BOLI-NICA On Bolivia, Nicaragua, Latin America, US Politics, Globalization

Evo's Gasolinazo - Morales Finally Does Something Right Then Cancels

2011-01-11T20:48:00.000-06:00

From the Economist,

Fuel on the fire Evo Morales is hoist with his own petard

The logic behind the increase was impeccable. Fuel prices in Bolivia have been frozen since before Mr Morales came to power in 2006, even as the world price of oil has surged. The result has been rising demand, falling oil output and a mounting bill for fuel imports and subsidies. The price freeze cost the government $380m last year, a bill that would rise to $660m this year, according to Álvaro García Linera, the vice-president.

Words of Wisdom

2010-12-10T20:56:00.000-06:00

Mario Vargas Llosa on his Nobel acceptance speech making the claim for Liberal Democracy

No debemos dejarnos intimidar por quienes quisieran arrebatarnos la libertad que hemos ido conquistando en la larga hazaña de la civilización. Defendamos la democracia liberal, que, con todas sus limitaciones, sigue significando el pluralismo político, la convivencia, la tolerancia, los derechos humanos, el respeto a la crítica, la legalidad, las elecciones libres, la alternancia en el poder, todo aquello que nos ha ido sacando de la vida feral y acercándonos -aunque nunca llegaremos a alcanzarla- a la hermosa y perfecta vida que finge la literatura, aquella que sólo inventándola, escribiéndola y leyéndola podemos merecer. Enfrentándonos a los fanáticos homicidas defendemos nuestro derecho a soñar y a hacer nuestros sueños realidad.

WIKILEAKS - BOLIVIA'S REFERENDUM: MARGIN OF VICTORY MATTERS

2010-12-03T08:50:00.001-06:00

Interesting cables from around election time

Did Evo steals votes? when he clearly did not need to, in order to win the constitutional referendum, the US Embassy has some interesting thoughts on that.

Summary: With the January 25 constitutional
referendum rapidly approaching, all signs point to victory
for President Morales and his ruling Movement Toward
Socialism (MAS) party. Although the opposition has made

inroads into the MAS lead, most national polls point to
between 54 and 60 percent support for the proposed
constitution (with one government poll showing 66 percent),
and the MAS appears set to leverage its considerable rural
base to victory. After a series of national news articles
raised questions about significant fraud in the August 2008
recall referendum, the National Electoral Court has taken
pains to advertise the electoral rolls as secure. However, a
recent poll shows less than half of the public shares the

court's confidence, and the opposition believes significant
electoral fraud is likely. While cheating seems unnecessary
to secure victory for the MAS, padding their lead would give
the party leverage in congressional negotiations regarding
legislation implementing hundreds of vague constitutional
clauses. Opposition leaders continue to fear the MAS will
use any stalemate in these negotiations to close congress and
institute rule by decree. At both the national and regional
levels, the margin of victory matters. A landslide for the

MAS nationally, or large victories for the opposition in the
eastern departments, could spark more conflict. End summary.

http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=09LAPAZ96&hl=BOLIVIA

The State Department Cables - Evo is Difficult Says Christina

2010-11-30T12:14:00.001-06:00

Revelations about US-Bolivian relations from the infamous State Department Cables

Christina and Nestor Kirchner had good relations with Thomas Shannon Undersecretary of State during the Bush administration. acting as a secret go-between for the US Government with Evo.

Colaboración en Bolivia
Los telegramas intercambiados entre la Embajada en Buenos Aires y la Secretaría de Estado muestran las buenas relaciones que llegaron a mantener Néstor Kirchner y la presidenta con la Administración de George Bush y su secretario de Estado adjunto para Asuntos de América, Thomas Shannon, y la difícil comunicación que existió, al menos hasta marzo-abril de este año, con la Administración de Obama y, sobre todo, con Arturo Valenzuela.
La confianza con Shannon llegó hasta el punto de que la presidenta aceptó "cooperar con el Gobierno de Estados Unidos en Bolivia". "CFK afirma que Argentina cooperará con el USG [Gobierno de Estados Unidos] en Bolivia, pero que tenemos que ser cuidadosos para que no parezca que existe una 'operación política' contra el Gobierno, dadas las sospechas de Evo", asegura el telegrama norteamericano. Shannon ya había dado seguridades a la presidenta argentina de que Estados Unidos garantizaba la integridad territorial de Bolivia e intentaba, con muy poco éxito, convencer a Evo Morales de que Washington no tenía nada contra él. "Evo no es una persona fácil, nos confía CFK, haciéndonos notar que Argentina tiene problemas para conseguir que Bolivia le abastezca de gas natural. Todos necesitamos paciencia, nos dijo", relata el entonces embajador Wayne. Poco antes, un telegrama informa de las gestiones que ha hecho el ministro de Exteriores argentino, a solicitud del embajador de Estados Unidos, para bajar la tensión en Bolivia respecto a Washington y garantizar la seguridad de su Embajada en La Paz. "Taiana nos informa de que ha llamado tres veces al viceministro boliviano para insistir en esos dos puntos".
Un despacho enviado por la Embajada en Buenos Aires antes de la visita de Shannon en agosto de 2008 expone claramente cuáles son las demandas de Estados Unidos al Gobierno argentino: "Esperamos que Argentina desempeñe un papel positivo en evitar un conflicto y llevar a buen puerto la democracia en Bolivia; que influya en el presidente ecuatoriano, Rafael Correa, para que se comporte con más moderación; que tome una posición más constructiva, madura y equilibrada en el conflicto colombiano y que influya positivamente en su contraparte venezolana".

So much for Evo being threatened by the US:

* Shannon asked the Kirchners to reassure Evo that the US guaranteed Bolivia's territorial integrity (this was during the time that Evo was accusing the US of supporting the regional opposition in Santa Cruz which he claimed wanted to split the country)

* Shannon asked the Kirchners to try to convince Evo that the "US didn't have anything against him". trying to lower tensions
* The American Embassador in Buenos Aires asked Argentinian Foreign Minister Taina to intercede with Bolivian authorities to "lower the tension in Bolivia" vis a vis the U.S. and to guarantee the "safety" of the American Embassy in La Paz. (This coming after mobs of Evo-supporters - with at least some officialist connivance- attacked the U.S. Embassy and nearly set it ablaze).
* Christina Kirchner describes Evo as "not an easy person"

What emerges at least from this series of cables is a State Department from the past couple of years actually using diplomacy to deal with and get along with a rather prickly ideologue like Evo. Far cry from trying to destabilize him as he claims.

The Kirchners also come across as having much better relations in private with the Bush Administration than they let on in public.

Bolivias Shrinking Gas Reserves - The Price of Evo's Nationalization Part 1

2010-11-07T11:20:00.010-06:00

Bolivia's government has finally confirmed what Bolivian analyst Hugo Del Granado reported a month ago, tthat the country's natural gas reserves have dropped precipituously.

From Merco Press

According to a recent audit commissioned by the Bolivian government and conducted by US-based consulting firm Ryder Scott allegedly shows that the country has only 8.3 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, sharply lower than the range of 12.8 trillion to 26.7 trillion that has appeared in contradictory official versions.

“It's a blow to the expectations that have been built up since the start of the decade concerning ... (factors) that gave Bolivia an economic advantage in the regional context,” energy sector analyst Hugo del Granado is quoted in La Paz press.

Del Granado caused a stir days ago when he published an article about a preliminary yet reliable report he had seen concerning a sharp drop in proven gas reserves, noting the government has been keeping the information secret since June.

Apparently the recent audit commissioned by the government and conducted by U.S.-based consulting firm Ryder Scott shows that Bolivia has only 8.3 trillion cubic feet of proven gas reserves, sharply lower than the range of 12.8 trillion to 26.7 trillion that has appeared in contradictory official versions.

Bolivia is “resisting the truth” because acknowledging the reality would mean losing its status as the second-leading natural gas power in South America, Del Granado said, adding that the country currently ranks fourth in the region in terms of proven reserves.

Venezuela has 200 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves, followed by Argentina, with 13.2 trillion; Brazil, 12.7 trillion; Peru, 11.2 trillion cubic feet; and Colombia, 4.4 trillion, according to figures cited by the expert.

Bolivia's former superintendent of oil and gas, Carlos Miranda, told the media that, if the drop in reserves is officially confirmed, Bolivia would be faced with “the nation's biggest-ever natural resources disaster.”

Its A Gas --

Bolivian law requires an annual certification of its proved natural gas and oil reserves for the previous year ending December 31st, by an independent certification firm. Proved reserves of natural gas are "estimated on the basis of geological and engineering data that make it possible to determine with reasonable certainty if the oil and gas found in known fields could be recovered in current economic and operating conditions", to use the widely accepted SEC definition.    In order to perform the certification, certifiying company would send personnel to the country, go on-site to the gas fields and headquarters of everyone involved in oil and gas, and pore over seismic, production and financial data and present a certification report.

But Who's Counting?
Carlos Villegas - President of YPFB, very recently Morales' Hyrocarbons Minister, a main architect of Evo's nationalization strategy, finally admitted that the gas reserves were at 12.8 Trillion Cubic Feet, after months of dodging the question of what the results of the 2009 certification were.

Amazingly enough during his tenure running the nationalized hydrocarbons sector there has been no certifcation of reserves. Ironically, the same "neo-liberal" governments Villegas made a career out of vilifying complied with this certification rather scrupulously.
.
Bolivia previously used, De Goyler & MacNaughton, until 2006 when Evo's government fired them. Using a new methodology D & M had given a report lowering reserve estimates in some of Bolivia's major gas fields from 22,48 TCF in 2004 to 12,86 TCF for 2005 - leaving around 15TCF total.    Evo's government was angered with this report, saying it was "politically motivated" to harm Bolivia's nationalization process. This argument is being used again, but without mentioning that Bolivia's largest gas producer Petrobras (and the multi-national that would be behind any of D&M's dastardaly "plots") was vociferously against this report.    And alienating a State company like YFPB would not seem in character for a company whose client list includes many large State Oil Companies of countries with prickly rulers like Libya and Russia. That also brings up the point that if the 2005 report if accurate could mean that D&M over-estimated gas reserves in the preceding 8 years to inflate corporate filings.   Then again, part of that downward estimate could have involved the change in hydrocarbon laws and taxation regime in 2004 and 2005, that made recovering a certain percentage of that gas economically inviable and/or resulted in lower spending on exploration, maintenance, and drilling which would also affect the numbers down.   Problem with all of this is that the report and certification was not accepted by the government, and its contents are privileged information that can only be revealed by the government.

Whatever the real figures were for 2005, there was nothing to compare them to. Morales' MAS administration violated existing (and current) laws requiring annual certification of reserves. Any doubts from D&M's report, could have been resolved by simply hiring another auditing firm.   Despite a public licitation no one was hired to audit the 2005 year, and for that matter 2006, 2007 and 2008. Finally another certification company Ryder Scott was hired to do the work

This goes to very basic transparency in resource management.   Evo's government has resolutely failed to show where reserves are at. According to the 2010 report from Revenue Watch Index of Transparency: Governments and the oil, gas and mining industries Bolivia's State hydrocarbon sector ranks among the least transparent in the region. below countries like Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Colombia whose state companies publish regular information on reserves, volumes of sales, etc.

As Revenue Watch points out the success of Chile and Peru:

According to this model, fisca lpolicy and tax collection is the finance ministry’s domain, an autonomous agency regulates and sets policy for the extractive sector, and a state-owned company is in charge of purely commercial activities. The existence of autonomous regulatory agencies overseeing exploration and production of hydrocarbons with relatively strong tax systems and publicly listed yet state-controlled companies creates multiple sources of information on these countries’ extractive sectors, which reflects strong
disclosure of information. They therefore provide examples of strong legal and regulatory structures
that, when implemented effectively, can enhance extractive sector transparency.

During the much pilloried "Neoliberal" administrations after 1997 there was actually a somewhat clear-cut division of responsibilities and independent regulation of the sector. An independent Hydrocarbons Superintendency regulated all the players in the industry, and acted as a consumer watchdog in such areas as gas stations. The Hydrocarbons Ministry set policy, and YFBP and its 00 employees were charged with supervising and enforcing the contracts with the private-party partners in exploration, production and refining.
These three public sector entities also provided detailed information on contracts, public licensing rounds, daily gas and oil production volumes, and annual reserves.

Paradoxically "nationalizing" the hydrocarbons industry and centralizing its operations, has "deregulated" and de-institutionalized the entire sector. Morales government folded the Superintendency transferring some of its functions into the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, in effect making the Ministry responsible for regulating itself. YFPB is now theoretically in charge of the entire downstream and upstream sectors of the oil industry, with no real oversight. The MAS has also De-professionalized and politicized the running of State entities placing political hacks and industry neophytes The ideologically charged and rather confusing MAS constitution has also further muddled the entire industry. Meanwhile there is little real public information from the authorities, including something as basic as daily gas production which is released not by the State but by a third party company.

It is this ideological backwardness, lack of transparency, and downright technical ignorance that has set the stage for this gas catastrophe. These conditions have created an environment where the companies with the know-how and money have stopped investing in the sector, which is why reserves are where they are at

How FDR Banning Sales of Airplanes To Bolivia Led To Landmark Supreme Court Decision And To Bolivian mythology

2010-10-03T15:27:00.010-05:00

At issue

On April 1934 a joint resolution of Congress was passed giving President Roosevelt the power to forbid the sales of arms to Boliva or Paraguay in the Chaco War.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That if the President finds that the prohibition of the sale of arms and munitions of war in the United States to those countries now engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco may contribute to the reestablishment of peace between those countries, and if after consultation with the governments of other American Republics and with their cooperation, as well as that of such other governments as he may deem necessary, he makes proclamation to that effect, it shall be unlawful to sell, except under such limitations and exceptions as the President prescribes, any arms or munitions of war in any place in the United States to the countries now engaged in that armed conflict, or to any person, company, or association acting in the interest of either country, until otherwise ordered by the President or by Congress.

Sec. 2. Whoever sells any arms or munitions of war in violation of section 1 shall, on conviction, be punished by a fine not exceeding $10,000 or by imprisonment not exceeding two years, or both.

President Roosevelt then issued an executive order

Now, therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, acting under and by virtue of the authority conferred in me by the said joint resolution of Congress, do hereby declare and proclaim that I have found that the prohibition of the sale of arms and munitions of war in the United States to those countries now engaged in armed conflict in the Chaco may contribute to the reestablishment of peace between those countries, and that I have consulted with the governments of other American Republics and have been assured of the cooperation of such governments as I have deemed necessary as contemplated by the said joint resolution, and I do hereby admonish all citizens of the [p313] United States and every person to abstain from every violation of the provisions of the joint resolution above set forth, hereby made applicable to Bolivia and Paraguay, and I do hereby warn them that all violations of such provisions will be rigorously prosecuted.

And I do hereby enjoin upon all officers of the United States charged with the execution of the laws thereof the utmost diligence in preventing violations of the said joint resolution and this my proclamation issued thereunder, and in bringing to trial and punishment any offenders against the same.

And I do hereby delegate to the Secretary of State the power of prescribing exceptions and limitations to the application of the said joint resolution of May 28, 1934, as made effective by this my proclamation issued thereunder.

Curtis Wright Corporation, sold machine guns and airplanes to Bolivia, and was charged with a violation of the act. It defended itself in Court arguing that Congress' resolution and President Roosevelts order were unconstitutional granting of power to the Executive and an overextension of power in commerce.

After the lower Court ruled against the government, the issue was brought before the U.S. Supreme Court. In the landmark case, U.S. v. Curtis Wright the Supreme Court ruled in its full decision that the President had supremacy in national security and foreign affairs This case is required reading in Civil Procedure and Constitutional Law classes in U.S. Law Schools. This doctrine of executive supremacy has also led to furious debates the past 80 years, and been used as a justification by FDR in WWII, LBJ in Vietnam, Bush's 1 and 2 in Iraq, etc.

As this summary states

The Court, in an opinion written by Justice George Sutherland, ruled that the joint resolution was constitutional and that the charges against Curtiss-Wright would stand. The Court held that the Constitution's text constrains only the domestic activities of the federal government, but does not constrain the activities of the government abroad. The Court argued further that, like any other country, the United States has "external sovereignty" by which it may liberally assert or defend itself on the world stage as a free and independent nation. As Sutherland put it, "as a member of the family of nations, the right and power of the United States [in foreign affairs] are equal to the right and power of the other members of the international family. Otherwise, the United States is not completely sovereign." The federal government thus has unlimited power to conduct foreign affairs on the nation's behalf.

