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22 thoughts on “Anabella on CNN En Español”

  1. It’s kinda a pity that no one of them stated the most obvious of all: That the exchange control system is a political measure that aims to hold an absurd monopoly in the country.

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  2. Oliveros and Miguel Angel very good, understandable, sharp. Beautiful Caracas accent.

    Anabella less so: again lack of clarity and that heavy, heavy Caribbean drawl that makes you feel words are heavy and she is dragging them with great effort. No data. She repeats herself.

    Oliveros exposing a lot of data. Good.

    Miguel Angel is a great speaker. This guy has been reading a lot for a long time.

    In general, there is a lack of political conclusions and perspectives in this talk. One doesn’t know what these guys want for the country and how to get there. They don’t say it.

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  3. I am very surprised Venezuelan economists seem to be mute about what motivates Venezuelan policy.

    In general, governments and central banks have three aims: constant growth, low inflation and full employment.

    In Venezuela there is no functional central bank, only a central government and it has two aims: stay in power and exert control over society.

    Because in Venezuela all hard currency comes from oil, which the government owns, the tool to achieve its aim has to be Forex control.

    This leads to a crazy, cruel economy, but the government has been successfully achieving its aims.

    So why the surprise? These guys constantly say the government is absurd, illogical… it isn’t, and this misunderstanding has political consequences (as in, it ends in repeated failure to defeat it)

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    • “These guys constantly say the government is absurd, illogical… ”

      That’s true, there’s nothing illogical about what they are doing. They are, actually, extremely coherent. There’s method in the madness. You can anticipate all their actions if you have in mind what they really want.

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  4. I find it more interesting that CNNE could not find anyone willing to take the contrary perspective and to defend the government, or simply felt that the regime’s point of view was so discredited that there is no need to present it (other than in the selected clips).

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  5. One issue not mentioned and which is crucial to the regime is servicing the external debt to avoid a default. a daunting if not impossible task specially in the next 3 years . They apparently feel that a default is something very threatening to their hold on power and all of their resources are now dedicated to trying to achieve this all important goal by desperate haphazard measures and actions . Staving off the countrys default is central to the govt financial activities whatever the sacrifices to the economy and to the welfare of the countrys inhabitants .

    To maintain the inner appearance that the regime is protecting the poor from the worsening harships they are now facing are two tools: one the intensified propaganda inculpating external factors and the oppo for the crisis (including open season on the persecution of the opposition media and leaders) and the other the massive printing of fake money to make people feel that they are getting more money to cope with the effects of the crisis. The printing of money of course only makes the inflation worse and feeds the rise of the US$ exchange rate to stratosferic heights.!! .

    I dont think they have caused this crisis on purpose in order to increase their control over the population , but rather that they have bungled and mismanaged the economy thru their sheer neglect corrution and incompetence and now are making a virtue of necessity by creating a ferocious coercive apparatus of control to deal with the discontent which the crisis is producing in the general population and prevent the opposition from movilizing that discontent in its favour .

    Megalomaniac narcicistic thugs feel great at showing their omnipotence thru deeds of dominance and ruthless control , this is were Chavez came from and he infected his followers with the same inclinations . The more they exercise that ruthless control over others the better they feel about their own mighty condition . So control and fakery are seen as the cure all of all difficulties.

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    • The only crisis they didn’t wanted was the drop on oil prices.

      All the other stuff is premeditated and was coldly calculated (confiscations, plunders, corruption, slaughter of people by criminals, everything)

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      • Ralph the crisis was already begun before the oil prices fell , the fall in oil prices was the icing on the cake , thanks to all those stupid measures they took thinking that production would jump and Venezuela would achieve ‘alimentary sovereignty’ or self sufficiency, thanks to the fact that they failed to maintain the compressors in guri and the minimal prequisite pressure on the north monagas oil fields , and didnt built the new infrastructure needed to keep the country fed and electrified etc etc .One of the points made by Giordani in his letter was that Chavez decision to borrow and spend money the country didnt have to bring on a fake prosperity that would ensure his last reelection was absolutely irrational . I do believe that their handiing of the economy was both full of blunders and corruption and that their plans of total political domination ( which craftily and unscrupolously planned and executed ) did not take account of how hard the fall in economic conditions would be . They need some measure of popularity to keep themselves in power and pretend to a g string of legitimacy and the crisis they could have avoided if they had been more pragmatical and judicious in their handling of the economy ( as Ecuador , Bolivia and Nicaragua have been despite seeking the same type of tyranical political control.

        In short they have always planned for total power but they didnt foresee the consequences of their delusional and incompetent economical ideas !!.

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        • Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua are paradises compared to what Venezuela is now.

          The only “measure of popularity” chaburrismo used was a speech full of hatred, combined with impunity for criminals, for everybody who doesn’t kneel, they have a bullet.

          In fact, I actually believe that too many chaburros actually wanted to destroy Venezuela as sort of way to satisfy their own superiority complex.

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          • It is reported that in a meeting in Mexico Castro once chided Chavez for maintaining the system of semi free elections instead of following the Cuban route of openly farcical elections. What he didnt understand is that Chavez narcicism needed the acclamation of his people to feed his gargantuan megalomaniacal hungers, This is also what gave him the legitimacy that he needed to destroy the state institutions that maintained the freedoms of Venezuelan citizens . Now things have changed a bit , Maduro is no longer able to maintain the regimes popularity so it must resort to barely disguised if not blatant fraud and coercion to keep itself in absolute power. Still they must maitain some fachade of popularity to keep the Chavez illusion of the value of popularity alive even if its a largely fabricated kind of popularity . To do that they need to substitute castles of hot air for what used to be genuine enthusiasm , but hot air alone is not enough for the purpose , Sooner or later the lost popularity , its tranformantion into deep dissappointment and discontent will have them against the wall !! They will have to use the weapon of coercion to keep the people in line and ultimately coercion fails as a means of retaining power unless it is supported with access to money with which to bribe at least a segment of people to following them . Getting this money is their main challenge now.

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            • I side with Ralph on this. these thugs are so incompetent that all the policy they have been dolling for years comes from their handlers and is all well thought off. Well thought off to bring chaos and impoverishment, in order to strengthen the grip of the regime over the people.

              Miguel et all need to keep on message and argue that the measures and policies seem absurd, because they are if seen from a lens of normal governmental business. They think they need to keep away from making the allegations i have for example maintained in CC and other places, that its all cuban occupation control driven. They see themselves as acting as key spokespersons fro a potential equipo de relevo, in that view their “naivite” is well explained and accepted.

              you can bet they know better and are well aware of the motivations of the regime.

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  6. The other day I watched a Youtube clip of Chavez explaining that Mars used to be populated, but everyone started practicing decadent capitalism and they all became extinct.

    I think these dolts would ruin the country even if Orinoco crude sold for $200/barrel at the wellhead.

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    • Very true. They are rapacious locusts that consume everything in their path. It would just take longer. Without the oil, they would have destroyed the country long before now.

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