unnatural affections). One thing to note about Rome’s persecutions is that cruelty to Christians will eventually devolve to cruelty to all peoples. And such was the case in Rome.

In Venezuela, we have seen the anomaly of a large, once-prosperous country possessing the largest oil reserves in the entire world actually inviting a small basket-case island nation to take over their basic industries, intelligence services, internal security, and much, much more (I will be posting more about this in the future). All this was knowingly commanded to be so by “local” rulers who knew exactly what they were doing. One can say much about such rulers, but one cannot say that they love their nation or her people.

Examples, not as blatant but just as destructive, can be multiplied throughout the Americas and Europe.

To hate God is to hate man, for God is man’s Creator and Redeemer.

Now, having written the above, I will also say that although I recognize we may be seeing some difficult times that will likely go beyond our lifetimes, I do not share Chambers’ pessimism.

For I know Who wins and such a victory will one day be plain for all to see and acknowledge.

Caligula (AD 12-AD 41), was emperor AD 37 – AD 41. A most cruel, but not the only cruel, emperor.

Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez (1954-2013) embraces his Cuban counterpart, Fidel Castro (1926-2016, but last seen alive July 11, 2009 when Evo Morales said he had met with him). Under Chavez and continuing under current strongman, Nicolás Maduro, Cuba took operational charge over most strategic sectors of Venezuela including the armed forces, social programs, identification and security, and much more, even her petroleum industry.

Highest Known Oil Reserves … And People Cannot Buy Gasoline

September 23, 2020September 23, 2020 Richard Barnes

Venezuela is still Number One on the list of countries with the highest known oil reserves. According to WorldAtlas.com (link below), her production has fallen because of the decline in oil prices and because she did not “invest in the renovation of its obsolete oil extraction infrastructure.”

Second on the list is Saudi Arabia, which makes “it a strong ally to the United States, despite many [sic] blatantly problematic aspects of the country. Some of those include human rights violations and many international incidents.”

Readers of this blog know that I love the country of my birth and grieve for what she has been becoming. I have childhood friends there whom I dearly love and hold in the highest esteem, especially the few surviving friends of my own parents. However, I must say that to point out “blatantly problematic aspects” of Saudi Arabia while blithely ignoring the very real “blatantly problematic aspects” of Venezuela is irresponsible and is the type of reporting which has given cover to the catastrophe that has been unfolding there since the 1960’s and which accelerated dramatically since the Chavez regime.

Venezuela continues to be very rich in natural resources: not only is she the richest in oil reserves, but she is also supremely rich in other minerals (see here and also see under “Juan Vicente Gómez here) and yet many of her people are malnourished (I have personal knowledge of this), others have regressed to the use of donkeys because they cannot afford to buy rationed gasoline even at under $0.10 per gallon. Many thousands are now turning to fire for energy in their homes given the ongoing failures of the energy grid, often plunging them into utter darkness. Some reports say that the grid failed over 80,000 times (!) in 2019. Think of the impact on public transportation, hospitals, clinics. On everything needed for modern life.

The situation is so dire that the Venezuela refugee crisis is the largest ever recorded in the Americas.

Let that sink in for a moment. The largest ever recorded in the Americas. We’ve all read and heard about the despotic regimes of Gómez and Pérez Jimenez in Venezuela, Pinochet in Chile, the generals in Argentina, Stroessner in Paraguay, and others in Central America. But none of them — none — caused such magnitudes of peoples to flee their homelands in such massive numbers. None. The only one that comes close, as a proportion of her population, is Castro’s Cuba. The reader can deduce whatever similarities there may be between Cuba and Venezuela that would cause their peoples to leave their homes and head to unknown destinies through even less known, and frightening, seas and jungles.

Latest estimates are that about 6 Million Venezuelans have fled the country. That’s twenty percent of her population. See here.

How is it that a land so rich can be so poor? How is it that a land once hailed as the most stable democracy in South America is now a despotic regime where torture is commonplace (see here)?

As has been seen throughout this blog, the current problems did not begin with Chavez or Maduro.

Venezuela’s initiation into democratic rule took place in 1959, after a half century of unprecedented prosperity, mostly under General Juan Vicente Gómez, who in my childhood, an era of less political correctness, was often referred to as “the father of modern Venezuela.” He was a dictator but was not hailed as Castro was, even though he too was a dictator. The difference? Castro was one of the Socialist Beautiful People; Gómez was not.