The Court also ruled that this unlimited power lies exclusively with the president. Quoting former Chief Justice John Marshall (in his role as a member of the House of Representatives, before his appointment to the Court), the Court maintained that "The President is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations." The president's exclusive power to negotiate treaties and conduct warfare proves that the Constitution's drafters intended the document to give the executive significant powers to conduct foreign affairs. In sum, even though the Constitution is silent as to the president's power to impose embargos, such a power is implied within the executive's constitutional authority to manage foreign affairs. The government's charges against the Curtiss-Wright company would stand.

Bolivia Wrights and Standard

Going back to Bolivia, the Chaco War,and in particular back to the original Resolution and Executive order, it has also had long term effects.

While Curtis-Wright fought F.D.R.'s executive order in order to continue its war-profiteering, other American companies were not so eager to challenge an assertive Roosevelt Administration. Standard Oil Company found itself in a situation where selling aviation fuel to Bolivia's Air Force (as in to fill-up said Curtis-Wright warplanes), could be construed as violatiing the arms and ammunition embargo. Rather than face potential administration sanction (money and potential jail time), the New Jersey company refused to sell aviation fuel to Bolivia's Military.

This failure to sell fuel has been used to justify the Bolivian governments decision to nationalize all Standard Oil holdings after the War. Diplomatic cables from that time show the many excuses the Bolivian government used to justify this decision. And from the tone of the communications, it also appears that it was not a priority of the Roosevelt administration from Secretary of State Cordell Hull down to punish Bolivia for expropriating the assets of the company.

However none of this has done anything to dissuade Bolivians from the national myth that Standard Oil was sabotaging Bolivia's war efforts and that Bolivia rightfully expropriated this companies holdings facing huge opposition from U.S. Imperialism.. For all its many misdeeds worldwide - as befitting a Rockefeller monopoly- there is little real evidence of Standard Oil misbehaving in Bolivia in the latter part of the Chaco War years.. It must be remembered that any spoils in the Chaco were: merely "potential." in the 1920's and 30's. Standard Oil in the 1930's was focused on an intense fight for the very lucrative Argentine oil fields and market.

In the end, feuding over some Bolivian airplanes contributed to expanded Presidential powers in the United States and fueled (no pun intended) Bolivian resource nationalism.

Mono Jojoy Meets His Maker

2010-09-24T09:35:00.003-05:00

Top FARC military commander and member of the directorate whose nom de guerre was Mono Jojoy a/k/a Jorge Brice~o, was killed in Colombia by the military after a concerted effort of several years to contain and isolate his command.

He literally grew up with the FARC. He was raised among the backwoods Stalinist bands that split from the Liberal Party rural guerillas of the Violencia period. Jacobo Arenas, the FARC's top ideologue and strategist, knew him from childhood, and became a life-long mentor and booster. Besides Communist indoctrination, a teenaged Mono Jojoy received plenty of on-the-job training as a guerilla fighter. By the 80's he had risen through the ranks to commmand large formations. Eventually he led the powerful East Front (Bloque Oriental) for years, Mono Jojoy was known as a top battlefield commander who in the 90's delivered strong blows to Colombia's military.

During the Zona De Despeje/Cease Fire period, he was all over the press and television, roaming around in a 4x4 with a posse that included many female guerillas.

In a country that has produced legendary (and telegenic) sociopaths like Pablo Escobar and Carlos Castano, Jojoy is right up there. He was a ruthless killer who ordered terror killings and kidnappings of thousands of Colombians. He was up to his neck in the drug racket the FARC ran, as well as their policy of keeping military and civilian hostages. Basically, he bears a lot of blame in the FARC's crimes of the past 30 years that have extended the conflict and ungovernability in Colombia

His death is a blow to the FARC. Directorate members - once considered invulnerable- have died like flies since 2007. Jojoy's reputation of a top commander leading the strongest guerilla columns will be extremely demoralizing to rank and file guerillas as well as middle and top leaders.

The noose also tightens on Cano, and the other directorate members. They have nothing to bargain with.

Daniel Ortega Places Himself All Over the Sandinista Revolution

2010-08-20T09:41:00.000-05:00

via Two Weeks Notice: A Latin American Politics Blog
: Quote of the day: Nicaragua this story from the LA TIMES

At museum, Nicaragua president's favorite masterpiece is himself

Go to the Museum of the Sandinista Victory, and Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is everywhere. There he is on the northern front of the revolutionary war — and the southern front, and the western front.

Ortega has Forrest Gumped himself onto all the major battle lines of the struggle that dethroned dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979, carried the Sandinista movement to power and radically changed Nicaraguan history.

As for all the other comandantes and major figures who shared in those events with similar or even more important roles?

"We have been erased," said Sergio Ramirez, the renowned writer and a member of the Sandinista government who served as vice president during Ortega's first term as president, from 1985 to 1990.

Ortega lost in 1990 — the first post-revolution democratic election — and lost three more times before finally returning to power by winning the presidential election in 2006.

The museum, a government-run project about a year old, is an open-air display that purports to illustrate the historic fight of the Nicaraguan people to rid their nation of decades of "gringo invasions" and other onerous shackles (as the young tour guide put it).

It is also but one example more of what many here see as the cult of personality surrounding Ortega.

In the age-old tradition of dictators including Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein (not to mention Somoza, whom Ortega did help depose), the Nicaraguan president has built a national homage to himself. Billboards dot this sprawling, haphazard capital with a larger-than-life picture of him alongside national heroes Ruben Dario and Augusto Sandino. Nicaraguans speak less of Sandinismo and more of Danielismo.

This reminds me of Stalin's image appearing in official pictures denoting October Revolution moments, where he had never been, or closer to Lenin.

Fact is, Daniel was the Sandinista's main polical tactician, his brother Humberto one of the main military tactician.

But, he was hardly a top battlefield commander during the main phases of the war which were the insurrection in 78 and the final offensive in 79, in any of the main fronts - Frente Norte, Frente Sur or Frente Interno.

And as a matter of policy after the triumph of the revolution the 9 commanders of the Sandinista National Directorate including Humberto and Daniel were co-equal in directing the affairs of the party, the army and the state. That was the result of a power sharing agreement, brokered by Fidel Castro, where the 3 main factions or "tendencias" within the FSLN would be represented at the top and theoretically co-govern equally. Even as president later in the mid-80's Daniel was still in theory accountable to the other 9 commanders.

Having spent years watching and seeing Sandinista propaganda on a daily basis, I can say that their message always focused on the party directorate and less on indviduals.

One of the main slogans of the FSLN, chanted by its cadres at rally's and propaganda was:
"Direcion Nacional Ordene!"

The only individuals they propped up in propaganda were dead - "martyrs".

The bottom line is that there was in the FSLN a tendency to not elevate individual commanders or politicians. Some of that due to them wanting to keep the peace internally, after the sectarian conflicts in the FSLN in the 70's. The other political one, was to avoid creation of a cult of personality that would bring back terrible memories by the Nicaraguan people. After all they had just risen up against Somoza 3.0 who ruled Nicaragua like the family farm for decades, continuing the dynasty started by 1.0 in the 30's.

Daniel Ortega placing himself everywhere in official memory is on the one hand misleading if not untrue. He was not in the main battle fronts when the fighting was going on -annoying former comrades who were there. Also annoying some other former Sandinistas because it is against their policy of subordinating individual personalities, and a dislike of personalism inherited from Somocismo.

Brazil's Bolsa Familia - The Economist Article

2010-07-31T15:23:00.001-05:00

Brazil's Bolsa Familia has been a great success in reducing poverty in Brazil thru payments to poor families, based on whether their children stay in school. The Economist finds that it is a rousing success in rural areas, and succesful though slightly problematic in urban areas

http://www.economist.com/node/16690887?story_id=16690887

Great Ayrton Senna Tribute From Top Gear

2010-07-31T10:53:00.001-05:00

The excellent BBC Car Program Top Gear has a great tribute to Ayrton Senna. What makes it stand out is how it focuses on Senna's technical abilities and talents as a driver, which sometimes gets overlooked in the mythology. The Brazilian is presented warts and all.

PART 2

Evo's Witch Doctor Gets Busted!!!

2010-07-30T11:55:00.000-05:00

The so-called Aymara "Priest" who presided over Evo Morales' Presidential Inauguration in Bolivia was found red handed with many kilos of some sort of cocaine derivative at his house. Allegedly he was wearing his ceremonial robes. The sorcerer apparently was casting an ancient Chapare spell of purification over about 500 pounds of cocaine base, when the police rudely interrupted the Amauta..

Valentín Mejillones, 55 años, fue quien entregó el bastón de mando a Morales cuando éste juró a su segundo mandado en enero en un rito andino celebrado en el mayor templo arqueológico del país.
Ostenta el título de amauta que en la religiosidad andina es el máximo líder espiritual. El martes en la noche, la policía allanó su domicilio en una barriada de la ciudad de El Alto, vecina a La Paz y lo sorprendió elaborando cocaína.
Llevaba su poncho ceremonial el momento de la detención. Fue detenido junto a su hijo y a una pareja de colombianos que no fueron identificados por la policía, según el informe del director de la fuerza antidroga, coronel Félix Molina.

New York Times - Economies in Latin America Race Ahead

2010-07-03T01:29:00.000-05:00

The New York Times, article discusses strong economic growth in several Latin American countries, despite the global recession.

Strong demand in Asia for commodities like iron ore, tin and gold, combined with policies in several Latin American economies that help control deficits and keep inflation low, are encouraging investment and fueling much of the growth. The World Bank forecasts that the region’s economy will grow 4.5 percent this year.
Recent growth spurts around Latin America have surpassed the expectations of many governments themselves. Brazil, the region’s rising power, is leading the regional recovery from the downturn of 2009, growing 9 percent in the first quarter from the same period last year. Brazil’s central bank said Wednesday that growth for 2010 could reach 7.3 percent, the nation’s fastest expansion in 24 years.
After a sharp contraction last year, Mexico’s economy grew 4.3 percent in the first quarter and may reach 5 percent this year, the Mexican government has said, possibly outpacing the economy in the United States.
Smaller countries are also growing fast. Here in Peru, where memories are still raw of an economy in tatters from hyperinflation and a brutal, two-decade war against Maoist rebels that left almost 70,000 people dead, gross domestic product surged 9.3 percent in April from the same month of last year.

And, then there is the obvious failure -

In Venezuela, electricity shortages and fears of expropriations caused gross domestic product to shrink 5.8 percent in the first quarter. But Venezuela, and to a lesser extent Ecuador, another oil-dependent country that lags behind its neighbors in growth, seem to be exceptions to a broader trend.

Bolivia- Indigenous Challenges to Evo Morales

2010-06-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

Miguel Centellas at Pronto has a post Bolivia: the indigenous/environmentalist challenge to Evo’s government

Centellas is referring to the new controversies in Bolivia that have arosen from both indigenous and environmental groups using the language in the new constitution to challenge certain development projects (mostly hydrocarbons) that the Morales government wants.

The bottom line is that the government is losing its grip on the indigenous movement. Attacking its leaders as agents of USAID (or US imperialism more broadly) and/or acting in line w/ the “extreme right” seems odd. During the 2005 campaign—and for several months later—Evo & MAS clearly raised the banner of indigenous political autonomy. By doing so, it raised expectations that indigenous groups have patiently waited for & now expect fulfilled. Similarly, the People’s Conference on Climate Change raised the banner of a pro-environmental policy agenda. Indigenous peoples & environmental activists took this as a green light to begin pressing their demands to protect Bolivia’s fragile ecosystems (which happen to be in oil-rich areas).
These last weeks may have irrevocably changed perceptions of Evo’s government. The country has a long experience w/ populist figures who use symbolic rhetoric, but never really “mean it” beyond as a way to strengthen their grip on power.

Of Tickets And US Soccer Fans At The World Cup

2010-06-19T00:33:00.002-05:00

People have commented that the US is the single largest source of ticket buyers for the World Cup.

You don’t see many foreign fans here in Johannesburg, but the largest single group of them are Americans. People in the US bought more tickets for this World Cup than any other visiting country. “In the public sale, it’s more than the next two countries combined,” notes a proud Sunil Gulati, president of the US Soccer Federation.

The figure is more or less 164,000 tickets.

This article, and other commentary on the web sees this as evidence that U.S. soccer is gaining popularity. The New Republic blog even proclaims that the Soccer Wars are over And I do not dispute that as the numbers from the U.S. England match on ABC/Univision show - a total viewing audience of 17 million, several times bigger than the Indy 500 to use an example..

Now what I am curious about is finding out how many of those 164,000 tickets were from from U.S residents of .Mexican, Argentinian, Chilean, Brazilian, Honduran, South Korean, Nigerian, et. al. birth or origin, who travelled to South Africa to cheer on a specific national team. Or for that matter European expats. Univision seems to have no problem finding them in the crowds at many matches.

The FT blogger himself talks about the constituency that soccer has in the United States

Since then, the US has globalised fast. Significantly, it’s the two most globalised groups of Americans who follow soccer most keenly. The first group consists of immigrants: about 45m Hispanics now live in the US, mostly from soccer-mad Mexico. The second group is the educated elite. David Downs, executive director of the US bid committee to host the World Cup in 2018 or (more likely) 2022, says of America’s soccer hotbeds: “It’s not necessarily the dusty farms of the heartland, as it is the suburbs of Washington DC or San Francisco.”

And no doubt many of those ticket-buyers from the U.S. fall into either categories (or even both). But it is many immigrants in the U.S. who have the means to spend the high dollar amounts needed to get to South Africa and watch Argentina, Mexico,. or Nigeria play. They might go root for the U.S. with their children - again something you see in Univision.

In the end the U.S. ticket buyers and U.S. viewing public on TV is important to the World Cup whoever they are rooting for. It is the sheer numbers of people watching, in what the New Republic correctly notes is a fragmented media market of different "niches". And that weight already shows worldwide.

All these folks will be watching the World Cup. American TV companies shelled out $425m for the rights to the 2010 and 2014 tournaments, then the biggest such deal done in any country. The US was only the 13th biggest TV market for the tournament in 2002, in absolute numbers of viewers. By 2006, it had jumped to eighth, notes Kevin Alavy of futures sport + entertainment, the agency that monitors these things. This year the US should rank higher still.

Afghanistan Might Have Massive Lithium Reserves - Potential Mineral Riches

2010-06-14T12:15:00.003-05:00

While Bolivia is known to have a significant part of the lithium reserves in the world, this might change drastically. The Afghan government recently announced that American geologists found "huge lithium deposits amounts" in Afghanistan's Ghazni province. These new discoveries are part of a survey that has found large deposits of key exportable minerals including zinc, gold, and copper in the country. Large parts of it are in conflicted areas. Apparently decades of conflict prevented this kind of wide-ranging survey, though many Afghan geologists have known of mineral riches and kept it quiet due to the political situation.

The New York Times reported the $1 trillion figure in Monday's edition and quoted senior American officials as saying untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan are far beyond any previously known reserves and were enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself.
Americans discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, including iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium, according to the report. The Times quoted a Pentagon memo as saying Afghanistan could become the "Saudi Arabia of lithium," a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and cell phones.

Then there is this quote from the New York Times article specifically talking about the Lithium

Just this month, American geologists working with the Pentagon team have been conducting ground surveys on dry salt lakes in western Afghanistan where they believe there are large deposits of lithium. Pentagon officials said that their initial analysis at one location in Ghazni Province showed the potential for lithium deposits as large of those of Bolivia, which now has the world’s largest known lithium reserves.

The Lithium part should wake up not only Bolivia, but also Chile and Argentina, because a sizeable deposit of Lithium in Afghanistan, could mean rapid exploitation and export of an alternative to South American lithium. The weight of the U.S. and the Afghan desire for revenue and development, can mean that even in a conflicted area, resources could be brought to bear in developing the industry.

