Its one of many launched to make you believe Venezuela’s economy is bankrupt (or will be at any second) because of Chavez’ "retrogressive policies" ... labeled as “populist” sometimes ... and as “socialist” the rest of the time...

The Miami Herald publishes a report by Associated Press’ Julie Watson: “Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez' radical policies pose 'substantial risk' for private firms and are expected to undermine the South American country's economic growth in 2007, the world's leading banking organization said Sunday.

The Institute of International Finance presented its doom-and-gloom outlook for Venezuela in its annual Latin American Regional Overview report, released at a conference on the sidelines of a meeting of the Inter-American Development Bank.”

It continues saying: “The report called Chavez ‘the all-powerful president,’ ‘noting that his supporters entirely control Congress, and said his "hostility toward markets poses substantial risk to private firms.’ ”

Reading pieces like this, you may think that now in 2007, Venezuela is like Haiti, El Salvador, Somalia or Bangladesh ... with no telephones or electricity in their cities, millions living in slums or dying on the streets as beggars, queuing for a plate of rice ... and that only Chavez and his officials ride luxury cars and drink fine champagne, after ruining the country’s economy.

That ... before Chavez ... there were no poor people, private national and international firms never went to bankrupt, all houses had electricity, telephone and Internet, everybody lived in town-houses and mansions eating turkey and drinking milk and imported whisky, working in air-conditioned offices, while State and government officials only did their job for a fair salary and the satisfaction of serving their country...

You are free to believe fairy tales if you wish ... but let’s take into account what others are saying and reporting about the same subject: Venezuela’s economy.

Concerning Just US-American companies in Venezuela, Reuters informs us that “Venezuelan car sales soared 64.6% in February,” this year, citing Venezuela’s Automotive Chamber (CAVENEZ) data.

* Among others companies affiliated to CAVENEZ are DaimlerChrysler AG, Ford Motor Co., and General Motors Corp.

The report details that: “total car sales for February reached 33,593 vehicles, compared with 20,403 in February 2006” and that “the government has also spurred car sales through a family vehicle program that exempts certain cars from the country's value added tax.”

To show how “undermined” Venezuela’s economy is, let’s take a look at another article from AP Caracas by Fabiola Sanchez headlined: “Venezuela consumerism grows amid socialist rhetoric,” where we know that “plastic surgeons are performing nips, tucks and breast implants at a record pace. BMWs are being snapped up from the sales lots ... and sleek new shopping malls are springing up among the high-rises in Venezuela's capital.”

Sanchez tells us that “shoppers are buying up everything from cellphones to Scotch whisky at a rapid clip as the economy benefits from high world oil prices and banks compete for clients by cutting consumer loan rates in half.”

* Also: “other areas of the economy have experienced similar growth. Consumer spending grew by a historic 20% last year compared with 2005, according to estimates by the private polling company Datanalysis.”

And ... speaking of Datanalysis ... in another report by the Venezuelan media, Datanalysis president, Luis Vicente Leon (a rabid opponent of Chavez) recently, during his speech at the Building Industry National Convention, called on the construction executives to take advantage of Venezuela’s economic growth “given the impressive amount of money on the streets.”

Its just another sample of the absurd way politics are hyped in Venezuela and, clearly, demonstrates the irrational political crusade against Chavez and the people of Venezuela as having nothing to do with any supposed plan to introduce a totalitarian regime but rather to fight for a senile political class (Accion Democratica, Copei, Movimiento Al Socialismo and the new parties derived from them like Primero Justicia and Un Nuevo Tiempo) to effect a return to power and to recover their lost privileges saying anything negative about Venezuela ... no matter how absurd or contradictory it may sound.

Just think that Venezuela’s economic boom is all about frivolous and superficial issues like plastic surgery and luxury cars...

* Now let’s talk about one of the sectors that is leading the world economy, together with high technology, life sciences and arms of mass destruction sales: oil.

Because, traditionally, when you hear or read about Venezuela, you don’t just think of its great baseball players and beauty queens ... you remember the huge oil reserves that have fueled the world’s economy since World War II ... especially the United States' war economy ... and this still despite Chavez' efforts to “share” a part of Venezuela’s wealth with the poor of Latin America.

Concerning Venezuela’s main commodity, we're informed by Dow Jones’ Market Watch that “Venezuela's profits too big for Big Oil to ignore.” With figures, graphics and statistics, they show, that “despite raising alarms over Venezuela's push to further nationalize its oil industry, analysts say the world's biggest oil companies show no sign of stomping off and abandoning their multi-million-dollar investments there.”

They tell us that the main US oil companies (Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., and ConocoPhillips) “all have stakes in projects which, together, produce about 600,000 barrels a day or around a fifth of Venezuela's total production.”

Also: “together, the international oil companies have invested about $17 billion in the projects, which include not only drilling for crude, but operating massive, specialized processing units to turn the Orinoco's heavy sludge into a lighter grade of crude that can be marketed to overseas refiners.”

Although risk is a key component in capitalism, it seems to me that Big Oil is very well prepared to take it, ignoring all the political fuss inside and outside the country, given the amount they're investing and planning to invest in Venezuela in the near future ... not to speak about the huge profits they expect to gain from it, that will surely quadruplicate the original investment.

After reading these pieces I don’t think "big capitalist elites" are thinking of moving away from Venezuela or paying any attention to “warnings” similar to those mentioned above. I guess they know very well what the truth is concerning Venezuela, Chavez, consumers and constitutionally-granted economic rights.

To be such an “all-powerful President,” Chavez is indeed being very kind to national and international capitalist investors and very favorable to open markets in Venezuela, despite “all his supporters entirely control congress” ... mainly because the opposition candidates who withdrew from the electoral battle in 2005 (as part of a plan to discredit those elections and Chavez) simply forgot to mention such an important fact in the Institute of International Finance report.

If you want to deepen your knowledge about Venezuela’s economy from independent sources, there are a lot of them on the Internet that can be used to get pretty close to the truth.

That consumerism and participation by the main oil companies in Venezuela's economy are leading the world into a state of permanent war over hydrocarbons and whether or not they are helping or causing damage to the new socialist model that Hugo Chavez is trying to implement in Venezuela is the subject for another article.

But let’s first strip away the contradictions within capitalism and its disinformation apparatus before we even try to criticize any legitimate attempt to establish an alternative to the status quo.

Jesus Nery Barrios
 jesus@vheadline.com