Friday, December 10, 1999
Friday, December 03, 1999
The world’s real petro-pirates!
Thursday, November 04, 1999
Today, let us talk about the bribers
Friday, October 29, 1999
Vanity and the nation's economy
Tuesday, October 19, 1999
The Petropolitan Manifest
The Petropolitan Manifest
We are an oil country, but one day we will stop being one. Interpreting that “sowing oil” means having to move in advance from one economy to another, applying an economic model and developing economic activities unrelated to an oil reality, is wrong and constitutes the perfect excuse for today's apathy.
This month, in England, with oil at more than US$ 20 per barrel, the consumer must pay Bs. 820 per liter of normal gasoline, of which the distributor receives Bs. 31, the producer, who sacrifices a non-renewable asset, obtains a paltry Bs. 117, while the English Treasury charges confiscatory taxes of Bs. 672. In fact, what is charged by the Treasury, when compared with what is received by the producer, indicates the existence of something similar to a commercial tariff that around 600%.
The same happens in Germany, Japan, Spain, etc. The taxes that consuming countries apply to petroleum products imply for them only a redistribution of their national income, while, due to their negative effects on the demand and prices of petroleum, they cause a real reduction in the national income of the producing countries.
The obscene levels at which these taxes are today in most of the world, with the threat of becoming higher every day, constitute a trade war declared against the economic interests of Venezuela. The fact that our country does not protest about this, just as it did not protest about the ban on the use of Orimulsion in Florida, is indicative of a lack of will and national conscience, without which, with or without oil, we are nothing.
The historical indifference of the authorities (Government and PDVSA) towards the aforementioned problem led to the formation of the PETROPOLITAN movement. Its activities are nourished by a series of beliefs, not inscribed on stones, but based on the continuous interpretation that its members make of the best interests of the country, which we summarize below:
We Petropolitans believe that the true “sowing of oil” must mean the sowing, in the hearts of Venezuelans, of the will to defend, with pride and responsibility, their real interests, which in essence are and will continue to be so for several decades, his oil interests.
1. We Petropolitans believe that the true “sowing of oil” must mean the sowing, in the hearts of Venezuelans, of the will to defend, with pride and responsibility, their real interests, which in essence are and will continue to be so for several decades, his oil interests.
2. The value of a good is calculated based on the price that the final consumer is willing to pay. Hence, the difference between what the world consumer of gasoline pays today and the little that the producer receives shows, within the framework of the principles of free trade, the presence of a scam.
3. Certain that there is strength in unity and even more so in a globalized world, we support Venezuela's permanence in OPEC. However, we demand that that organization develop new and better defenses of its interests. Not fighting taxes and limiting production only guarantees its extinction.
4. We object to any inference to an absolute and necessary relationship between oil revenues and a wasteful economic model. The results obtained to date have no relationship with a rentier model. If we had applied a true and responsible rentierism, living off a portion of the income and not the capital, the story would be different and Venezuela would be in a very envious economic situation.
5. We reject any derogatory expression, such as “devil's excrement”, which hinders the emergence of a necessary feeling of respect and gratitude for oil, without which it is impossible to manage our wealth for the good of future generations.
6. Since we know that oil is a non-renewable asset of the country, we believe that the defense of its price and value should be the main objective of our industry and we reject the concept of a maximization of current income, which is based on the maximize sales volumes.
7. Even though their fiscal purpose is evident, oil taxes are hidden behind the cloak of "green protectionism." At the same time that we affirm a commitment to the defense of the environment, we reject, as unfair, that the producing countries must pay 100% of their cost.
8. Oil certainly doesn't create many jobs. However, we must avoid falling into schizophrenic models where the country, being an oil producer, deals with the anguish of not being one, making mistakes whose impact on the generation of stable employment is even more negative.
9. The results of the international agreements signed by the country during the last decades do not compensate the cost of having to respect the sources of income of the developed world, such as trademarks and patents, without them respecting our right to obtain the majority of what corresponds to the valuation of our oil asset.
10. In the defense of oil, it is not possible to replace the importance of a solid will of the country, with the hiring of international advice and lobbying.