EDIT -

Bolivia's government has said its plans for lithium development are "not affected" by news of the Afghan lithium. The Presidency's official spokesman said, "Afghanistan is a country practically at war" - actually an understatement. With atypical restraint the official continued that he was not sure how easy it would be to "resolve" the conflict issue in Afghanistan, implying it is not a problem for Bolivia.

EH VUVUZELA! Vuvuzela Might Get Banned!!!

2010-06-14T09:30:00.000-05:00

The loud, sometimes obnoxious sometimes awesome Vuvuzela's might get banned from matches..

Could vuvuzelas fall silent? Ban possible
By Liz Clarke
Acknowledging a rising tide of complaints about the deafening din of vuvuzelas during World Cup matches, Danny Jordaan, chief executive of the tournament's local organizing committee, warned Sunday that the plastic horns could be banned if fans don't show more respect in their bugling.
In an interview with the BBC, Jordaan reiterated calls for fans not to blow vuvuzelas during the playing of a country's national anthem or during announcements over the soccer venues' public-address system. Asked if the horns could be banned, Jordaan said: "If there are grounds to do so, yes."
A ban on vuvuzelas was considered in the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup, but officials chose to allow them, with FIFA President Sepp Blatter arguing against efforts "to Europeanize" the first World Cup contested on African soil.

REST HERE

Get Your Own Vuvuzela on Ebay...

Flashback 1988.....Gipsy Kings - Djobi Djoba

2010-06-12T19:24:00.001-05:00

talk about a blast from the past....hard not to like the French-based group of Gitanos.

Mexican Fans In South Africa

2010-06-11T14:03:00.001-05:00

LOL count the national and cultural iconic symbols these five fans have crammed in.

its all there - Virgen De Guadalupe, Wrestler Mask, Charro Sombrero, Aztec Costume, Serape,Chapulin Colorado. Outside of a Straw Sombrero a la Zapata or a Cantinflas costume, they seem to have done a comprehensive job.

from Univision -
El sueño mexicano se vivió así - Univision Futbol

Peru Inagurates Huge Natural Gas Export Plant, Bolivia Has Its Dignity

2010-06-11T12:01:00.003-05:00

Peru's massive Liquid Natural Gas plant I talked aboout in an earlier post, was just inagurated. The project cost close to 4 billion dollars; it is South America's first Natural Gas Liquification facility. As Peruvian President Alan Garcia noted it is the "largest" "single project" ever made in Peru, as well as the largest foreign investment ever in the country. The facility will receive gas from the Camisea gas fields, process and store it as LNG and ship in special tankers to customers overseas. Though, there are doubts there is enough gas in Peru to sustain exports and meet national gas demands in the country, there is an increase in production and planned investments in the hydrocarbons sector to increase gas production.

video of Alan Garcia talking about how important this is.

Bolivia next door, actually has no issues with the size of its gas reserves. But, it does not have investments necessary to raise production, much less the capacity in anyway shape or form to export LNG. Its best chance to do that was through the Pacific LNG project that led to the infamous "gas wars". But, the problem is that while Bolivia became the "Bermuda Triangle" of hydrocarbons in South America, both its neighbors and the industry as a whole have evolved. Peru, Venezuela, and Brazil are seriously investing in producing LNG for export. At the same time Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay are investing in regasification facilities to receive LNG shipments. In other words countries with large markets for gas are looking at buying it off ships, instead of through pipelines - which was Bolivia's theoretical strength.

"Bolivia and Argentinas Gas Crisis Shakes South American Region"

2010-06-10T14:21:00.001-05:00

Bolivia and Argentina's Gas Crisis Shakes Region, according to Ana Zarzuela energy analyst at Spain-based Intelligence and Capital News Report.

Basically, the idea of Bolivia as the "Gas Hub" first under the neoliberal governments, then with a more "statist" focus, called for Bolivian gas to be piped out to neighboring countries through pipelines.

But under Evo Morales, Bolivia has become an unreliable supplier. The state-owned oil and gas company, can barely supply existing obligations, and production levels are stuck. Most experts agree that the industry needs investments and know-how from private and foreign companies.    Owing mostly to the governments attacks on private industry and judicial insecurity, this looks unlikely to happen.

While Bolivia has become an unreliable supplier of energy needs, neighboring countries have found other alternatives, including buying Liquid Natural Gas abroad and importing it via sea.

The latest blow to Bolivian aspirations has to be Venezuela's PDVSA setting up regasification facilities in Argentina, that in coming years will process natural gas coming from....Chavez' Venezuela.    By, by, Bolivian gas.

Esta situación pone a Bolivia, que exporta sólo a través de ductos, en una posición muy distinta de hace cinco años, cuando se proyectaba como el centro de distribución regional. Se lo acaba de describir a Morales su propia Cámara de Hidrocarburos (CBH): detectan “un fuerte contraste entre el crecimiento del GNL en barcos metaneros a los centros de demanda de Sudamérica y el estancamiento de exportación de gas natural boliviano en gasoductos”. De la gran red que Hugo Chávez y Morales prometían tejer en toda Sudamérica con Argentina como punta de lanza, hoy no queda ni la intención diplomática. Las zozobras de La Paz y Buenos Aires, el pragmatismo de Caracas y los recelos de Brasilia, Santiago y Montevideo han podido más. “La apuesta por un proceso de integración por gasoductos, que tuvo un crecimiento explosivo en la capacidad de transporte internacional incorporada entre 1998 y 2002, de los 19,1 MMmcd a 105,8 MMmcd -advierte la CBH- ha llegado al estancamiento”. “El incumplimiento de contratos por parte de Argentina y Bolivia, el estancamiento de la inversión y la poca confiabilidad mostrada parecen haber postergado el apetito de los importadores regionales, para nuevos proyectos de integración intrarregional” por gasoductos, apunta la CBH.

Evo Opens A Gas Station!! *UPDATED 05/26/10

2010-05-24T21:31:00.004-05:00

YPFB inauguró estación de servicio en Sucre
Lunes, 24 Mayo 2010
Sucre 24 mayo (AN-YPFB).- Con la presencia del Vicepresidente del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Álvaro García Linera, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB Corporación), inauguró...

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

While Bolivia's Oil Company, YPFB can barely drill a well anywhere in the territory, it celebrates the opening of a Gas Station in Sucre as a big deal, with the Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera on hand. That is funny-pathetic, from a company that last year spent more than $4 million USD in 2009 on marketing and advertising - as in publicizing its "successes" as pretty much campaign ads for Evo prior to the December elections. On the other hand, its 2009 budget for job training for its 1400+ employees (only 26% of whom are oil and gas professionals) was a paltry $260,000. Instead it spends money on silly things like gas stations.

Mind you, building and running gas stations is expensive and not that profitable. Gas stations that handle thousands of gallons of fuel, and are poorly run can be easy pickings for theft. YPFB started getting out of that business about 18 years ago, due to the corruption and drain of resources itf was for the State. Ask most Bolivians about the quantum leap in quality and service provided by private gas stations - from the ones the State ran, or for that matter from the ones it is running now.

EDIT - Bolivian oil expert Carlos Miranda, has a good piece on what a disaster it is that YPFB is opening gas stations. It can be seen as a new "nationalization" of the sector, since private stations will now have to compete with the state monopoly with sole control of fuel production and distribution. Making matters worse is that Evo's government destroyed the regulatory agency, repsonsible for regulating the sector.

Estimado lector tengo dos noticias, una mala y la otra peor. La mala. YPFB está retornado a la venta de combustibles al por menor. Para operar ha reparado estaciones de servicio y está construyendo nuevas. Continuará con esta política hasta llegar al control de esa actividad. Así cerraría el círculo petrolero estatizante desde la exploración hasta la venta en surtidores.

La venta al detalle es una actividad totalmente boliviana. Pequeños empresarios que han invertido cerca de $us 200 millones y son dueños de más de cuatrocientas estaciones. Por eso el gobierno y YPFB han tenido un poco de pudor y no se animan a decir que las van a nacionalizar.

YPFB no tiene memoria, no aprenden de sus dificultades y/o errores pasados. Ventas al por menor, cuando no hacen ni dos meses ha tenido una estafa en la venta de carburantes en Santa Cruz, que ha provocado retiros de personal incluyendo nada menos que a un gerente comercial!

Cuando se creó YPFB el país se abastecía de refinados peruanos, transportado por llamas y expendidos en ferreterías. Rápidamente YPFB substituyó las llamas con camiones cisternas plateados con el logo de YPFB e instaló los primeros surtidores. A partir de 1954 sólo vendían producción nacional que abastecía plenamente la demanda en calidad y cantidad. Por eso YPFB está en el alma de los bolivianos.

Para reducir costos y personal después, decidió alquilar sus instalaciones. Sindicatos y partidos políticos se abalanzaron vorazmente a las concesiones de surtidores. Como YPFB era la única instancia para autorizar la construcción de estaciones de servicio, se convirtió en el centro del tráfico de influencias. La implantación del Sistema Regulatorio puso fin al festín de corrupción. La Superintendencia de Hidrocarburos se hizo cargo de la autorización y control de las estaciones de servicios. En esa forma ha logrado más de 400 estaciones de servicio en el país, muchas de ellas en al área rural, todas prestando servicio las 24 horas del día.

Ahora YPFB quiere volver casi un siglo atrás poniendo y administrando instalaciones propias para competir con las estaciones privadas. Con el sistema regulatorio, casi inexistente que pueda impedirlo, se viene una competencia desleal dirigida a que los propietarios vendan a YPFB sus instalaciones a precio de “gallina muerta” y así evitar “nacionalizar” inversiones bolivianas. Ejemplo, lo que esta sucediendo con AeroSur y BoA.

Pobres nosotros los usuarios, lo que nos espera: mala atención, horarios irregulares, adulteración de productos, etc, etc.

BOLIVIA - - Evo Morales' Industrialization Schemes FAIL, while Peru laughs all the way to the bank

2010-05-16T20:41:00.023-05:00

Remember the Gas War? October, 2003, many Bolivians had a meltdown over a proposed 1.5 billion dollar project to export Liquid National Gas; a pipeline would send Bolivian gas to a new liquification plant and port complex to be built in Chile. The outcry, in the context of a full mobilization by angry Cocaleros and disafection over economic recession (among many factors), ended with dead protestors and the forced ouster of the Constitutionally elected President. Evo Morales a vociferous opponent of the project and guiding force behind many of the mobilizations that had paralyzed the country since 2000, was elected President in 05 to recover Bolivia's national resources from ugly multinationals, and to industrialize the mineral wealth of the country instead of exporting only raw materials.

Build It And They Will....Nationalize It....

Evo, to the acclaim of some and the hope of many, signs a contract with Jindal Steel, a very large Indian Steel Company to mine an enormous iron ore deposit near the Brazilian border. Jindal in a joint venture with the Bolivian State, agreed to invest over 2 billion dollars to not only mine the ore, but to build production facilities for steel and iron production. Regardless of whether you like Evo or not, it actually seemed at the time to be a win for Bolivia,. The mineral rich Mutun, had been eyed for decades by past Bolivian governments for its potential, but nothing had gone through, now seemed as good a time as any.

Three years after the signing and approval of the whole deal. The project is paralyzed, with Jindal ready to bail out. Some of it seems to be due to Evo's dubious choices to run the Bolivian side of the deal, who were political appointees - labor leaders to be more precise. Bolivia did not provide all the land (arguably it did provide most), but failed to build the roads needed and other infraestructure. The company was supposed to invest at least 600 million, instead it spend about 20 million to build some offices, and to mine the ore for export as raw materials. Morales' record of further "nationalizations" of foreign companies, constant rants against capitalism and the private sector, and the rather confusing Constitution might also have made the Indian conglomerate nervous, to the point where they would forfeit a 20 million dollar bond to get out of the deal. Some common sense and direction, and the thing can probably be restarted, as of now its in limbo.

Where The Air Is Rarerified

While this entire process went from courtship to failure, in next-door Peru, a consortium to build a large LNG plant connected via a pipeline to Peru's largest gas fields, was taking shape. It was started around the same time that Bolivia was having its massive meltdown over gas in 2003, the original concept was to be an alternative to Chilean ports for transporting Bolivian gas. But then it evolved more into exporting Peruvian production. The project was approved and financed and the decision to go ahead was made in late 2006 - more or less while Evo was finalizing gthe deal with Jindal.

Well, as of April 2010, the full project - the largest single foreign investment in Peruvian history at close to $4 billion dollars - is almost ready. The pipeline that runs through the Andes and desert is done, the docking facilities for the tankers and the processing plants and storage facilities are almost finished. That is the speed with which private and public projects with backing, know-how, and leadership advance.

Evo Cumplido

   Bolivians should take a look at what is being finished in Peru - they could have had something similar. Arguably the Chile LNG plant would have been finished and exporting gas by now.   Ironically, the proposed project facilities in Chile - partly-owned by the Bolivian government - included a petrochemical facility. It would have meant Industrialization. Bolivian natural gas used as raw material for Industrial goods. Instead they have Evo whose four years in power have consisted of dramatic media spectacles like nationalization, constant political campaigning and propaganda, while living off the bounty produced by record world prices for things like hyrdrocarbons, in industries whose very existence is mostly due to the sectoral policies of previous governments.

The Morales' governments socialist ideology and mania for centralization gives increasingly larger responsibilities for the State in the economy. However, the only "nationalized"sector it runs well seems to be mass media, as it keeps on buying newspapers and other media to proselitize further.   What that media won't be reporting are things like the fact that in four years of Evo's nationalized State Oil Company, YPFB, not one new discovery has been made, only three wells were drilled last year (versus 64 in 2000, and more than 100 in Peru), and the country has to import gasoline for the first time in decades. Blame a MAS government whose strident rhetoric and erratic behavior have chased away foreign investors. A government that follows discredited economic policies, places party-line over competence, values ideology more than technical or managerial know-how, whose regulations have made its administration less transparent and accountable, is prone to corruption, and is just plain inept.   To put it bluntly, it can't run a damn thing even with money in the bank.

Evo's government takes it further; the MAS administration is incapable of even delegating and overseeing projects, where friendly investors do most of the actual work and spend most of the investment money.   Mutun is an example of four years of doing, absolutely nothing, except speeches about how great it is,   During that same time period the Peruvian government happily enabled a mega-consortium to build a huge export facility, port facility, and not to mention a large pipleine that crossed over mountains and deserts. And that the project has spurred billions of dollars in investments in natural gas production, raising Peru's proven reserves - still nowhere near Bolivia's. Considering the fact that at least one of the investors was involved in the Bolivia LNG project it is not farfetched to say that Peru LNG money originally was destined to be invested in Bolivia, but ended up next-door, as have billions in exploration and production investments. End score - Bolivia does not have a pipeline to the Pacific and a LNG processing plant and port on the Pacific, and neither does it have an operational steel plant making steel for domestic industry or export using Mutun iron ore. Thats a lose-lose situation.

What could have been.?..

JON STEWART - CLASSIC DEMOLITION OF GLENN BECK ON HEALTHCARE

2010-05-16T09:56:00.001-05:00

This is very, very good. Glenn Beck as of 2008, complaining about healthcare - as in care he received while sick- in his usual crybaby fashion,. Then as of 2010, of course Obamacare is evil Jon Stewart on the Daily Show demolishes him.

thanks to My Favorite Jon Stewart PWNS

See Beck-tard get all personal in that piece... there is a method to his loony weepiness.
The crying conservative how Glenn Beck Taught His Feminine Side to Turn Tricks

Wrecking Venezuela - More From The Economist on Chavez

2010-05-14T10:52:00.000-05:00

The unraveling of the Caracas Consensus continues unabated,

[President Hugo Chavez] threats against Colombia—which include a total trade embargo if Juan Manuel Santos, a former defence minister, wins this month’s presidential election—and the evidence of his veiled support for the FARC are troubling. They are a constant, if so far manageable, source of regional tension. And his efforts to build a block based on self-proclaimed “revolutions”, anti-Americanism and managed trade in the heart of democratic Latin America have served to undermine the very cause of regional integration that he claims to champion. But rhetoric aside, his influence in the region peaked a couple of years ago. He lost one ally, albeit in regrettable circumstances, when Honduras’s president, Manuel Zelaya, was overthrown last year. Several others are on the defensive.
Much more important is the damage Mr Chávez is doing to his own country. His “21st-century socialism” is a precarious construction. The brief fall in the oil price of 2008-09 was enough to sink Venezuela’s economy into stagflation—even as the rest of Latin America is enjoying vigorous economic recovery. Venezuelans are suffering declining real wages, persistent shortages of staple goods (meat is the latest to become scarce) and daily power cuts.