Be that as it may, the long years under Gómez (in office from 1908 to 1935) were characterized by unparalleled stability and prosperity. This stability began years before the discovery of the first major oil reserves in Mene Grande (see here). Venezuela had a growing and prosperous middle class by the end of the Pérez Jimenez regime (see here), after which came the election of Rómulo Betancourt, generally acknowledged to be the country’s first democratically elected president.

So, Venezuela’s first democratically elected president was installed 140 years after the country’s declaration of independence. In sum, during the preceding (19th) century, Venezuela, like her neighbors, had been racked by revolutionary governments and bloodletting, and during the first half of the 20th century she had phenomenal growth and stability under authoritarian governments.

(The unfortunate fact is that South America’s wars for independence were not at all like North America’s. Unlike the North American colonists, the South American Criollos were enthralled by French Revolutionary ideas and sought the positions of power to which they believed they were entitled. This partly explains the long years of despotism and carnage, which is similar to post revolutionary France. If interested, see more on the differences between the United States and the Venezuelan Declarations of Independence here.)

As we have noted before (for example, see here) Betancourt, who had organized the Communist Party in Costa Rica in the 1930’s, but who had since shed his radical outspoken ideology and had migrated to a kinder, gentler democratic socialism, immediately set about to dismantle the structures of economic freedoms and low levels of taxation and regulations that had enabled the country to achieve such heights. In effect, his policies spurred the growth and intrusions of government, including nationalizations of major industries such as oil and iron ore. These reversals of economic liberties continued up to Chavez and Maduro where such policies did not change. They accelerated.

So the owners of industries in Venezuela are now the people. And, of course, when politicians say “the people,” that means The State and all those who, along with them, have the right political connections. And that has been catastrophic for Venezuela.

And so the country with the highest known oil reserves in the world is now a financial nightmare suffering shortages under political oppression, with many of her people in distress and, where able, voting with their feet by leaving.

Pray for the people of Venezuela.

For more on the power outages, see here (Spanish language article).

For the WorldAtlas report on oil reserves, see here.

Back to use of donkeys, mules, and horses.

Colombian police stand before a multitude of Venezuelans seeking asylum.

Juan Vicente Gómez (1857-1935), circa 1920

Marcos Pérez Jimenez (1914-2001), circa 1955

Fidel Castro (left), Rómulo Betancourt (center), in Caracas in 1959. Betancourt’s relationship with Castro ended shortly thereafter when Castro sought to foment guerrilla activity in Venezuela.

Once one of the continent’s most prosperous countries, Venezuela is now plagued by frequent blackouts.

Illusions and Picaresque

May 12, 2020May 12, 2020 Richard Barnes

Carlos André Pérez is usually known as the Venezuelan president who, in the early ’90s, sought to apply some sound economic policies on the country and steer it away from her headlong rush into Socialism. However, his attempts were clumsy, sudden, and, at the time, gave the concept of free markets a bad name in Venezuela. His approach caused large riots and even Hugo Chavez’s attempted coup in 1992.

What is less remembered is his first term in the late 1970’s whereby he expropriated the iron and petroleum industries and plunged Venezuela further into the Socialism that alarmed him a mere decade later.

Shortly after his first inauguration in 1974, I walked into an elevator in Ciudad Guayana and saw someone standing at the buttons asking “qué piso?” I thought he was joking. But no, he was one of thousands who now were “employed” thanks to a presidential decree which compelled building managers/owners to install a flesh and blood “operator” in each elevator which, up to then, was perfectly controlled by a mere push of a button with the floor’s number inscribed.

With one “presidential decree” we were all thrust to the 1935 Waldorf Astoria, sans the luxury, with uniformed elevator operators handling the controls, only these controls were push button automatic, not manual.

It “looked good” in the sense of, “Wow! Look at all these new jobs!” But an elementary school kid could also see what was not seen: the other jobs or capital improvements that were set aside in order to budget for unneeded elevator push buttoneers.

This is illustrative of how the “seen” does not necessarily reflect reality, but rather an illusion.

A few years ago, McKinsey & Company, the well-known and highly regarded global consulting firm, published a paper, Where Will Latin America’s Growth Come From?, which delved into the reasons why seeming economic growth in that massive and resource-rich continent was actually an illusion, or at most, was less than met the eye.

One of several disquieting indices is that Latin America (Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean) whose sovereignty exceeds 13% of the earth’s area, constitutes a mere 7% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The comparable figures for The United States are 6% and 15%, respectively, an almost perfectly inverse relationship: half the sovereignty and double the GDP.

In addition, there is little if any measurable economic growth in Latin America. While global annual growth averaged 3.5% in the last three years, Latin America’s averaged 1%.