11. There are Patriots willing to give their lives in the event that a foreign entity enters our country, in order to extract barrels of oil. Oil taxes imposed by the consuming world are, in essence, a similar invasion. It is the responsibility of the Petropolitan to report this.
http://petropolitan.blogspot.com/1999/10/el-manifiesto-petropolitano.html
http://theoilcurse.blogspot.com/1999/10/the-petropolitan-manifesto.html
Friday, September 10, 1999
Rising global info-confusion
Friday, July 23, 1999
The mouse that roared
Friday, July 09, 1999
An e-mail to our accusers
Friday, June 25, 1999
A true fountain of inspiration
Friday, June 18, 1999
Mobility and economic growth
Tuesday, June 15, 1999
Let's talk about official advertising (and exchange rate anorexia)
Translated by Google from an OpEd published June 15, 1999
Friday, June 11, 1999
Three bullets on punctuality
Time, the ANC and meridians
Per Kurowski
I have no intention of putting the right to punctuality in the same category as the basic traditional human rights such as the right to education, security, access to health care, food and work.
However, in a country such as Venezuela we can easily lose up to three hours per week waiting for something or another, due mostly to a total lack of respect for the value of our time. Accumulated over our average active life span of 55 years, this adds up to approximately one year of our lives. I therefore think that this matter is not at all irrelevant, less so in times of a constituent assembly.
As a matter of fact, our Constitution and laws supposedly protect the common citizen against the unjustified loss of his or her right to freedom. All civil rights organizations in the world would go ballistic if someone would dare propose the possibility of unjustified arrest, even if it were for only one year. How come nobody says anything when we lose our liberty for more that one year, even if it is bit by bit, due to the lack of punctuality or mediocre and/or non-existent services.
I am not a candidate for the constituent assembly. My other responsibilities to my family and country allow me to avoid a process which would only bring my lack of powers of assembly to light. However, this does not limit nor my right nor my obligation as a citizen to present proposals and observations to the process. In this sense, I must remind the 131 members of the constituent assembly that, for example, when the State requires the country’s population to carry an identification card and the latter takes more than fifteen minutes to issue, we are essentially in the presence of a clear violation of human rights.
But in the case of the lack of punctuality, it is evident that we need a total reform of all civil society. There is no doubt that among the majority of the population, both among defenders of human rights as well as among those that complain about the public administration, there hide a bunch of vulgar violators of human rights who, without remorse whatsoever, blithely ignore the existence and purpose of the clock.
How, then, do we reform our civil society? This is a difficult question to answer, specially when you consider that should we require punctuality as a basic prerequisite for election to the constituent assembly, it would surely be very difficult to complete the roster of 131 members.
One alternative would be the creation of a “Punctual Venezuela”, parallel to the actual one. For example, if we start to use a little symbol that could be printed on all invitations to those activities that really require punctuality at the risk of being either excluded from the event or publicly chastised, we could possibly begin to create some semblance of civility. This symbol could be a watch, but I would rather leave that up to the specialists in advertising.
The interesting part of this alternative is that it would simultaneously allow us to impose, as of today, a heavy public sanction for those who lack punctuality without having to request that “notorious sinners” must go through a process of painful public remorse. Additionally, the mere fact of maintaining the option of a “Punctual Venezuela” alive, would allow us to simultaneously allow us to continue to humor those foreign visitors who, with a tropicalisation which rivals that of the inhabitants of Borburata, take every chance to take revenge on and/or liberate themselves of the yoke of punctuality.
I wish to take this opportunity to mention another problem that preoccupies me and that also is related to time. We have recently been witness to public spectacles such as the fight the United States has sustained with Europe about bananas. I have often suggested that the effect of global warming has been much greater that we first suspected. It seems to have moved the parallels normally identified with Banana Republics northwards towards Washington.
I consider, however, that not only the parallels have gone crazy, the meridians have gone haywire as well. I often take my daughters to parties that begin at mid-night, which to me simply seems like a real and crude version, in cinéma vérité, of Saturday Night Fever. I can not but suspect that their generation has simply decided to substitute the East Coast’s meridian for that of the West Coast. Some of the television channels seem to suffer from the same syndrome. Somehow, I always seem to go to bed at night watching comics while, if I am not careful, my daughters wake up with XXX.