The blackouts are in part the result of drought. But they are also the most dramatic sign that the bill for a decade of mismanagement of the economy and of public services is now falling due (see article). There are plenty of other ugly portents. In one of the world’s biggest oil exporters hard currency is running short: to buy a dollar in the tolerated parallel market now requires almost twice as much local currency as the official exchange rate (and three times more than the privileged rate for “essential imports”). Investors rate the country’s debt as the riskiest of anywhere. Crime and corruption are flourishing.

Time to pay the piper Hugo

http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=16109302

The Economist - "Hugo Chávez's Venezuela Feeling the heat" Caracas Consensus Crashes

2010-05-13T20:58:00.002-05:00

But for the time being the Bolivarian revolution (named after Simón Bolívar, South America’s independence hero) faces unprecedented difficulties. Everyday life is getting harder for Venezuelans. While the rest of Latin America is recovering strongly from the world recession, Venezuela is slumped in stagflation. The boom came to an abrupt end when the oil price plunged in the later months of 2008. Although it has since risen again strongly, Venezuela’s economy has not (see chart). Mr Chávez last month accepted that it “could” shrink again this year, confounding earlier official forecasts of growth. The IMF projects a contraction of Venezuela’s GDP of 2.6% this year, after a fall of 3.3% last year. By March, average wages (allowing for inflation) were 15% below their peak of 2007.

http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=16104226

What’s in a BRIC? - Project Syndicate

2010-05-13T19:07:00.003-05:00

Joseph Nye, argues that the BRIC acronym, "makes ilitte sense for long-term assessments of global power relations" particularly when it comes to the R - as in Russia.

While a BRICs meeting may be convenient for coordinating some short-term diplomatic tactics, the term lumps together disparate countries that have deep divisions. It makes little sense to include Russia, a former superpower, with three developing economies. Of the four members, Russia has the smallest and most literate population and a much higher per capita income, but, more importantly, many observers believe that Russia is declining while the other three are rising in power resources.

Brazil in Nye's view does come across pretty well -

Since curbing inflation and instituting market reforms in the 1990’s, Brazil has shown an impressive rate of economic growth in the range of 5%. With a territory nearly three times the size of India’s, 90% of its 200 million people literate, a $2 trillion GDP equivalent to Russia’s and per capita income of $10,000 (three times India’s and nearly twice China’s), Brazil has impressive power resources. In 2007, the discovery of massive offshore oil reserves promised to make Brazil a significant power in the energy arena as well.

Ultimately, it will not become a "serious political organization" of like-minded states" more like a group of countries that do well economically.

So, how seriously should analysts take the term BRIC? As an indicator of economic opportunity, they should welcome it, though it would make more sense if Indonesia replaced Russia. In political terms, China, India, and Russia are competitors for power in Asia, and Brazil and India have been hurt by China’s undervalued currency. Thus, BRIC is not likely to become a serious political organization of like-minded states.

What’s in a BRIC? - Project SyndicatePosted using ShareThis

Why Naomi Klein is Really Stupid - Bolivia version

2010-05-11T16:36:00.008-05:00

Among the most inane and just plain absurd deifications of Evo, is this gem by hard-left idiot extraordinaire Naomi Klein, Klein's nonsensical worldview and silly ramblings were perfectly skewered by Jon Chait in a classic article. in The New Republic. Now she goes to Cochabamba, for Bolivia's People Summit on Climate Change enlightening us on how Evo Morales can literally save the world, or something close to that. No, I am not kidding, you can tell where this is going just from the title of her article: Bolivia's fight for survival can help save democracy too.

It was 11am and Evo Morales had turned a football stadium into a giant classroom, marshalling an array of props: paper plates, plastic cups, disposable raincoats, handcrafted gourds, wooden plates and multicoloured ponchos. All came into play to make his main point: to fight climate change "we need to recover the values of the indigenous people".

Naomi seems to think this pearl of deep thinking, just sums up how great Evo is. Evo's indigeneous values? They owe more to the Cuzco Emperor's -whose scorched-earth tactics finally brought what then was known as Kollasuyu into the Inca' Empire-, than with the worship of a benign Gaia-like Pachamana, imagined by New Agers and Environmentalists.

Not content with that, she says that Bolivia's rhetoriticians can offer us real solutions to the crisis of "failed democracies" and "global warming".

With the Cochabamba summit, Bolivia is trying to take what it has accomplished at the national level and globalise it, inviting the world to participate in drafting a joint climate agenda ahead of the next UN climate gathering in Cancun. In the words of Bolivia's ambassador to the United Nations, Pablo Solón: "The only thing that can save mankind from a tragedy is the exercise of global democracy."
If he is right, the Bolivian process might save not just our warming planet, but our failing democracies as well. Not a bad deal at all.

So how can Bolivia be an example for the World? Is Klein thinking of Evo's version of State-Capitalism? His "neo-extractivism" comes with the usual environmental oversight and transparency common to the old Eastern block countries. Environmentally sound? Evo's Cocalero allies are chopping down trees in national forests to grow coca, run-off from the increased coca processing plants is polluting even Lake Titicaca. Democracy? His version of democracy seems to have more to do with centralist dirigismo and "smashing oligarchs" than it does with "grass roots" ground-up democracy.

Forget the world, Bolivia's neighbors Peru, Chile, and Brazil pointedly avoid most of the Evo-agenda. They all seem to do rather well economically with their forms of social-democratic capitalism, while avoiding the messy authoritarianism and cult of personality around Morales. For all Klein's rants against the Washington Consensus, countries that have followed the "Caracas Consensus" policies advocated by Chavez and Morales have done pretty bad, a fact that she would never concede. Anyways.

Ironically, many affected indigineous people were shut out of the conference. Seems they might have issues with some of the State's development ideas. And Evo sure made Naomi prouder, by going on about gays, chickens, and bald people to everyone's amusement. Except for proud neo-Stalinist Naomi, who is too stupid to get it.

Evo Nationalizes Energy Companies - Part 2

2010-05-11T15:59:00.000-05:00

As reported before, Evo Nationalized several electrical companies. Now Britiain's The Economist weighs in-

Another Bolivian nationalisation - Power grab - Evo Morales’s allies grow restive

Since taking office in 2006 Mr Morales, Bolivia’s first elected president of indigenous descent, has taken over oil and gas, mining and telecoms businesses. Partly as a result, he is popular. When campaigning for a second term in an election last year, he promised that power companies would be next. The targeted firms thought they had avoided this fate by negotiating a deal in which the government would take a bare majority stake. No such luck.
But the May Day nationalisation seems to be bringing Mr Morales diminishing returns. To his bemusement, workers at one of the nationalised companies, a co-operative in Cochabamba, staged a protest sit-in. Although Bolivia’s gas revenues have risen sharply, that has as much to do with higher prices and contracts signed before Mr Morales took office as with rolling back privatisation, according to Carlos Alberto López, an energy official in a previous government. Most of the newly state-run firms have performed poorly.

South America - State Oil Companies While Colombia has record production, Bolivia and Venezuela are a Mess

2010-05-11T00:01:00.020-05:00

Colombia's State Oil Company Ecopetrol is exporting record amounts of crude this year.

Bolivia's State Oil Company, YPFB after 4 years of Evo has turned Bolivia from being self-sufficient in most fuels and natural gas products, into a country that imports gasoline (even from Chile!) and liquefied petroleum gas (from Peru).   Gas production is static, despite the record prices and South American demand. In 1999 there were 65 wells drilled in Bolivia, in 2009 there were 3 (three.)    Four years of government has meant six different CEO's for Bolivia's National Oil Company. One of the exes is in jail, result of the worst scandal in YPFB company history last year.

Venezuela's PDVSA - once the flagship State Oil Company in the region, is producing a million less barrels of oil per day than it did in the 90's, it is a mismanaged mess, that is deeply in debt.

Reason: Colombia has a sensible hydrocarbons policy, in which the State plays an active role, while also allowing foreign participation and investment.   Bolivia and Venezuela do not - in many cases directly due to conscious policies in the last four years that reversed the modernization reforms of the 90's.

Colombia, laws and regulations, modified in 2004, provide a comprehensive framework for the hydrocarbons sector. Centuries of obsessiveness with the language finally pay off in areas other than Magical Realist novels, as the carefully drafted legislation seems pretty clear and comprehensive. Starting with the Constitution and the relevant legislation, the Country's laws set out clearly delimited areas of responsibility and accountability for all actors in the energy sector. The Ministry of Mines is responsible overall for the extractive industries, the Unit for Mining and Energy Planning (UPME) is responsible for research and planning future energy needs, a unit of the Ministry of Mines, the ANH administers the hydrocarbons sector - both private and state companies, the regulatory agency CREQ regulates the energy market of which natural gas is a part. The National Oil Company, Ecopetrol, is the leading oil company in the country.

Ecopetrol unlike YPFB or PDVSA, is not granted a monopoly on production, and is expected to be another competitor in the market..   To make sure it is competitive under this scheme, Colombian legislation ensures Ecopetrol has managerial autonomy, follow standard corporate rules and procedures, and pretty much operates as a modern international hydrocarbons company.    And to raise investment funds, it adopted a novel scheme. it raised capital through stock offerings, selling 20% of its shares in offerings in which Colombian citizens had first-right to buy, and there was a monetary and percentage cap as to how much any one individual could buy, to ensure national and "democratically" distributed ownership.   With this financing it has begun an ambitious cycle of investments that will boost Colombia;s coffers.

As part of its plan to increase investment and expand the industry, Colombian law allows private and foreign companies of all sizes to participate in the upstream and downstream part of the hydrocarbons business, either individually or as partner with Ecopetrol. Colombia's current legal system, has laws that protect private investment. As a result of this security foreign investment in hyrdrocarbons has soared, exceeding 3.5 Billion dollars a year for the past couple of years.

Drill Evo Drill

On the other hand, Bolivia's newly Nationalized Oil and Gas sector is arguably less transparent than it has been in the last 15 years. Evo got rid of the somewhat competent independent regulatory agency that "neoliberal" governments had set up, placing those responsibilities within the same ministerial bureaucracy.    Instead of openly soliciting bids for joint ventures or other projects, the government in past years has enacted decrees unilaterally picking partners and setting up ventures with foreign companies with little oversight.and questionable legality. To make matter worse, the management of the State Oil Company YPFB, starting right from the Morales governments inaguration has been politicized and de-professionalized, with corruption scandals of all sorts and incompetent decisionmaking and planning. This sorry state of affairs has succeeded in stalled production.

While Venezuela at least on paper allows for foreign participation, Evo's Bolivia has policies described by one analyst as "tougher than Cuba's", limits all activities related to hydrocarbons exploration, production, and commercialization to YPFB, though it can sign limited contracts with outside companies. But even these service contracts are in a sort of legal limbo due to the inconsistencies - and outright confusion- in the new Constitution. As a practical matter, the decrees, laws passed since 2005, and the new Constitution do not provide a comprehensive set of rules of the game, to put it simply.   It is hard for the players in the Bolivian hydrocarbons sector to know where they stand, and that is true even for the State! Marcelo Quiroga Santa Cruz is probably spinning in his grave.    Small wonder that investment by foreign companies in Bolivia have dropped dramatically. Forget harsh government rhetoric, having a Constitution that when it is not being stridently anti-capitalist is confusing and vague when talking about the extent of the States right to contract over resource rights, to private property rights and protection of investments, does not seem like a good place to invest in.

Venezuela and Bolivia's have followed a failed statitst model, For all the talk about Bolivia's "democracy from below" in the words of Evo apologist Jim Schultz, its so-called alternative to "neoliberalism" is bankrupt at its core.

The key here is that countries like Colombia that are doing well, and are doing so outside of the stereotype of the neoliberal/washington consensus/imf bogeyman.. Ecopetrol is a nationally-owned State Company like Yacimientos or PDVSA. But Colombia has built a framework that allows its State-owned company to thrive, while allowing foreign companies with their technology and know-how to actively participate in exploration and production of hyrdrocarbons. This may not be the best system out there, but at least it ensures Colombias public coffers grow, and the industry longs well poised in the long-run.     Bolivia, sadly, seems to prefer to imitate the State Oil Company in Venezuela, instead of the one that works in Colombia.

Bolivia's "Tea Party" - 10 Years Since Cochabamba Water Wars

2010-05-10T21:05:00.027-05:00

Its been 10 years since the Cochabamba "Water Wars". Evo Morales' "unofficial" press agent (thanks to George Soros ) Jim Schultz at the Democracy Center - has the usual self-congratulatory piece about this. The Bolivian Water Revolt, Ten Years Later, reminding us of this.

In this complicated story the movement that went from a social mobilization opposed to water rate hikes to a movement marked by a political-ideological component, that of fighting neo-liberalism, calling for the unconditional expulsion of a multi-national consortium from Bolivia in the words of one Bolivian observer.

Evo Morales' cocalero Union played a "large part" in that victory, which led Evo to shrewdly see the possibilities of linking the Unions fights against erradication with the disparate indigenous, anti-neoliberal and anti-globalization movements in the country.

Ma-te Party

This Coordinadora movement became more about an ideological extreme position rather than one of negotiating for an end; to use the hard-left term it was making "transitional demands" on the government, asking for the expulsion of the company rather than modification of the contract. It was using language and rhetoric that resonated with many of Bolivia's poorer citizens, playing on long-bottled frustrations and resentments against traditional politicians, the old oligarchy, and the ever-present fear of foreign control of resources. What Dunkerely called "the Potosi Syndrome" It was about passions, and yes, prejudices and fears, held by many Cochabambinos including a xenophobia and distrust of outsiders.

In many ways this is like the irrational part of the "Tea Party" movement in the U.S. that brings out the insecurities and the fears of some Americans. Calling Obama a "socialist" and drawing imaginary lines in the sand against government action, avoids entirely the practical problem of 25 million plus Americans who have no health care. In the case of the Coordinadora it was extreme anti-capitalistic, anti-american rhetoric, hysteria over stopping "multinationals"from "pillaging": the countries resources, avoiding rational discussions of possible private/public solutions that could make sure people in Cochabamba got water in an efficient, modern, and reasonably priced manner.

Victory?

One of the Water Wars leaders calls it the“first great victory against corporate globalization in Latin America." It is this defiunition of victory that is celebrated by Schultz and company, even while they have to admit that the "social" movements have failed to implement the objective that everyone agreed upon - which was to improve the supply of water to the residents of Cochabamba. Tom Kruse, another scholar-activist wrote that “while you can’t drink the rhetoric of antiglobalization, struggles like the water war are vital, and the only hope for rebuilding a progressive agenda." That is little confort to the poor Cochabambinos still do not have an adequate supply of water, a fact that Schultz acknowledges.

1. The Cochabamba Water Revolt was and remains a powerful David and Goliath struggle in which some of the most humble people in the world took on the forces of the World Bank, Bechtel, and a former dictator, Hugo Banzer, and took back a resource essential to life – their water.

2. Nine years later the public company reborn from that revolt, SEMAPA, is marked by an ongoing history of mismanagement and corruption which, combined with Cochabamba's rapid population growth, has left much of the city without the basic water they need and deserve.

In other words, Cochabambinos won the war in the streets but lost the battle to have honest and competent water service. In my chapter on the Water Revolt I was frank about this paradox, and have continued to be in my recent talks in the U.S.

What Schultz doesn't mention is that he has continued to beat away at #1, the variation of the familiar narrative. David could beat Goliath, in this battlefield, then this could apply to the entire evil of "globalization", the washington consensus, neo-liberalism, which was "imposed on Bolivia", etc., etc..    For the past 10 years Jim Schultz and The Democracy Center have used Cochabamba as a justification for reversing policies that actually worked, and as a blanket justification for Evo Morales' misguided and impractical "solutions" like nationalization.

