Saludos!
OW, your argument about the oil barrel does not hold. When Chavez took power, Venezuela probably got around 8$/barrel. Today, let us assume that it gets 48$/barrel..that's 6 times the amount of 1999, OW!
Imagine that you got a salary of 1000$/month and in a few years you get 6000$/month. Are you going to be richer? I hope so! What would be surprising is that you get poorer, which is what has been happening under Chavez.
So Eljuri is saying that he is using the same methodology. I hope it is true. But I do agree with Oppenheimer. If they want to be credible, they should open the books to tough independent statisticians to explain such a dramatic drop in just one single year.
And BTW OW, Are you going to write a post on yesterday's very nice TSJ ruling about the Morochas?
Brunilde
"OW, your argument about the oil barrel does not hold. When Chavez took power, Venezuela probably got around 8$/barrel. Today, let us assume that it gets 48$/barrel..that's 6 times the amount of 1999, OW!"
Yes, but that is now, and we see the effects - the economy is booming and poverty is down. In 2002 and 2003 it was $23 or $24 - much less. Its not correct to imply, as Oppenhiemer does, that Chavez has had such high prices all along. Further, in 2002 and 2003 the effects of the coup and strike more than offset any oil price.
"So Eljuri is saying that he is using the same methodology. I hope it is true. But I do agree with Oppenheimer. If they want to be credible, they should open the books to tough independent statisticians to explain such a dramatic drop in just one single year."
This is called moving the goal posts. First they say Eljuri said that the methodology changed. That turned out to be untrue (and Bruni do you ask the oppositition why they were so dishonest on thi?). Then when its confirmed that he DID say there was NO change that is now suspect. It needs to be audited. I would like to know what government in the world has its economic statistics audited - none that I know of. I have never heard of such a thing. And even if they did the goal posts would get moved again. The referendum results got audited and the opposition didn't accept them - they auditors were coluding with the government or were incompetent we were told. PDVSA had its oil numbers audited showing that they told the truth all along and the opposition just ignores it or keeps lying about it. So would this be any different? I have to say I doubt it.
Furthermore, why weren't Oppenheimer and you requesting an audit when the poverty numbers went up? Is any number that looks bad for Chavez automatically believable?
Yes, I will post about the Morochas decision. As you should know from my previous posts on it I'm not in agreement with the decision to allow them. But....
OW, the problem with your answer is that you think I am the opposition. Or that I will be convinced of Chavez's goodness because of opposition badness.
Chavez is bad and his goverment is bad, regardless of what the opposition does and what the papers say. My opinion is based on my own appreciation of the Venezuela situation.
I am one of those people that is not satisfied with the way the RR audit was carry out and that is highly suspicious of the RR results. I saw those results first hand. They were not filtered by any newspaper. The anaysis of the discrepancies was done in my home, by highly competent and very rigorous statisticians. Regardless of what the opposition said or did, I am not satisfied with the discrpancies I saw and the CNE did not do everything in its power to dissipate my doubts.
As for why we should ask for more info about the INE methodology NOW and we did not ask for it before, it is because BEFORE there were events that could explain why the poverty rate was rising. And when poverty rate was going down, it was steadily, normal, as expected.
Now we have a decrease of 10 points in a few months. That is extremely unusual. Let us put it this way, if the INE were one of my students, I would ask him to double check his numbers.
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OW, the problem with your answer is that you think I am the opposition. Or that I will be convinced of Chavez's goodness because of opposition badness.
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Did you at any moment move the goalposts with re: to poverty numbers? be honest with yourself.
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Chavez is bad and his goverment is bad, regardless of what the opposition does and what the papers say. My opinion is based on my own appreciation of the Venezuela situation.
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Do you also reject the opposition leadership? they are sistematically worse in nearly all respects.
