Saturday, July 20, 2019

Without freeing Venezuela from its centralized oil revenue curse, Venezuelans will only live in somebody else’s business

Too many leaders around the world keep a Che Guevara shirt in their closet. Therefore whenever Venezuela’s tragedy is framed in terms of socialism… like well fed Pavlov dogs, many of them react instinctively with a: “then it cannot just be so bad”.
That makes it harder for us who need to get rid of the current odious regime and urgently build a better future. 
The truth is that Venezuela lives under the yoke of immense natural resource revenues, which are centralized and managed by some few redistribution profiteers.
Some years those revenues have signified 97% of our entire nation’s exports, something that would negate a free capitalistic market anywhere. 
What we need, in order to at last live in a nation, and not in somebody else’s business, is oil revenue sharing.
“Socialism…then it cannot just be so bad”? During the corrupt, inept and human rights violating regimes of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s poorest 40% got less than 15% of what they would have received had oil revenues been shared out equally to all.

Thursday, July 11, 2019

Today we Venezuelans need something very solid to grasp, so as with impetus again believe in the future of our nation.

Venezuela's legitimate creditors should know that their only chance of collecting anything depends on whether Venezuela manages to raise a reasonable capacity to extract oil again, at a reasonable cost.
Anyone who arrives to have the responsibility of governing the country should know that without Venezuela being able to raise a reasonable oil extraction capacity, at a reasonable cost, and in a relatively short period, their chances of continuing to have the confidence of the people are nil.
If most of the net oil revenues (resultas petroleras), are shared equally among all Venezuelans then they will know that, compared to having to bend before authorities to beg for a few Claps, or free gasoline, or foreign currency at preferential rates, they would be in heaven. At last they will be able to feel living in a nation and not in somebody else’s business.
Because of the above, I am sure that to raise the soul of our Venezuela, there is nothing better than a great agreement based, for example, in the legitimate creditors during the next 25 years getting 15% of our net oil revenues, the government 34% and citizens 51%.
Impossible? No! Our current legitimate creditors would be delighted with the establishment of a repayment source directly related to the income obtained by an increased oil extractive capacity.
And I am sure that with the certainty of an institutional agreement like the previous one, it would rain offers from qualified oil companies to make the many investments that are necessary today, after PDVSA has converted its assets into junk.
And I am sure that both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund would be delighted to transparently supervise the correct implementation of such an agreement.
The difficulty? Those hunting the oil revenues and their friends, those who always distribute our oil results to keep the best part for themselves. Again, they will argue that if they manage 34% plus 51%, our Venezuela will be better. Should we keep believing them? No way Jose!
The faster an agreement like this one is reached, one in which everyone will be rowing in the same direction, the easier it will be to straighten out our twisted and saddened country, in order to give it the necessary encouragement to find solutions to its many other problems.
In addition, any restructuring of debt has, for simple humanitarian reasons, the duty to seek to provide quick and sustainable responses to the most pressing needs of Venezuelans, primarily those of its malnourished children and those of its elderly painfully abandoned adrift. Humanitarian aid and loans from multilateral institutions help in the short term, but they do not represent a sustainable source of resources.
Of course, under this redistribution distribution plan it would be much easier to end this economic crime against humanity of giving away gasoline in Venezuela, instead of selling at its opportunity value in the international market.
I use here the term petroleum extraction since, for decades I have consider it a disrespect to that providence that placed petroleum under Venezuelan earth, to refer to it as producers.
Translated from Petropolitan
@PerKurowski