Even critics of the Coordinadora concede that the Aguas De Tunari concession was a "very bad deal", though as Roberto Laserna said it was "negotiable" implying that solutions like a freeze on water rates could have been bargained for.   But rationally, one bad deal, should not condemn other private or public foreign capital deals in Bolivia. Brazil's State Oil Company contract to invest billions in exploring and producing national gas - with World Bank finance for the pipeline, was an undisputed success, that was negotiated in an entirely different time and space than the Aguas De Tunari deal.   No matter for Schultz and company, anything having to do with the IMF, pre-Evo governments, is inherently bad.   Evo's failed nationalization policies have been spun as victories for the Bolivian people by The Democracy Group, to borrow the title of the Groups book: Dignity and Defiance, Bolivia's Challenge To Globalization.

Cocha-results

What Cochabamba produced was a perfection of a political discourse and ideology, that would appeal to many poorer Bolivians, and which would provide a rallying point for the social movements that catapulted Evo Morales to power.    These themes guide the government, and more ominously have been enshrined in Bolivia's Constitution where they will constrain future governments. Not only is the Constitution rigid in many aspects including economics, it is also confusing and inconsistent product of the internal contradictions of the ideological smorgasborg that produced it: Indigenous sovereignity over land, and government control over underground resources is one telling example of the many potential headaches.

Then there is the matter of practical governance. Bolivian government comes with an ideological straightjacket, that forces the government to act within very narrow paramaters, especially in economic policy.    Evo's recent calls for foreign investors sound hollow and insincere, since most official statements and actions show a predisposition to nationalize everything foreign owned    But, according to what MAS stands for, it necesarilly must nationalize everything in order to hold up what its been preaching.
Anti-Americanism - never as harsh before the Cocaleros as it was in other Latin American countries has led to a useless conflict with the U.S. Obsolete Marxist (or pseudo-Marxist) views of economics suffused with traditonal Bolivian and Indigenista strains of resource nationalism, are a recipe for failure and when it comes down to it, anti-modern. The ideological cocktail with its mix of indigenismo, anti-americanism, social mobilization, and victories over Bechtel and later Oil Companies, while disastrous to Bolvia and inefective as policy, is irrestible to foreign observers, obsessed with anti-globalization themes. Great as an exportable tale for foreign consumption, bad for anything real.

Just how destructive, is visible in the follow-up to the Water War, the Gas Wars: was over a contract that would have involved Billions of investment in Bolivian gas fields and infraestructure, including a port in Chile to export Liquid Natural Gas - a deal cruelly dismissed by Schultz as "Cheap Gas for Chile". A government fell, investments dropped, and as a result billions of foreign investment have gone to Peru (with less gas reserves), and Chile, Brazil and Argentina invested billions in facilities to import Liquid Natural Gas owing in large part to the unreliability of Bolivia as a supplier.. But to Olivera, Schultz, and company it was a great victory for people power!!!   You don't want to bother with such things as facts.

Newtered | The New Republic

2010-05-05T22:36:00.000-05:00

Norman Ornstein (hardly a leftwinger coming from AEI) on the silly claim that Obama is socialist -"Smacking down Gingrich’s claim that Obama is ‘the most radical president in American history.’

Newtered | The New Republic

Forget Offshore Drilling Until We Get Some Answers | The New Republic

2010-05-05T11:51:00.001-05:00

Forget Offshore Drilling Until We Get Some Answers | The New Republic

Troubling questions about the huge oil spill from the BP platform. Technology like that used by Brazil oil giant Petrobras, in their off-shore drilling platforms, might have help prevent the spill. There are troubling questions about why this was not mandated by the government. Specifically the Bush administration whose lackadaisacal regulations favored industry over the public. Key points: there has to be proper regulation, oversight and transparency of private sector operations which can harm us all. Am on record as opposing offshore drilling - but with successes in Brazil and Norway I was coming around. Way on the fence now.

Evo Nationalizes Energy Companies

2010-05-02T17:46:00.008-05:00

May Day Media Spectacle "POWER!!!"

Evo Morales following his previous May day tradition, has nationalized energy companies - from foreign and national owners, securing 80 percent of the electrical production and distribution is in state hands.

Note- This is not strictly a "nationalization" of a "private" or "privatized" company, the energy companies in Bolivia were never "privatized" or sold outright to foreign/private capital to begin with. . Most of the companies involved were companies where the Bolivian State held part ownership in association with private capital which managed them. Some companies had foreign investors, but others were Bolivian-owned, in the case of Cochabamba's company the workers held a large share of the stock. '
In fact, what the State is doing is a "forced" buyout of the rest of the stock in these companies, and assuming management control.

What this means,

First of all, there is always disputes over compensation for the value of these companies, inevitable in any transaction.

Potential international litigation. There are French and English companies who still have the right to contest this under investment-protection treaties.

Foreign Investment - The spectacle of soldiers taking over power plants, right after Evo Morales sent his Finance Minister to the U.S. to look for foreign investors, this simply confirms the governments unreliability, and double-talk.

This usually doesn't work. Venezuela bought out foreign and private interests in the energy sector under Chavez. Result - mismanagement with a power grid close to collapse. Colombia on the other hand, broke up its state monopoly, created a regulatory framework to ensure adequate delivery and consumer protection, and allowed private sector participation. It now produces enough energy to offer electrical power to blackout ridden Venezuela. Bolivia's next door neighbor, Peru, also did something similar and has managed to accomodate that country's increased demand for power, reached remote customers, while offer stable rates for customers,

Paradoxically, the MAS government has dismounted the regulatory bodies - Superintendencias- placing responsibility for supervision and consumer protection with the same ministry that will theoretically also be responsible for the entire chain of production, transportation, and sale of power to consumers and businesses.

Evo's record of running anything besides political campaigns is disastrous. this could result in politicized appointments, incompetent managent, less transparency and consumer protection, reduced independent oversight, and even corruption. The classic case is the do-nothing Oil Company, YPFB which has been rocked by scandals, since Evo took over, and has turned Bolivia from being self-sufficient in oil products to buying even gas from Peru..

Evo Morales and the Populist Paradox --

2010-05-02T16:53:00.004-05:00

Bolivian Economist Roberto Laserna has deconstructed Morales policies, Evo Morales and the Populist Paradox (in Spanish here), exposing the reality that he has benefitted:
1. From Neoliberal economic policies that created the climate for investment and set in motion the industries that are now generating income for the country, and
2 Political policies from "Neoliberal" governments that opened the political space for Evo Morales rise, and created institutional mechanisms that allow the government to transfer resources to many communities. . That would be the municipal decentralization and local community budgeting laws passed by Sanchez de Lozada in the mid-90's.

Private investment in the mid-1990’s, moreover, increased output of natural gas. Soon gas was being exported – very profitably – to Brazil. Thus, when Morales came to power, Bolivia’s economy was in a position to take advantage of the global price boom for raw materials. As a result, revenues increased, despite his government’s nationalist and statist policies, which drove away investment and hindered access to new markets.

Since 2005, Bolivian exports have increased six-fold, along with fiscal revenue. This money is distributed automatically to local governments, according to the model established by Morales’s predecessors, carrying resources to the farthest reaches of the country. But it is not only local governments that have benefited; through cash transfers created during the so called neo-liberal years, families have gained as well, most importantly through a universal and non-contributive old-age pension benefit given to persons over 60, which reaches slightly more than 30% of households.

Mexican Drug Violence - 12 Myths

2010-04-27T18:55:00.009-05:00

Of all people! Joaquin Villalobos - as in ex-FMLN battlefield commander - has an interesting take on the drug cartel violence in Mexico. In Number #2 of his "12 Myths" he takes a look at the claim that "Mexico's conflict is becoming Colombianized, and Mexico is close to being a Failed State". He places Mexico's current violence in perspective, by using Colombia's last two decades of narco-violence for comparison. And, he also looking at the violence in major Latin American cities -

México sufre una violencia localizada en seis de sus 32 estados y tiene una tasa nacional de 10 homicidios por cada 100 mil habitantes. Venezuela tiene 48, Colombia 37, Brasil 25, Guatemala, Honduras y El Salvador están arriba de 50. El estado de Chihuahua, el más violento de México, está en este momento en su punto más álgido con una tasa de 143 homicidios, le siguen Sinaloa con 80, Durango con 49, Baja California 44 y Michoacán 25. A inicios de los noventa Medellín, la ciudad más violenta de Colombia, mantuvo una tasa de 320 durante varios años y, en ese mismo periodo, Cali tenía 124, Cúcuta 105 y Bogotá, la capital, 80. Colombia ha vivido dos guerras en 25 años, las cuales le han costado más de 200 mil muertos y dos millones de desplazados, y continúa en conflicto.

Translation summary - As a country, Mexico has 10 murders per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to Venezuela 48, Colombia 37, Brasil 25. Mexico's neighbor Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras all average over 50.

Mexico's violence is pretty much "localized" in 6 of 32 States. Murder rates in the most violent state Chihahua - 143 per 100,000, Sinaloa -80, Durango 49, Baja California 44, Michoacan -25. 4 Mexican States in the middle of the drug war have rates comparable to countries like Venezuela or Colombia.

At the peak of the Medellin Cartel violence in the early 90's, Medellin "kept a rate of 320 (deaths per 100,000) for several years". Cali following with 124, Bogota had 80. Colombia "which continues in conflict", has "lived two wars in 24 years, costing more than 200,000 dead and two million displaced." But still, Medellin's grim statistics are a valid comparison to the likes of Ciudad Juarez, because the city was the home base for a ruthless cartel, led by capos like Escobar and Lehder, who waged war on the Colombian State, battled rival cartels, had a strangelhold over local authorities.

El volumen, extensión, raíces históricas, códigos culturales y complejidad de la violencia colombiana ha sido —y todavía es— muy superior a la que vive México. En Colombia los niveles de penetración que alcanzó el narcotráfico en la política, el ejército, la policía, los negocios y la sociedad fueron mayores a los que existen actualmente en México, donde no se puede hablar de una narcopolítica. Los cárteles y narcoguerrillas colombianas golpearon con actos terroristas a personajes e instituciones de los poderes políticos, económicos y mediáticos vitales del país. En 1989 Luis Carlos Galán, candidato a la presidencia, fue asesinado por el narcotráfico y tres candidatos más fueron asesinados en ese periodo. El propio presidente, Álvaro Uribe, ha sobrevivido a varios atentados y el vicepresidente, Francisco Santos, estuvo secuestrado por Pablo Escobar. Hechos como éstos no han ocurrido y es muy difícil que ocurran en México, donde no han existido territorios con ausencia de Estado durante 40 años como en Colombia; el Estado mexicano ha sido más bien omnipresente y fuerte y el colombiano ausente y débil.

As Villalobo's points out, Colombia's conflict was more multi-layered and complex than what is happening in Mexico. It involved many more actors and factions, and a long historical context that is lacking in Mexico.

Mexico City and other urban areas like Guadalajara have largely escaped the conflict. the drug-fueled violence in Colombia on the other hand, reached the centers of power in Bogota. Top rungs of the judiciary, political class, media, police and army were objects of a terror campaign by the cartel. Were the Zetas or others doing to Mexico what the Medellin Cartel did to Colombia, Mexico City would be in a State of Siege with car bombs going off against Federal buildings.

One other key point that the author makes is that Mexico's State presence, overall, is much stronger than Colombia's. The Colombian conflict has always had a territorial aspect to it: the lack of a strong state presence in vast swaths of the territory where illegal activities take place. Mexico's PRI created a fairly strong state presence everywhere, and even under democratization, Mexico's State presence is fairly vigorous in most of the country.
In another essay also in Nexos, he explores some of these issues further.

He sees Mexican media and opinion acting as if they were in a vacuum, failing to place the violence in a comparative, regional perspective. When presented this way, there is an over-emphasis on what is wrong - as well as what appears to be going wrong - over more measured analysis.

Texas Gets Globalized and Does Good Economically

2010-04-27T00:13:00.002-05:00

Daniel Gross writing in Slate -Lone Star Why Texas is doing so much better economically than the rest of the nation.

While its political leaders may occasionally flirt with secession, Texas thrives on connection. It surpassed California several years ago as the nation's largest exporting state. Manufactured goods like electronics, chemicals, and machinery account for a bigger chunk of Texas' exports than petroleum does. In the first two months of 2010, exports of stuff made in Texas rose 24.3 percent, to $29 billion, from 2009. That's about 10 percent of the nation's total exports. There are more than 700,000 Texan jobs geared to manufacturing goods for export, according to Patrick Jankowski, vice president of research at the Greater Houston Partnership. "A lot of it is capital goods that the Asian, Latin American, and African [countries] are using to build their economies."

Country of Origin Information on U.S. Latinos

2010-04-22T14:44:00.001-05:00

just released data from the Pew Hispanic Center

Nearly two-thirds of Hispanics in the United States self-identify as being of Mexican origin. Nine of the other ten largest Hispanic origin groups—Puerto Rican, Cuban, Salvadoran, Dominican, Guatemalan, Colombian, Honduran, Ecuadorian and Peruvian—account for about a quarter of the U.S. Hispanic population. There are differences across these ten population groups in the share of each that is foreign born, citizen (by birth or naturalization), and proficient in English. They are also of varying age, tend to live in different areas within the U.S, and have varying levels of education, homeownership rates, income, and poverty rates.

Great Quote

2010-04-06T11:06:00.001-05:00

"Politics are politics, crime is crime, but in Chicago they occasionally overlap. The line between virtue and vice meanders madly—effective government on one side, connections on the other.”

Saul Bellow

lol

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza?printable=true#ixzz0kKwL5KEP

Defining The Moderate Center - David Brooks on Obama

2010-03-14T01:12:00.004-06:00

I think David Brooks gets it totally right, on the Presidents agenda and instincts in his column,

.

The fact is, Obama is as he always has been, a center-left pragmatic reformer. Every time he tries to articulate a grand philosophy — from his book “The Audacity of Hope” to his joint-session health care speech last September — he always describes a moderately activist government restrained by a sense of trade-offs. He always uses the same on-the-one-hand-on-the-other sentence structure. Government should address problems without interfering with the dynamism of the market.

That is a great way not only to define the President, but as a vision of governance that is both forward looking and sensible.

As Brooks notes that is hard.

He has tried to find this balance in a town without an organized center — in a town in which liberals chair the main committees and small-government conservatives lead the opposition. He has tried to do it in a context maximally inhospitable to his aims.

Spanish Judge Alleges Venezuela Helped ETA and FARC Activities

2010-03-02T16:36:00.005-06:00

A Spanish judge in a complaint you can read here, has called for the extradition of several ETA and FARC members in several countries, including Venezuela and Cuba. In the complaint it alleges that the ETA has links with the FARC, and that in some cases their activities have taken place in Venezuelan territory with the active "collaboration" of the Venezuelan government.

In particular, the complaint zeroes in on an ETA operative Arturo Cubillas Fontán, who lives in Venezuela since 89, is a Venezuelan citizen, and is married to a Venezuelan woman. His wife has held numerous jobs in the Venezuelan state - at a fairly high level, and Cubillas himself has been on officialist payroll. The complaint alleges that since 99 he has been a ETA representative in Venezuela, acting as a go-between with the FARC and it looks like the Venezuelan intelligence agency.

ETA-FARC cooperation

ETA operatives in Spain helped the FARC track Colombian diplomats - and even Presidents Pastrana and Uribe - while in Spain, and hinted at trying to murder them.

ETA bombmakers have arrived in Venezuela to instruct FARC operatives on bombmaking techniques - mainly on remote-control detonation devices used in cities. ETA members in turn have received instruction from the FARC on some of the homemade gas cylinder bombs the FARC uses. The complaint shows that this type of bomb was in fact used by the ETA after the courses were offered.

During some of these courses, FARC militants were moved and escorted to secure sites in Venezuela by uniformed members of Venezuela's military intelligence services.

Chavez - Power Failure Ends Press Conference Explaining End of Power Failures

2010-02-28T14:17:00.003-06:00

Irony abounds.... While giving a televised press conference - power goes off live!!!. He was railing against Bush, in the course of explaining away how the Venezuelan power grid is being fixed. The failure is explained away as being the power plant in the presidential palace. So, basically, the guy can't even run a good power plant in his own domain. While some deluded souls might argue that the pain of electrical failure is shared at the top of the government, others might see it as symptomatic of a wasteful and inefficient government.

Anyways, this is hilarious.