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I am one of those people that is not satisfied with the way the RR audit was carry out and that is highly suspicious of the RR results. I saw those results first hand. They were not filtered by any newspaper. The anaysis of the discrepancies was done in my home, by highly competent and very rigorous statisticians. Regardless of what the opposition said or did, I am not satisfied with the discrpancies I saw and the CNE did not do everything in its power to dissipate my doubts.
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In science it is normally considered good enough whenever the scientific minds agree that it was good enough. The RR will never be 100% true, even if we counted each and every one, however it was good enough given the years of expirience the observers had.
As for statistics, you will need much better evidence than that, If I claimed I won the lottery and showed you the stub you could not reasonably argue back that it is false since the probability is 1 in a million. 1 in 100 (if true) is actually a high probability.
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As for why we should ask for more info about the INE methodology NOW and we did not ask for it before, it is because BEFORE there were events that could explain why the poverty rate was rising. And when poverty rate was going down, it was steadily, normal, as expected.
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There are events that explain how poverty could be dropping, Venezuelas economy grew by an almost 30% in a period of 2 years. That is unheard of even if most of it was rebound.
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Now we have a decrease of 10 points in a few months. That is extremely unusual. Let us put it this way, if the INE were one of my students, I would ask him to double check his numbers.
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It was not a few months according to ow's numbers (which I hope he can find a way to back them up 
) it is closer to 2 years.
"It was not a few months according to ow's numbers (which I hope he can find a way to back them up ) it is closer to 2 years."
Well said - and yes it is a two year period - not just months. As far as the numbers the ones up to 2003 are the ones from the INE report on poverty that was released earlier this year. The ones since then are from Eljuri in the Panorama interview except for the precise 38.5% which wasn't just given as "below 40%" in the interview but then other sources later gave it as 38.5% including Oppenheimer. So if you go back to my post #1 on this topic you will see where the numbers came from.
Brunilde, no one begrudges anyones right to oppose Chavez. Although I disagree with them I can undestsand why people would legitimatly opposse him. But what DOES bother me is a long pattern of consistent distortion of facts. Its hard to do anything when we can't even agree on the basic reality, in numbers, of what is going on in the country. And I put the blame for that with the opposition as every case I can think of they are the ones distorting, falsifying, or ignoring those facts. And it is this distortion and ignoring of facts that helps lead to the extreme polarization and talking past each other that we find in Venezuela today.
The problem, Dan, is that chavistas tend to act, write and govern as though they are the bearers of an undeniable wisdom.
Chavismo is inherently militaristic in that it seeks to eradicate any form of serious dissent. One is (in Fidel's words) either for the revolution or against it, no in-betweens allowed.
This doesn't seem to be the case with you, however, this militaristic approach to reality is central to chavismo. Chavismo's militarism is what helps create an atmosphere of confrontation and uncertainty in Venezuela.
OW, for once I agree with you. There is a serious transparency and trust problem in Venezuela, on both sides. This is a totally new situation that has never taken place in the past.
Now, the difference between your stand and mine is that I blame the goverment more than the private media. Why? Because they are the goverment! They represent ALL the people of Venezuela, they are bound to be transparent and to do their job properly.
When the goverment does not open the boxes in the Referendum, or disregards the demands to clean up the REP, it is not being transparent. When the INE or any other goverment organization does not allow their numbers to be audited, they are not being transparent.
I'll take you out of the political context to show you how serious the situation is. Venezuela has breast cancer statistics that are completely different from those of the rest of the world. The incidence of young women with breast cancer is much much higher in Venezuela. The question is why? This is a very important fact for thousands of women. Is this the product of bad sampling, lack of sampling, social customs or is there a special genetic or environmental predisposition? We don't know! Nobody knows! Nobody has asked seriously how those statistics are taken, what is the methodology used, etc. etc.
If I do not trust Venezuela's statistics in poverty, how can I trust the statistics in breast cancer? I need to be able to trust the goverment, to trust the institutions that are put in place and it is the obligation of the Venezuelan goverment to do whatever is necessary for me to trust them.