For the most part, McKinsey’s conclusions and recommendations are rather predictable, not to say pedestrian.

For example, the report criticizes the weak enforcement of “stringent regulations”. Which is it: weak enforcement, or stringent regulations? Why not take the more politically incorrect position of recommending the lifting of Latin America’s sclerotic regulatory empires?

McKinsey rightly, but inconsistently, criticizes the monstrous labor laws that make it very difficult for employers, and employees, to act freely, whether this means firings or re-assignments.

And here is an eye-opener:

“Service sectors, too, suffer from poorly enforced regulations that encourage informality and therefore constrain productivity growth. Informality arises as many firms have strong incentives to avoid becoming formal because of high taxes, poor auditing capabilities, and low levels of sanctions. Inefficient informal players stay in business and prevent more productive, formal companies from gaining market share, constraining overall productivity. ….the substantial cost advantage that informal companies gain by avoiding taxes and regulations more than offset their low productivity and small scale, and distorts competition. Regulations are therefore needed that reduce the cost of formal employment … and raise the risks of noncompliance (for example, better monitoring and prosecution of informal operations)….” (emphasis mine)

Bravely spoken.

In sum, what McKinsey skates around is that there is an “informal” (underground) economy in Latin America that is not measured and that avoids the implacable obstacles and barriers to business set up by the bureaucratic Latin American regimes. This underground economy is so efficient and pervasive that it depresses the “regulated” economic performance.

Would it not make more sense then, to imitate and replicate that “informal” economy? To find why it succeeds? To reduce the regulations that ensure it continues unabated? But no, McKinsey recommends tossing a massive wet blanket on that economy and bringing it to heel along with the rest of the slow-moving, molasses of business that operates under “stringent” regulations.

In other words, “inefficient” informal players hinder more efficient formal ones, according to the report. Could it be that the “informal” players are very efficient? They’ve figured out how to make a living by setting themselves free from the heavy regulatory load imposed by clueless bureaucrats and politicians who believe that forcing the hiring of employees to push elevator buttons will increase employment overall.

Could it be that such “inefficient” informal players cannot be measured since they are underground, after all? I wonder what Latin America’s true GDP is. Could McKinsey apply its considerable talent and figure out a way to measure Latin America’s informal (underground) economy and incorporate it to the conventional measurements?

When it comes to Latin America, I believe the standard measurements are an illusion.

I have utmost respect for McKinsey and such consulting firms in general. Having cut my teeth at Arthur Andersen I do appreciate the hard work and effort required to prepare a report addressing a business entity, let alone a massive region of the world. However, the professions do tend to have conventional views, despite their reputation as beings who know how to “think outside the box.”

But modern consulting firms take far too little account of the folks who, because of circumstances (regulations and obstacles) imposed on them, must either die or learn pretty quickly to live by their wits.

This brings us to the picaresque, whose etymology hearkens to Spain.

We will look at this term and its implications to Latin America next time.

(The McKinsey report has other observations worthy of further discussion. We’ll return to it in future posts.)

Manual controls: when elevator operators were needed.

In 1974, pursuant to a presidential decree, elevators in Venezuela henceforth had to be operated by an elevator operator employed to push buttons like the above.

It is not unusual for street vendors such as the above (Quito, Ecuador) to put their children through college selling mangoes. Instead of more regulations to discourage these hard working folks, how about *less* regulations to encourage them to become “legit”?

The Lost Children of Vargas

December 13, 2019December 13, 2019 Richard Barnes

This post is one of the few where I direct the reader to current news, this time via three links (below).

The first link is a wrenching narrative by José Cordeiro, whose father was unable to survive the wait times imposed by socialized medicine.

The second link is an article on Venezuela’s refugee crisis, which now surpasses Syria’s. However, as you will read, the “international community” has provided over $7 Billion to the Syria crisis, but about half a Billion to the Venezuela crisis. One can only conclude that some crises are more chic than others.

The third, and final, link is perhaps the most wrenching of all. This hearkens to “the Vargas tragedy”, December, 1999, when days of rain precipitated massive landslides which destroyed, completely buried, or washed out to sea countless people and entire towns. The United States offered help, initially accepted but then refused by then-president Hugo Chavez who, in agreement with his good friend, Fidel Castro, believed a revolutionary stance was more important than saving lives. Many children were handed over to officials by distraught parents. What happened to them? The question remains unanswered twenty years later.

Socialism Killed My Father

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2019/12/13/study-venezuelas-refugee-crisis-to-surpass-syria-largest-in-modern-history/

The Lost Children of Vargas