Venezuela - Chavez Deals With His Thieving Friends -at least some of them

2010-02-22T15:00:00.014-06:00

Total hilarity in Venezuela as Chavez finally deals with some of the unrestricted corruption and massive theft that have occured under his rule, as pointed out by the New York Times Simon Romero, Purging Loyalists.

BoliBoobsoisie

The rise of a shadowy group of pro-government tycoons had for years been an embarrassment to Mr. Chávez as he was promoting anti-capitalist values. Included in the Bolibourgeoisie (another name for the so-called Bolivarian moneyed class) were men like Arné Chacón, a former navy lieutenant who took part in Mr. Chávez’s failed 1992 coup attempt.

In newspaper photographs back then, Mr. Chacón, like Mr. Chávez, looked like a skinny idealist. But Mr. Chacón amassed a banking fortune, appearing in newspaper photographs here with more girth and a selection of the more than 40 purebred racehorses he owned.

Now Arné Chacón is just another jailed magnate, joining Mr. Fernández and eight other imprisoned bankers and state regulators as investigations into their activities slowly advance. Mr. Chávez himself announced that officials had seized Mr. Chacón’s properties, including his prized horses. The justification for the imprisonment of Mr. Chacón and other tycoons involved accusations of irregularities in bank acquisitions.

Petro-Kleptocracy - No Transparency

This lack of transparency and increase of corruption has all happened under Chavista rule - or misrule. The Lieutenant-Colonel has total control of the State, and has done away with separation of powers between institutions. the fact that the Legislature and Courts are controlled by one party means little or no checks and balances, and political oversight of what is being done by the executive and state administration. Two-party rule before 1999 at least restrained some of the most blatant corruption, which in Venezuela was pretty bad to begin with. Weakening of independent or autonomous entities (i.e. like a Central Bank or regulatory agencies) within the state means there is little oversight or control.

Chavez has presided over a huge expansion of the state, increasing the payroll and creating many new state enterprises. In many cases paralell institutions and power centers have emerged. Government functions which had been decentralized in the 90's have been brought back under central control. Civilian and military loyalists have been placed at all levels of state administration. Chavez' ideological obsession has also meant that many politicized appointments lack administrative skills necessary, and a de-emphasis on fiscal discipline and competence. Those are considered "capitalistic" or "neo-liberal" criteria. End result, a large cronyistic administration which is poorly run, and wasteful.

Boliburgesia - And Rentism

Add to the incompetence, cronysim and lack of transparency, a parasitic private sector, entwined with the corrupt Chavista ruling class. To some point Chavez tolerates private enterprise, and Venezuelas traditional elite tolerates the government because they can make fortunes by importing all sorts of goods, by speculating on government bonds, or by helping the Boliburgesia export its misgotten gains abroad. Chavez' ideology and poor policies have only driven this parasitism by discouraging private initiative in areas that actually add value to an economy like manufacturing or food production. But act as contractors for the State, set up banks, or import goodies, that any revolutionary businessman can do!

This kind of "friendly" business- has a long history in Venezuela - Venezuelas wealthiest families clustered around Venevision and Grupo Polar emerged out of "friendly" arrangements with the COPEI and AD parties. Chavismo has arguably taken it to a new level. That is because of the oil bonanza that has brought something like 600 billion dollars in revenue, a bonanza unseen in Venezuelas history. You have a perfect storm of opportunity for graft and private gain for some friends of the regime. A mix of statist incompetence and crony capitalism, in a resources boom.

One such friend - the newly imprisoned Ricardo Fernandez Barrueco

Mr. Fernández rose from obscurity to put together a web of 270 companies in industries as diverse as tuna-fishing and banking, amassing a fortune of about $1.6 billion by 2005, according to study by the Caracas affiliate of the KPMG accounting firm. He thrived in rural Venezuela, where Mr. Chávez’s dominance goes largely unchallenged, acquiring an interest in a pro-government newspaper in Barinas, a state that is a Chávez family bastion.

1.6 billion, that is insane!!!!

And not uncommon. Lets look at one area that has come under scrutiny. The energy crisis in the country is at least partially attributed to lack of investment in upkeep and expansion of the country's hydroelectrical system.. But apparently over 700 million dollars -over the ordinary budget - were allocated by the legislature between 00 and 09. Turns out, less than 200 were spent, and no one knows where the difference went. With this kind of loose control, lack of transparency, and huge budgets it is no surprise there are obscure characters with billion dollar fortunes.

This kind of wild corruption and extravagance seems out of the reign of early 20th century tyrant Juan Vicente Gómez who created an almost perfect example of a rentitst economy. The two-party "pacted democracy" merely continued this type of corruption, and Chavez ironically, was elected in part because he promised to end it. So much for that.

Colombia and Chile Trade is Booming

2010-02-22T11:23:00.003-06:00

Semana has an article on Chile's economic relationship with Colombia.

According to the article the main "detonant" has been the Free Trade agreement signed between Chile and Colombia last year, which is a "latest generation" type treaty, that includes "more than commerce" into areas like "services and state purchasing".

As a result Chilean companies have entered Colombia, with Colombia becoming one of the main "destinations for Chilean direct investment in the world displacing Argentina, the past two years.." In 2008 "Colombia was the third recipient" of Chilean direct investment and in 2009 the fourth after Peru, Brasil, and Uruguay" according to Semana. It estimates the amount of FDI from Chile at 6141 million dollars, 13 percent of Chiles total external investment according to the article. And it says it in such varied areas as financial services, health, transport, forestry, paper manufacturing.

Bilateral commerce "has doubled annualy in the past three years reaching 2800 million dollars in 2008, though it decreased in 2009 due to the global crisis."

After the US, "Chile was the second destination of Colombian exports", supplanting Venezuela.

Goes Both Ways..

Colombian companies have also made the leap into Chile. Colombian companies include retailers, health care operators, transportation companies. Just recently Colombian state owned ISA "bought 60% of CINTRA Chile which operates and maintains highways in Chile, from Spanish-owned Ferrovial. In communications, Internexa, whose acquisition of a Chilean company Comunicaciones Intermedias, has given it the "largest fiber optics network in South America".

It seems pretty logical that two countries with relatively large and sophisticated business sectors would increase their trade.

While official "integration" in the continent seems pretty dead on the surface, the truth is that a lot of activity is happening under the radar. Investment, goods and services are flowing out of - and between- Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Colombia, with attendant economies of scale being created. It also shows a healthy diversity of sectors.

Global Warming, Science, Scientists, Sceptics and Silliness

2010-02-19T23:33:00.014-06:00

Global Warming deniers and sceptics have managed to get their opinions aired in major media, mainly in the UK, including such papers as the UK's Times. Some of the reports have been downright sensationalistic, as this article, Climategate U-turn Astonishment as scientist at centre of row admits: There has been no global warming since 1995, , from the Daily Mail.

The claims made by sceptics - dubbed "Climategate" concern, the fourth report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as the contents of emails hacked from East Anglia University, and a group of scientists and skeptics involved.

And these claims end up being cited erroneously by press and politicians, as casting doubt on the entire body of work done by scientists on global warming, which is nonsense.

You Down With IPCC?

Exhibit 1 is the controversy over IPCC report concerning the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas, which is 2 PARAGRAPHS FROM 1 PAGE OUT OF THOUSANDS OF PAGES, on the chapter on Glaciers which you can read here. That conclusion that the Himalayan Glaciers would melt by 2035 was bogus and had no business being in the report, period end of story. But, world-leading experts in the area had listed an up to date and scientifically reached conclusion on that same topic in another chapter of the report..

AS broken down further in this article, the wrong prediction was included in Volume 2, based on work done by a group of researchers and scientists who were biologists and/or social scientists. It was not from the working group, Working Group 1, of hardcore climatologists who assembled the hard data, and did the climate modelling.

Himalayan glaciers: In a regional chapter on Asia in Volume 2, written by authors from the region, it was erroneously stated that 80% of Himalayan glacier area would very likely be gone by 2035. This is of course not the proper IPCC projection of future glacier decline, which is found in Volume 1 of the report. There we find a 45-page, perfectly valid chapter on glaciers, snow and ice (Chapter 4), with the authors including leading glacier experts (such as our colleague Georg Kaser from Austria, who first discovered the Himalaya error in the WG2 report). There are also several pages on future glacier decline in Chapter 10 ("Global Climate Projections"), where the proper projections are used e.g. to estimate future sea level rise. So the problem here is not that the IPCC's glacier experts made an incorrect prediction. The problem is that a WG2 chapter, instead of relying on the proper IPCC projections from their WG1 colleagues, cited an unreliable outside source in one place. Fixing this error involves deleting two sentences on page 493 of the WG2 report.

That does nothing to discredit the science of global warming, it is simply one small error in mountains of data no pun intended.

Emails and Mental Snails

The so-called Email scandal concerns issues that are being raised from about 20 years of work by the group of scientists around the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU). The controversy seems to center on emails containing discussions going back and forth related to one paper that relied on chinese weather stations, and warming trends going back, to the medieval period.

And again, the specific data questioned, do not amount to a smoking gun, that if removed would invalidate conclusions reached from data and scientific work.

Fred Pearce from The Guardian puts it succintly here:

The emails stolen from the University of East Anglia in November have cast an uncomfortable light on the behind-the-scenes actions of some of the most senior and respected climate scientists in the world. The affair raises serious questions about access to data and the way scientific peer review can be used to stifle dissent. But is the science of climate change fatally flawed by the climategate revelations? Absolutely not. Nothing uncovered in the emails destroys the argument that humans are warming the planet.

None of the 1,073 emails plus 3,587 files containing documents, raw data and computer code upsets the 200-year-old science behind the "greenhouse effect" of gases like carbon dioxide, which traps solar heat and warm the atmosphere. Nothing changes the fact that carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere thanks to human emissions from burning carbon-based fuels like coal and oil. Nor the calculations of physicists that for every square metre of the earth's surface, 1.6 watts more energy now enters the atmosphere than leaves it.

And we know the world is warming as a result. Thousands of thermometers in areas remote from any conceivable local urban influences tell us that. The oceans are warming too. And we have the evidence of our own eyes. The great majority of the world's glaciers are retreating, Arctic sea ice is disappearing, sea levels are rising ever faster, trees are climbing up hillsides and permafrost is melting. These are not statistical artefacts or the result of scientists cherry-picking their data.

Equally, many of the most widely publicised claims from sceptics about what is in the emails are demonstrably unfounded. There is no conspiracy to "hide the decline" in temperatures. Nor that a lack of warming in the data is a "travesty" – still less of attempts to fix the data.

The Guardians counterpart on the right The Economist, takes essentially the same line on the Emails. And that seems to be that some prominent scientists behaved like jerks, dismissed valid points raised by opponents, and got sloppy, but overall the science stands.

More heat than light

Some e-mails suggest the criticisms made by sceptics outside academic climate science may have had more support within it than might be expected. Comments on the tree-ring section of the IPCC’s latest report by John Mitchell, director of climate science at Britain’s Met Office, raise issues very like those highlighted by perhaps the most prominent critic of the hockey stick, Steve McIntyre, who runs a blog called Climate Audit. An e-mail apparently from Dr Mann refers to an aspect of some statistical testing he did not want discussed widely as “dirty laundry”. Those worried that undue weight is being put on data from the tree rings of a dozen larches on the Yamal peninsula in Siberia, a topic that exercises Mr McIntyre, will be interested to see that some climate scientists shared some of their worries.

None of this is evidence of fraud. Looked at broadly, the e-mails seem to show a pretty workaday picture of scientists, with frustrations and sloppinesses, disagreements, opponents badmouthed, and cultural differences bridged (for example, explaining to an American colleague not just why a particular person is a prat, but what a prat is in the first place). Some of the e-mails may, looked at in a context not currently available (those posted were a selection), add weight to previous criticisms by Mr McIntyre and others. But that, in itself, is not dramatic. Many of these issues were aired in the most recent IPCC report, though not particularly thoroughly. And the idea of anthropogenic climate change rests on a great deal more than just tree-ring records, useful as they are for providing context to the current warming.

A spate of recent claims of global cooling, for example, rely on comparing 1998, the second-hottest year in the modern record (going to 1880), with 2008, which was relatively cooler. Yet, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, a part of NASA, America’s space agency, 2008 was the ninth-hottest year on record. 2009 is shaping up to be the sixth-hottest. All of the ten hottest years recorded have come since 1997. And retreating Arctic sea ice provides even more visible data to support conclusions of warming.
__________________

This entire row is over skeptics picking at small pieces of the puzzle, and using that to make outlandish conclusions which get picked up by sensationalistic media, fellow travellers with vested interests in industry and politicians. It isn't about science, that is clear.

Brazil cuts Bolivia Gas Purchases, Invests in Peru

2010-02-08T16:10:00.007-06:00

While Evo Morales is praised by his usual international apologists for his dominant re-election and inaguration, the consequences of his disastrous econommic policies and ideological stupidity continue to ruin Bolivia's long term prospects.

Brazil - Bolivia's largest gas customer - has announced it will cut back on purchases of Bolivian natural gas.

Meanwhile Brazilian president Lula was conspicuously absent from buddy Evo's inagural ceremony. Lula happened to be in Peru with his ministers and top Petrobras officials, negotiating an energy pact which includes Brazilian investment for exploration of Peruvian oil and gas fields, and to help develop its petro-chemical sector.

As Bolivian writer and analyst, Humberto Vacaflor, wryly observed also absent was Christina Kirchner who was negotiating with Toyota. Over what? Over Argentine lithium, and the Japanese automaker cut a deal with the Argentinians. Bolivia, has the largest lithium reserves in the world, but in large part thanks to Evo and his silly ideology it looks Bolivia is again seen as an erratic and unreliable source.

While Bolivias government continues its self-defeatist anti-capitalist policies, its neighbors, with less reserves of things like gas and lithium, are able to get the investments and markets needed to help its people. Morales talks about industrializing natural gas and lithium. Meanwhile, it is Peru that is getting the know-how and foreign investment for its petro-chemical sector, and Argentina that is getting Toyota's investment. Socialism rocks!!

Neo-Extractivismo

2010-02-08T10:52:00.003-06:00

Ironicamente, el modelo "progresista" Suramericano, no es nada mas que una version nueva del "extractivismo" tradicional de las epocas coloniales y mercantilistas. Una economia semi-estatizada que depende de exportaciones de materias primas.

El neo extractivismo
Domingo, 07 Febrero 2010
2010-02-07 07:50:51 Hernán Zeballos H. La plataforma energética, promovida por CEDLA, en debate los días 27 y 28 de enero, congregó a un conjunto de especialistas, para tratar el tema “Crisis...

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

US Relief Efffort In Haiti, Soft Power

2010-01-30T19:35:00.002-06:00

the US relief effort in Haiti, like the Bush policy vis the Indonesian Tsunami. is part of a doctrinne of projecting U.S. "Soft Power", in the battle for world opinion, not only in the middle east, but also in the rest of the third world. Ahh, the Great Game of power politics continues..

From the New Republic Proxy War by Barron YoungSmith

When President Obama launched a massive humanitarian-aid response to Haiti's earthquake last month, not everyone took his magnanimity at face value. Hugo Chavez, for example, accused him of "occupying Haiti undercover" and then upped the ante by saying the earthquake ha...d been caused by an American "...

Bolivia y su política en materia de hidrocarburos

2009-12-27T12:56:00.001-06:00

Bolivia y su política en materia de hidrocarburos
Lunes, 14 Diciembre 2009
2009-12-14 07:59:55 Por Emilio J. Cárdenas Ex embajador de la República Argentina ante las Naciones Unidas - Evo Morales, como era previsible, acaba de ser re-electo como Presidente de Bolivia....

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

En 2006 Bolivia tenía autoabastecimiento de naftas e importaba un 30% de su diesel. Hoy la última cifra es del orden del 50% del consumo doméstico. Además, el año que viene se perderá la autosuficiencia que Bolivia lograra en 1954. No será nada fácil recuperarla. Se estima que tomará unos cinco años de hacer bien las cosas y unos 8.000 millones de dólares de una inversión que será difícil de obtener desde que pocos, muy pocos, confían en Bolivia. En rigor, ni los maltratados brasileños. Bolivia no ha reinvertido en el sector en el último quinquenio y las consecuencias estarán –muy pronto– a la vista de todos. En el futuro inmediato, Bolivia deberá importar el 20% de sus naftas y el 20% de su gas licuado. Porque lo cierto es que es poco, muy poco, lo que ha hecho el Estado en el sector. Entre el 2002 y el 2006 se perforaron 96 pozos. En los 4 últimos años, solamente 18. De horror como fracaso de gestión. Inocultable, por demás.