Chavez has created a climate of mistrust and division in Venezuela that never ever existed before. Chavez is the first one to be blamed for such a sad situation. And that is why I feel that he is the worst thing that has happened to Venezuela in recent history.
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Well said - and yes it is a two year period - not just months. As far as the numbers the ones up to 2003 are the ones from the INE report on poverty that was released earlier this year. The ones since then are from Eljuri in the Panorama interview except for the precise 38.5% which wasn't just given as "below 40%" in the interview but then other sources later gave it as 38.5% including Oppenheimer. So if you go back to my post #1 on this topic you will see where the numbers came from.
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I am ok with the recent numbers, it is mostly the pre-2002 numbers that I would love to see, can't quote you otherwise
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The problem, Dan, is that chavistas tend to act, write and govern as though they are the bearers of an undeniable wisdom.
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I don't know about chavistas but I tend to act, write and govern with facts to back me up.
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Chavismo is inherently militaristic in that it seeks to eradicate any form of serious dissent. One is (in Fidel's words) either for the revolution or against it, no in-betweens allowed.
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I am inherently militaristic in that I seek to eradicte emotional dissent (ie I am angry blah blah blah) tolerate opinionated dissent, and appreciate factual dissent (to my ideas not chavismo)
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This doesn't seem to be the case with you, however, this militaristic approach to reality is central to chavismo. Chavismo's militarism is what helps create an atmosphere of confrontation and uncertainty in Venezuela.
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No it is the serious disconect from reality and the fanatical confrontation that creates polarization, whenever an opo argues that they love the poor so they will get rid of social programs and argue that Chavez increases poverty. That might piss off someone that is really poor.
You know who it was.
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Now, the difference between your stand and mine is that I blame the goverment more than the private media. Why? Because they are the goverment! They represent ALL the people of Venezuela, they are bound to be transparent and to do their job properly.
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I don't see how people are so willing to give pass to the private media just because they are private, should we never trust ANYTHING but public media?
You can't please everybody all the time, if Chavez represents all venezuelans, but then so should the oposition. Which I do blame for most of the problems. Chavez gets blame for a few but not this.
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I'll take you out of the political context to show you how serious the situation is. Venezuela has breast cancer statistics that are completely different from those of the rest of the world. The incidence of young women with breast cancer is much much higher in Venezuela. The question is why? This is a very important fact for thousands of women. Is this the product of bad sampling, lack of sampling, social customs or is there a special genetic or environmental predisposition? We don't know! Nobody knows! Nobody has asked seriously how those statistics are taken, what is the methodology used, etc. etc.
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Yes is true Venezuela does use different definitions for statistics, this being a lowball definition for poverty, HOWEVER statistics are good are showing trends, if criollo breast cancer statistics are pointing downward dramatically then it is good news, same here.
What is intellectually offensive is to point to those same breast cancer statistics showing an increase, and later dismiss them when they show the decrease.
Poverty is NOT 35% in Venezuela, it is much higher, the good news is that it is dropping fast.
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Chavez has created a climate of mistrust and division in Venezuela that never ever existed before. Chavez is the first one to be blamed for such a sad situation. And that is why I feel that he is the worst thing that has happened to Venezuela in recent history.
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Dude it existed, you were just blind to it, do you think el caracazo was just random crime? that Chavez is elected on a landslide because everything is peachy? that the opo does not dish de hate also? (some racial bigotry)
Chavez made us aware of that division, maybe even acted as a catalist but it was there, and the root cause was poverty and lack of representation, AD may have been socialist on the surface, but in reality they were anything but.