Top Gear goes to Bolivia!

2009-12-27T09:24:00.006-06:00

Top Gear goes to Bolivia! BBC's Top Gear, IMHO the planets best car show goes to Bolivia - As in previous episodes, the trio of Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond are given a set of tasks. First off they buy cars - sight unseen - on the internet, off local websites. They then hit the Altiplano, salt flats, and the La Paz-Coroico road (aka road of death) most definitvely looks to be fun...

Gas could be the cavalry in global warming fight

2009-12-22T14:38:00.003-06:00

Pointing to Natural Gas as a clean (relatively speaking) form of energy. See if a re-elected Evo gets with the program and stops destroying Bolivia's natural gas industry

[N]atural gas, the same fossil fuel that was in such short supply a decade ago that it was deemed unreliable. It's now being uncovered at such a rapid pace that its price is near a seven-year low. Long used to heat half the nation's homes, it's becoming the fuel of choice when building new power plants. Someday, it may win wider acceptance as a replacement for gasoline in our cars and trucks.

If the market is increasing for natural gas in the US - and with new discoveries, that opens the gates for US production - as well as LNG depending on the price.

Energy experts believe that the huge volume of supply now will ease price swings and supply worries.

Gas now trades on futures markets for about $5.50 per 1,000 cubic feet. While that's up from a recent low of $2.41 in September as the recession reduced demand and storage caverns filled to overflowing, it's less than half what it was in the summer of 2008 when oil prices surged close to $150 a barrel.

Oil and gas prices trends have since diverged, due to the recession and the growing realization of just how much gas has been discovered in the last three years. That's thanks to the introduction of horizontal drilling technology that has unlocked stunning amounts of gas in what were before off-limits shale formations. Estimates of total gas reserves have jumped 58 percent from 2004 to 2008, giving the U.S. a 90-year supply at the current usage rate of about 23 trillion cubic feet per year.

Colombia - FARC control and infiltrations of some labor unions

2009-10-29T16:54:00.003-05:00

Colombian blogger Rafael Guarin, publishes his "revealing interview done in 2007" with the secretary of a leading agricultural Union, Fensuagro.

Turns out that Juan Efrain Mendoza was captured by the Colombian Army in a raid on a FARC camp.

Una inédita y reveladora entrevista que le fuera hecha en el 2007 al secretario de Fensuagro, Juan Efraín Mendoza, capturado por el Ejército en un campamento en Sumapaz, muestra lo que las Farc busca conseguir en el campo político.*

Tratándose de un dirigente sindical, muchos se sorprendieron de su captura en combates contra las Farc. No fue mi caso. La entrevista que le hice a Juan Efraín Mendoza revelaba una inquietante cercanía con la organización guerrillera y el papel que Fensuagro cumple.

Read the original here.

Basically Mendoza is either an infiltrated, clandestine FARC member, or a complete useful idiot from his rhetoric.

No surprise there, the FARC and its predecessors, as good Leninists have always had front groups, and had infiltrated other organizations - gaining effective control of some. It was always Jacobo Arenas' strategy to use different forms of "mass struggle" to complement the armed insurgency.

Sometimes, the FARC would tip its hand when it was trying to infiltrate Unions, causing dissension within Union ranks - and often involving violence. Not surprisingly, this often resulted in paramilitary reprisals, escalating general violence further.

The bottom line of this whole situation is that, yes, there are some Unions in Colombia where the FARC wields its invisible hand.

US Policy Towards Latin America - Populism and The Rise Of The Center

2009-10-07T10:50:00.002-05:00

---Interesting paper circulating among government officials, think tanks, academics about Latin America populism and implications for US policy.

Dealing with Political Ferment in Latin America: The Populist Revival, the Emergence of the Center, and Implications for U.S. Policy
, Dr. Hal Brands. esearcher at the Institute for Defense Analyses

Can be read in full here

The current political dynamics in Latin America is analyzed, and their meaning for the United States is evaluated. The author argues that references to a uniform “left turn” in the region are misleading, and that Latin America is actually witnessing a dynamic competition between two very different forms of governance. Represented by leaders like Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and others, radical populism emphasizes the politics of grievance and a penchant for extreme solutions. Moderate, centrist governance can be found in countries like Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and Uruguay. It stresses diplomatic pragmatism, the protection of democratic practices, and the need to blend macroeconomic responsibility with a social conscience. To the extent that the United States can strengthen the centrists while limiting the damage caused by radical populism, the author argues it can promote integral growth, democratic stability, and effective security cooperation in Latin America. A clear understanding of the trends discussed is essential to devising appropriate U.S. policies toward that region.

Cuba's Own Craigslist

2009-10-02T12:26:00.005-05:00

Local papaer, Miami Times article Cuba's black market moves online with Revolico-com talks about the emerging internet marketplace in Havana. Taking the online classifieds concept pioneered by Craigslist to country with an onerous command economy, and very likely making it even more obsolete.

The article describes Mateo a home mechanics experience

One of his three kids, 23-year-old Manuel, wanted to join some friends on a trip to the north coast. For months, father and son tried to unload some expensive rims to raise money. Though Manuel thought they were worth 300 pesos — about $325 — no one was biting.

"Dad," Manuel finally said, "have you heard about Revolico?"

Revolico? In Cuban slang, it means "a mess." Mateo had no idea what his boy was talking about.

So Manuel took his father to the house of a friend, an engineer with spotty Internet access at home. They logged onto revolico.com and discovered a capitalist Valhalla. There was everything for sale: cars, tires, motorcycles, diapers, cell phones, laptops, massages, Chinese lessons.

Bolivia, Mil Millones De Dolares De Regalo Para Yacimientos

2009-09-27T20:38:00.000-05:00

La navidad de YPFB
Viernes, 25 Septiembre 2009
2009-09-25 08:02:33 Carlos Miranda Pacheco* Hace días la navidad llegó a YPFB con un espléndido regalo que se lo denominó préstamo. Mil millones de dólares, a 20 años plazo con el 1% de...

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

Interesting article - Racial Resentment, Authoritarianism and Health Care Reform

2009-09-08T16:33:00.002-05:00

Interesting argument by professor Jonathan Weiler, backed by data.

In the just-published book that I have co-authored with Marc Hetherington, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, we argue that how Americans view political issues and establish partisan attachments is being increasingly driven by gut-level world views, which is best characterized by the term authoritarianism. Since levels of authoritarianism are powerful predictors of individuals' views on the hot button issues of the day like gay rights, immigration, and torture, they now explain whether people choose to be Republicans and Democrats, which is a key reason why our politics have become so rancorous and impervious to reasoned conciliation.

Weiler concludes:

In sum, there is reason to think that beneath the arguments about government intrusion into the health care market, death panels, and such, a much more visceral dynamic is at work. To be perfectly clear, it is far from the case that every opponent or skeptic of significant health-care reform is a racist or racially motivated in her or his thinking. But there is, at the least, very strong circumstantial evidence that views of race and beliefs about health care reform are linked significantly among many Americans, which probably explains why the debate on health care reform has caused a much stronger uproar in 2009 than it did in 1994.

ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO..... - Chavez Hypocritical posturing

2009-08-31T16:06:00.005-05:00

Talk about arming a big brouhaha........Hugo Chavez complaining of US intervention, specifically the treaty to use Colombian bases.

The socialist leader called Colombia’s plan to host more U.S. soldiers a “hostile act” and a “true threat” to Venezuela and its leftist allies. He warned that a possible U.S. buildup could lead to the “start of a war in South America

WHAT A HYPOCRITE......GIVE ME A BREAK!

shall we start with a couple of basics?

His invitation to Russia to "send ships, refuel long-range bombers and temporarily station anti-submarine aircraft in Venezuela", including the much publicized exercise held almost exactly a year ago with key parts of the Russian fleet

"Venezuela is a strategic ally of Russia. So let the Russian fleet come. It's welcome,"

Ummm..so Chavez basically invites a extra-territorial nuclear power to sail its main battle fleet into his waters, and says he welcomes them stationing personnel in Venezuelan bases.

Not to mention that Russia is the power selling sophisticated weapons to Chavez' dis-functional and corrupt military. This fuels a regional arms race. What is the purpose of all that offensive materiel? Venezuela has no real internal or external military threats - unlike Colombia which faces a ruthless insurgency that until recently controlled a lot of territory.

The most troubling part of Chavez arms buildup regardless of its origins, is that some of these weapons (i.e. shoulder-held Surface to Air Missles) can make it to Colombia, through coca-dollars or ideological sympathy. And Colombia is a country which does face an existential threat, the FARC.

The only "hostile" “true threat" to his neighbors is Chavez.

Bernie Madoff, How did he do it?

2009-08-13T01:39:00.004-05:00

for anyone puzzled about the Bernie Madoff ripoff, this Economist article and the NYT article on Bernie sidekick Frank DiPascali presents some basic info on key aspects of the scams. A complex Ponzi scheme, covered by loads of fake info cleverly designed to appear as legitimate trades.

Mr DiPascali was the main point of contact for investors, who ranged from Jewish charities to film moguls. He also oversaw the mechanics of the vast Ponzi scheme. It purported to be making steady, double-digit returns trading options on a share index. In fact, client funds sat in an account at JPMorgan Chase and were withdrawn only to meet redemptions or to be parked in Treasuries and the like. This was “nothing more than a slush fund”, according to the complaint against Mr DiPascali by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Though there was no actual trading, the conspirators were far from idle. They cooked up phantom trading records, client confirmations and account statements to corroborate the fictitious investment strategy. They made thousands of wire transfers between the firm’s London and New York offices to make it look like it was earning commissions from real transactions.

Newsweek Says Latin America "Swings" Rightward

2009-08-10T16:57:00.002-05:00

Interesting article in Newsweek Latin America Swings Right Not Left

First off, I am not so sure that there is anywhere near a general "shift" to the center and/or right in that very broad and generic "general" Latin American electorate as this article suggests.

But I do agree with the articles contention that the "Washington Consensus" approach is very much alive in many of the principal countries of Latin America. I have been saying that for a long time. Fact of the matter is that countries which are better off like Colombia, Peru, Chile and Brazil have continued policies that favor trade, fiscal responsibility, macroeconomic stability, foreign investment, private sector dynamism, and are much more succesfull than "Caracas Consensus" countries.

In the new Latin America, party affiliation and ideological inheritance may be heartfelt, but they are lousy compasses to the political future. And while neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus may be still be maldiciones below the Rio Grande, they are hardly dead or even out of fashion. In fact, with the exception of Mexico—whose fortunes are tethered to the faltering U.S. market—the nations faring best in the global financial downturn are those that have hewed closest to the free-market reforms that have proved so politically provocative. If onetime left-wingers are in charge in a dozen Central and South American states, most remain leftists in name only.

President Obama's Speech to Africa

2009-07-23T17:32:00.003-05:00

What Obama said in Ghana will resonate for a long time with not only that continents people, but also with people all over the developing world. It is also very consistent with what he said to the NAACP.
In the end the themes he raised about the culture of corruption, failure, and blaming the west for every wrong is a message that should be heeded in Latin America. The old/new leftist agenda (Chavez), besides being bankrupt ideologicially, subsists on churning out propaganda that fosters a culture of blaming others for its own failures.

La Palin Resigns

2009-07-03T20:29:00.002-05:00

Sarah Palin just announced she is resigning as governor of Alaska, running for President in 2012?

Todd S. Purdum’s excellent Vanity Fair piece , It Came from Wasilla,, detailing La Palin's doings in Alaska and in the McCain campaign. that has Democrats laughing, Republicans fighting among themselves, and Independents glad that one of the most brainless of American politicians in recent memory is not a heartbeat away from the presidency.

She apparently didn’t like preparing for debates back then either. “In the campaign for governor, they’re prepping her for debate,” Curtis Smith’s former business partner, Jim Lottsfeldt, told me recently in Anchorage, “and Curtis says, ‘The debate prep’s going horribly. Every time we try to help her with an answer, she just gets mad.’” (Smith himself says, “Unfortunately, I don’t recall having that exact conversation with Mr. Lottsfeldt, nor do I recall my experience, including debate prep, with Governor Palin in the light he portrayed.”) But Palin’s lack of knowledge turned out not to hurt her. Andrew Halcro later remembered that he and Palin once compared notes about their many encounters, and she said, “Andrew, I watch you at these debates with no notes, no papers, and yet when asked questions, you spout off facts, figures, and policies, and I’m amazed. But then I look out into the audience and I ask myself, Does any of this really matter?”

MILLER: End Of The Tony George Era

2009-07-02T18:58:00.002-05:00

Tony George's reign at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is over after leaving the sport divided after forming the IRL and locking out CART in 96.
Robin Miller tells it right:
MILLER: End Of The Tony George Era

Shared via AddThis

Alexis Arguello, Nicaraguan 3-Time World Boxing Champ Dead

2009-07-02T11:13:00.004-05:00

DAMN, this is a real bummer. I grew up watching Alexis' fights. "El Flaco Explosivo" was a national hero in Nicaragua and the whole country would shut down when he fought. Before the era of a bewildering number of "world championships" boxing had two sanctioning bodies which crowned a world champion for each weight class. Alexis won 3 separate titles. a major feat.

Alexis Arguello dies.....from ESPN

MANAGUA, Nicaragua -- Alexis Arguello, who fought in one of boxing's most classic brawls and reigned supreme at 130 pounds, was found dead at his home early Wednesday.

Coroners were conducting an autopsy to determine the cause of death. Sandanista Party's Radio Ya and other local media were reporting it appeared to be a suicide.

[+] EnlargeAlexis Arguello
Getty ImagesAlexis Arguello was found dead Wednesday at 57. He is pictured in June 1981 after beating Jim Watt to win the WBC lightweight title.

The La Prensa newspaper reported that Arguello -- elected mayor of Nicaragua's capital last year -- was found with a gunshot wound to the chest.

The 57-year-old Arguello retired in 1995 with a record of 82-8 and 65 knockouts and was a champion in three weight divisions. He was perhaps best known for two thrilling battles with Aaron Pryor and fights with Ray Mancini, Bobby Chacon and Ruben Olivares.

"I'm kind of in a daze right now," Pryor told The Associated Press. "Those were great fights we had. This was a great champion."

Nicknamed "The Explosive Thin Man," Arguello was inducted in 1992 into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, where flags were flying at half-staff in his honor Wednesday.

Hundreds of people lined up to say goodbye to Arguello Wednesday night at a memorial service at the Palace of Culture in the capital of Nicaragua.

pic/ ESPN/Getty

Bolivia: Coca Es Mostly Cocaina.....Cocaine Production Up In Bolivia & Peru Down in Colombia

2009-06-30T22:47:00.004-05:00

According to Reuters

LIMA (Reuters) - Cocaine production is growing fastest in Bolivia while Peru is on its way to matching output from Colombia, the top global producer of the drug, U.N. officials said on Friday.

Coca plant cultivation in Bolivia, which expelled U.S. anti-drug agents last year after accusing them of meddling in domestic affairs, grew 6 percent in 2008, according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime's annual study of Andean nations.

Estimated cocaine production rose 9 percent to 113 metric tons in the impoverished South American nation.

This is what happens when you leave the fox in charge of the henhouse. The reality that Evo-pologists avoid or ignore is that Morales's main base of support is composed of people who grow coca that is almost exclusively used to make cocaine. They want to be able to avoid annoyances like the DEA so they can grow coca freely so they can sell it or make their own coca paste. So now it is easier to do such things as bribe cops/military people without the "gringos" there, and there is less incentive to do anything about it.

EDIT

Meanwhile, the UN also found that production also increased in Peru, part which can be attributed to neo-Sendero Luminoso types. Meanwhile growing of coca and production of cocaine actually fell in Colombia. Part of this might have to do with successes against the FARC, who both directly control some of the production and export as well as critical smuggling routes. And also moving against top Paramilitary leaders, who often acted with semi-sanction from officials because they fought the FARC. Critical in the Colombian conflict(s) and efforts against traffickers is territory. The more space in control or disputed by non-governmental armed bands, the more space that could be used to grow and produce cocaine. In a larger sense the conflicts with the guerillas also acted as a buffer against government actions against all parties dealing cocaine. Taking those players out of the equation allowed both direct erradication - as well as for traditional law enforcement to work against drug dealer.