Brunilde:
I was going to respond to your points but I think Flanker said it much better than I could, and more succinctly too. Let me just say that the opposition, if it intends to be at all serious, has an obligation to at least be truthfull. Strident opposition to Chavez is fine. Willfully distorting facts to create a parallel and false reality is not. Quite frankly it doesn't help anyone, not even the opposition, that they do that. They just destroy their own credibility - not because they oppose Chavez, but because the repeatedly peddle false information. Not only is it unethical, and even if you are in the private sector you are supposed to have ethics, it is bad strategy.
GP, Venezuela militarized? Sounds like a oxymoron to me. I think Boston is a lot more militarized and regimented than Caracas. And if Chavez intends to change that he'd probably need to be around to 2050 or something
More polls
http://www.economist.com/World/
l...tory_id=5093522
"no one begrudges anyones right to oppose Chavez. Although I disagree with them I can undestsand why people would legitimatly opposse him. But what DOES bother me is a long pattern of consistent distortion of facts."
This strikes at the heart of what Oppenheimer writes with resononces to all those in blogdom that do the same. There is a concerted effort by some to distort, spin or otherwise hide what in thier minds might be anything good that has been produced within Chavez' tenure. None should be surprised by such actions - it has been going on for as long as i can remember contributing to such debates. Sometimes I used to wonder whether there was a lack of communication, a misunderstandign of sorts, so much that some would take information and make it thier own not valueing what the information tells in the whole of any particular mattter. The bits and pieces snipped from hither and yonder to make a correlation with a certain midnframe is a long standing tradition among many an oppo blogger, aside from blatant fabrication in the worst of cases. More to the thier standard, is a cheshire cats grin to twisting what truths they want portrayed with little in the sense of honesty, save but a mere few. Like the author of this article, once faced with evidence hard to swallow, our oppo friends save themselves by applying conditions onthe data, that will put the onus back on the supplier of the data leaving them (our oppo friends) as the judges once again. This was the cycle back when we challenged them on thier territory now in our territory those of high integrity but still oppo still cannot keep the ball on thier side of the court for a moment to ponder - never mind the others of lesser integrity, due to lack of argument they fester in thier lies like flies fester on dung. Unfortunately and unprecedently, flies now have the ability to travel from South America to Miami, such that the oppenheimers of the world now must question what has been said by many and shown to be true yet true to the maggot likeness of his compatriots then seeks to put the burden of proof on others. Scumbag. I have but one word for people of that kind:
SUFFER!
Well we have all heard of how the Venezuelan version of the IRS AKA Seniat has taken to the task of collecting back taxes which since its inception has garnered more revenue than in many years past. In thier latest venture they go after CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela or more commonly known as CANTV:
Oct. 27 (Bloomberg) -- CA Nacional Telefonos de Venezuela, the country's largest telephone company, reported a third- quarter loss after the company increased reserves to finance pension payments owed former employees.
The company lost $203 million, or $1.83 per American depositary receipt, compared with net income of $74 million, or $0.66 a share a year earlier. Reserves were raised by $293 million in the quarter to $333 million, the company said in a statement.
``They'll have a large one-time cost for the reserves increase,'' Miguel Octavio, executive director of brokerage BBO Servicios in Caracas, whose mutual funds own shares of Nacional Telefonos, said in an interview before the release. ``Their fixed-line revenue has also been undermined by the tariff freeze.''
Nacional Telefonos' sales are suffering from the government's refusal to let the company raise residential phone rates, Chief Executive Gustavo Roosen said in July. The government froze telephone and electricity rates in February 2003 in an effort to stabilize the economy after a two-month national strike cut oil output and cost $13 billion in lost crude sales.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/ ne...r=latin_america
Im no Economist or financial advisor by very very far - but it seems to me our friend Octavio's anus was saved by the injection of reserves to offset what otherwise might be seen as fiduciary negligence. Id keep away from BBO Servicios if I were a Venezuelan investor – god knows id like an investor who dedicated his time to my money than blogs!
Suffer!
Flanker, carajito:
"Facts" are bought with petrodollars here.
NO! Facts are sold to those willing to look for them. How many times have I been told by an friend/relative that there was going to be a coup on the weekend? how many times would they foward me a rumor email? How many times do I have to read in an opo blog that poverty is increasing?
You can chose to ignore the statistics and trends as goverment propaganda, it is your right. However it is in your benefit (and yours alone) to try maintain a critical thinking mind, an intellectually honest one. I would tell someone to smack me in the face if I ever used a statistic when it benefited me but dismissed it when it did not, ESPECIALLY when I have no EVIDENCE of manipulation or malice.
You want to prove these numbers as bogus? find evidence of chicanery, show us where the data was changed, the definition was different, or how many petrodollars was funneled into this.
Otherwise we might as well shut down our minds and let other people manipulate us into what to think.
Hey guys, OT, but I just read this comment on an oppo blog:
Daniel
agreed,
so far the oppo, was playing inside the rules of the law...
after this I'm not sure what's up for the rest
Jacques Costeau | 10.28.05 - 7:11 pm | #
I almost croaked I was laughing so hard. "playing inside the rules of the law..." I guess there must be clause in the constitution that reads "whichever party is not in power shall, during any presidential term, be entitled to one coup attempt and one lockout, to remove the party that is in power"
What I find funny is that when one of them dissents, and starts looking at the 'facts' with a critical eye he/she automatically becomes suspect, a closet-Chavista.
They are marginalized as being 'no-fun', a 'dupe', a 'liberal', etc. Yes, many in the Venezuelan opposition are hardline, pro-imperialist, comprador rightists that despise the masses. For these people the average Venezulean is just a bloke that is fair game for exploitation, manipulation, immiseration, and the deathsquad, if they ever get any 'communist' ideas.
Their fangs begin to show when they are cornered, as Quico is finding out fast. (But he already knew it--but doesn't want to admit that the upperclasses in Ven. are at heart heartless anti-democratic slugs.
They live a type of collective delusion. This was apparent before, during, and after the RR.
Wierd, imagine living with a group of people that actually participated in a game where night is always day, and hot and rainy is, in their deluded minds, cold and dry.
Must be really strange living in this type of world.
Humor aside, it is interesting the 'filtering' processes that occur where intelligent people filter-out information that might cause them to question their worldview.
Indeed, we all do this--but some open their filters to live and grow as responsible humans, and others cloister themselves in a shell that only having money allows. They don't see others as being human as they are, entitled to the basics that make for a decent, meaningful, healthy life. It is perfectly ok for their maid to go home to a dilapidated shack and not be able to take vacations, have retirement benefits, etc.
Sick shit--and of course they cannot question the fundamental dogma that undergirds this exploitative, neocolonial reality.
Sandy:
Yes, that is hysterical. If coups and lockouts are "inside the rules of the law" I sure would hate to see what is outside 
I am going to make a mental note to call Andres Oppenheimer by another name: "Oppencrimer"--because his gross distortions and apologetics for the status quo comprador imperialism is criminal.
Where is the booming economy? you have to go to Caracas and see and ask. The business is prety bad for everybody. Kids on the streets as never seen before. Dirty, chaos, prety bad robolucion...
17% and 10% growth in the last two years respectively qualify as booming in most peoples (and my) book. Poverty is down, unemployment is down, inflation is down, GNP is the highest in Venezuela's history - by every indicator things are vastly improved. And that IN SPITE OF an opposition which has been doing everything it could to trash the country.
Business is bad for who? Certainly not for the banks who are making money hand over fist, for auto compannies who are selling record numbers of cars, for malls that are packed. Seniats IVA tax collections are through the roof so obviously business is pretty darn good.
Johnny....errr....your turn. Respond to OW's facts.
But stick to the facts, man, only the facts--not your brother-in-law's opinion, the slug (now selling arepas and driving a taxi) who made the misguided decision to help shut down Venezuela's life-blood, the oil industry.
i send you grettings home owner insurance quote
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