Honduras Flies The Coup UPDATED

2009-06-29T11:16:00.004-05:00

Poor Zelaya received an old-fashioned military coup d' etat, subject to wide condemnation. And the man is hardly a Chavez/Evo, at the very worst a very mild-wannabee. More to the point he is the Constitutional, freely-elected President of the Republic of Honduras, whose term has not ended. Military leaders arresting him and sending him to exile is just plain simply a coup d' etat. Too old-school and scary.

Funny that Cuba - a one-party totalitarian government for 50 yrs is protesting very loudly. As is Chavez who celebrates his own failed (and bloody)coup attempt in 1992 to this day. Ditto for Evo Morales who agitated and conspired actively to bring down two Constitutional Presidents in Bolivia, and who pretty much ignores parliamentary and legal niceties.

El mandatario venezolano, Hugo Chávez, quien al igual que Cuba venía advirtiendo sobre la posibilidad de un golpe de Estado en el país centroamericano desde hace días, fue uno de los primeros en salir en defensa de Zelaya. Chávez anunció una ´batalla continental´ a favor de la restitución de su homólogo.

En ese sentido, los medios de comunicación reportaron el desarrollo de una reunión extraordinaria de presidentes de la Alba en Managua, que empezó anoche con la presencia de Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua y Cuba, y a la que hoy se sumará Bolivia.

EDIT

President Obama made the right moves and set a good tone:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dealing with the first Latin American crisis of his presidency, Barack Obama sought a swift, clear response that would not be interpreted as U.S. interventionism in a region that loathes it.

So he condemned a coup in Honduras by turning to the most reliable of friends: democracy.

"We stand on the side of democracy, sovereignty and self-determination," Obama said when asked Monday about the forced exile of Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, a takeover that has drawn international criticism and unnerved a part of the world that has worked to shed itself of strong-arm tactics.

The point could not be lost. Obama mentioned some version of the word democracy eight times. He even wound up referring to George Washington.

The response put Obama with much of the world as Honduras and its newly appointed leader, Roberto Micheletti, quickly found themselves isolated. Obama left sticky underlying issues in Honduras for its people to decide, but pledged that the U.S. would work with international bodies on a peaceful solution.

As the NYT reports countries "ideologically" divided, as diverse as Bolivia and Colombia have condemned the coup. Specially worth noting is the reactions of
Argentina, Brazil and Chile, the 70's "gorilla" countries.
Boz has four posts and analysis here, 2, 3, 4.

Here is the OAS declaration which Boz cites:

1. To condemn vehemently the coup d’état staged this morning against the constitutionally-established Government of Honduras, and the arbitrary detention and expulsion from the country of the constitutional president José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, which has produced an unconstitutional alteration of the democratic order.

2. To demand the immediate, safe and unconditional return of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales to his constitutional functions.

3. To declare that no government arising from this unconstitutional interruption will be recognized.

Bolivia Stalls On Negotiating With Obama Administration Over Trade Preferences

2009-06-27T11:11:00.004-05:00

Latest news from Bolivia's Foreign Ministry is that it has "postponed" sending a delegation to Washington DC to negotiate the possibility of Bolivia renewing trade preferences under the Andean Trade Preferences act. Suspended by the Bush admninistration in part due to Morales expulsion of the US ambassador and the DEA, the door had opened under Obama.

The program started in 1992 and took off slowly before picking up after 2002. In 2006 and 2007 exports to the US were 172.1 million and 153.3 million. Textiles were a big part. It is a very large percentage of Bolivia's total manufacturing exports. One estimate is that it produces 26,132 jobs directly and 17,541 indirect jobs for a total of 43,670.

Why this isn't a priority for Morales' government? Could be ideological disdain both for the private sector actors and the US. More to the point, loudly trumpeting Chavez' ALBA..as well as punishing business owners opposed to his rule. Or also could be that there is one group of private sector exporters and producers that Morales is heeding. The ones who don't want the DEA poking in their business anymore.

Bolivia - No More High Court

2009-06-27T10:55:00.002-05:00

Bolivia's Constitutional Court basically ceased to exist as the last Judge has resigned. The Court, which has jurisidiction to be the ultimate arbitrer regarding the Constitutionality of laws, has been esentially dead the last couple of years.

An undereported story internationally, is how Evo Morales' government has waged a war on the highest two Courts in the land, the Supreme Court and this Court. The executive, has brought the equivalent of sanction and/or impeachment proceedings in the legislature against individual Judge, who have resigned. For the past couple of years that has meant a failure to get a quorum of judges to hear issues that have come up over the changes occuring in society.

Bolivia - Washington Consensus vs. Caracas Consensus -

2009-06-23T10:27:00.002-05:00

Bolivia we are told was a battleground for the Washington Consensus, a poster-child for the "failure of neo-liberalism," of "popular resistance to the International Monetary Fund." This was illustrated by such episodes as the Water Wars in Cochabamba and the Gas War that brought down Sanchez De Lozada, and ultimately the surprise rise to power of Evo Morales. In this narrative it is mainly about resources, resistance to economic measures imposed from abroad that allowed multinationals to come in and extract natural resources to the detriment of Bolivia's poor.

Reality of course is much more complicated. The rise to Evo and the failure of the traditional political class, also owes a lot to the ethnic and regional cleavages in Bolivian society, and the long history of instability and self-destruction in Bolivian politics. Among other (numerous) factors you can also throw in the historical exclusion of a large part of the population, regional economic crisis, US drug policy,etc, etc.

But bring it back to economics, because that is what we were told this was about. If the evil IMF, the neo-liberals, and the multinationals were so bad, what was the alternative?
However many dumb things the IMF suggested (or forced) the country to do, the truth is the budget did become balanced, and the foreign debt was lowered. This was forecast by the Bolivian Government and the IMF when they reached a Stand-by deal in 2002. Privatizations of airlines, railroads, telcom companies wiped out hundreds of millions of dollars in obligations the Bolivian government carried. And due to the opening up of the oil and gas sector per the Washington Consensus/IMF/Neo-lib recommendations resulted in nearly 4 billion dollars in investment. Up to the 1990's Bolivia produced little natural gas, afterwards it held the 2nd gas reserves in the continent, filling 50 + percent of Sao Paulo's needs. Simply put, the gas industry exists because of foreign investment.

And Evo Morales' policies? Under the tutelage of loudmouth Hugo Chavez - who acts as a cheerleader and enabler of Morales worst instincts. Destroying transparency in government. The childish nationalizations, that resulted in massive mismanagement, corruption, and even over-payments to transnationals. Bolivia going from being the "gas hub" of South America, to the "black hole" of energy policy in the Continent as one analyst put it. So destructive and unreliable has Morales government become that Bolivia's gas clients like Argentina and Brazil have ponied up billions of dollars for re-gasification facilities, preffering to pay more to bring in gas from Trinidad and Tobago and eventually Africa. Cuba now has a more favorable environment for foreign oil and gas company than Bolivia, and Peru is drawing in billions in investments with much less gas.

While this has gone on, the same voices that constantly whined about the IMF, about the World Bank, about Goni, about Bechtel, are awfully silent. Nothing about Morales' amazingly inept and failed policies. The narrative shifts, it is now about the excluded indigenous majority trying to "change" the country under assault from the "light-skinned" elites in the east. Noting resistance to the "indigenous" Constitution - while failing to note how it crudely imposes a statist-centralized government-run economy, and pretty much bans foreign investment. Basic stupidity that goes far beyond, trying to force a bankrupt government to balance its budget. Whatever damage the "Washington Consensus" did, the Caracas Consensus is a real loser.

Classic Salsa - Hector Lavoe y Willie Colon - No Me Llores Mas

2009-06-19T22:36:00.003-05:00

YouTube rocks!......Hector Lavoe and Willie Colon doing "No Me Llores Mas" for Panamanian TV. Classic tune sounds great.

FORMULA ONE STUNNER - BREAKAWAY SERIES FORMED

2009-06-19T10:12:00.001-05:00

its only starting with this Formula One stunner. It looks like the manufacturers are going thru with a breakaway series, and not cutting a deal with Max Mosely and tghe FIA.

Instant comparisons to US Open Wheel split in mid-90's can be misleading; Ferrari as one writer wrote is the Man-U of motorsports with a worldwide passionate fanbase. Penske not showing up at Indy in 96 is nowhere near the effect of the Scuderia not contesting the World Championship. But, what is relevant from that whole sordid story is the fact that splitting the sport dilutes the product in general. And the politics and nasty headlines take away from the racing and end up angering fans

Los Amigos Invisibles Commercial Gets Major US Media Love

2009-06-08T22:39:00.003-05:00

Los Amigos Invisibles the wacky Venezuelans whose latin-house-funk-disco fusion is great on disc and absolutely rocking live, get shown major love from major US media. Critic James Reed at the Boston Globe gives a great review to their latest album "Commercial".

Eleven years since they appeared on the cover of their debut as poolside dudes gawking at a foxy lady in a bikini, the good-time guys in Los Amigos Invisibles are still insatiable party animals. The Venezuelan band has long been a favorite live act for people who normally don't even like Latin music; the songs are exuberant and vivacious enough to transcend language. But in the studio, Los Amigos Invisibles had been treading water since 2000's "Arepa 3000," turning out albums that locked into the same shopworn groove. It's a relief, then, to hear fresh ideas and rhythms on "Commercial," the band's newest cocktail of disco, funk, rock, and space-age lounge. While the album doesn't exactly break new ground, the songs at least amount to a summer soundtrack perfect for days at the beach, nights on the dance floor. Following a rave-up introduction that falsely suggests the album will rocket into orbit, "Mentiras" puts the band in funkafied party mode right away. "In Luv With U," sung in English, is cute if dispensable. "Viviré Para Ti," a love song, glides along to a breezy beat courtesy of featherweight vocals from Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade. Like the cream of Los Amigos Invisibles' music, it hits the sweet spot between the heart and the hips. (Out tomorrow)

JAMES REED

Great stuff. Nice to see that Los Amigos are getting (belated and much deserved)recognition - much as another favorite Los Aterciopelados is. Hopefully this will also translate into airplay from US Spanish-language media. In part due to the Univision cartels' self-interest in promoting its own acts and the self-contented attitude of other media, they tend to be behind the curve on these things. Los Amigos latest tracks and the album has been a major download success on I-tunes, hopefully this will open them up to the air and videoplay they deserve here in the US.

New song Mentiras from the album

A tres años de la “nacionalización”

2009-05-13T13:30:00.000-05:00

A tres años de la “nacionalización” (Editorial)
Martes, 12 Mayo 2009
2009-05-12 07:58:56 Editorial.
Hace ya casi un par de semanas se conmemoró el tercer aniversario de la “nacionalización” de los hidrocarburos, “acontecimiento histórico” —como fue calificado en su momento— que ahora ya nadie quiere recordar. No hubo actos oficiales, ni discursos, ni festejos. Muy atrás quedaron los días cuando oficialistas y opositores se disputaban el mérito de haber “recuperado” la principal riqueza del país................Nadie sabe qué hacer para disimular algo que ya es inocultable: la “nacionalización” fue un monumental fracaso. Nada de lo que alguien pueda sentirse orgulloso.

Las consecuencias económicas negativas de tal medida son enormes. La exploración sigue paralizada, la producción de gas y petróleo no deja de caer. Ya no se perforan nuevos pozos que puedan compensar el paulatino agotamiento de los existentes, en los que siquiera se hace el mantenimiento correspondiente.

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

Petrobras nuestro aliado que no fue

2009-05-11T13:45:00.001-05:00

Editorial: Petrobras nuestro aliado que no fue
Lunes, 11 Mayo 2009
2009-05-11 07:53:23 Según los resultados de una encuesta recientemente realizada por el Reputation Institute (RI), empresa privada de consultoría y encuesta de mercado con sede en Nueva York, la empresa brasileña Petrobras figura en el cuarto lugar entre las 200 empresas más respetadas del mundo.......pudiendo haber hecho de Petrobras una aliada estratégica de Bolivia, lo que hubiera significado que todas sus cualidades se pongan al servicio de un plan conjunto de aprovechamiento de tan importantes recursos, optamos por que su lugar sea ocupado por quienes están destruyendo YFPB.
.

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

Bolivia: Evo Shows Genius Part - XIV "am a Marxist-Leninist"

2009-05-03T01:54:00.007-05:00

Evo Morales has made some fairly outrageous comments in his presidency, which somehow don't get much attention from many international media too caught up in the whole "first-indigenous" president spin.

How bizarre, how bizarre....

Recently he has been on a roll: He blamed a "CIA plot", namely one functionary for the corruption in YPFB which in fact was done by his #2 man facilitated largely by Evo's own measures. In addition he called a Mexican-American US embassy functionary a "Mexican" in the "pay of the CIA". He has called for the "ending of capitalism". Not to mention his performance at the summit of the Americas where he said he was an assasins target and complained Obama wasn't as compliant in condemning the "plot". Said plot based on the utterings of some eccentric Bolivian-Hungarian his cops killed in Santa Cruz, where he was in contact with a few fringe Crucenos who charged him about a grand for antique weapons.

May Day - How Apropriate

it was precisely at the pre-summit of ALBA where Evo made declarations that he subsequently repeated to an Argentine Newspaper.

I can't understand that because of ideological reasons they expell someone from the OAS. I am also a marxist-leninist and what are they going to expel me?"

He also said that the principles of marxism are part of the struggle of the indigenous movement for liberation, equality and dignity"

Interesting. 20 years after the collapse of communism Evo says he is a Marxist-Leninist.

Not only a Marxist which is bad enough. You can argue that original Marxism (as in Marx himself)had humanist, rational, and democratic leanings and stood for progress. But key elements of Marxism have led interpreters to adopt anti-democratic and utopian positions. Particularly damaging is a Marxian socialistic viewpoint untethered to liberal democratic concepts of government, personal freedom and institutionality. The vision of a world headed towards inevitable revolution, societies in a constant dynamic of class struggle, and a mechanistic view of the economy as an input-output machine have caused much real damage.

But its the Marxist-Leninist vision that Evo allegedly subscribes to that is dangerous to the core. Lenin's ruthless logic (endorsed by Troskty) wrote out any "reformist" and democratic elements from its conception of socialism. Instead it became about an infallible party (la vanguardia), armed with scientific certainty of its cause, seeking to achieve power at all costs, destroying its class enemies in the process. Its practical application was totalitarian, as evil a force as any during the last century.

Reality is Bolivia, however fragile, is a democracy not a peoples republic. Evo is a constitutional president elected by a majority vote in a free election. His party of disparate personalities is hardly the Leninist mass party with top down revolutionary control that for example the Sandinistas were in the 80s.

But there is a lot of the Leninist in the way Evo and the core MAS group around the government wield their mandate. Starting with the unrelenting war of words and actions against the opposition, the Eastern business and landowning class, which is much more one-sided than what foreign correspondents let on. The absolute arrogance and certainty of the executive in the way it directs policies almost without concern for the facts. Further, the way it has conducted a scorched earth policy against institutions like the supreme court and superintendencies, almost paraphrasing the exact words of contempt that Marxist-Leninist used in the past (i.e. "bourgeois-democratic") And of course, the way it has conducted its foreign policy, literally costing the country hundreds of millions of dollars in order to further what is basically a Cold War anti-US policy sans the USSR.

Oppenheimer on the "post crisis world", Latin America, and Capitalism

2009-04-29T21:16:00.004-05:00

Andres Oppenheimer centers on a couple of key issues in his last column....Post-economic crisis world will be harder for Latin America

He talks about the "conventional wisdom" among some in the "developing world" that the world will be less capitalist, and less Washington-centered, once the economic crisis is over." He cites the more exreme holders of this position, notably Chavez who at the ALBA meeting before the Trinidad Summit held that the "recent U.S. moves toward greater state regulation of the economy proves that capitalism is on its way out." Not to mention the kind of statements Evo has been making about the "end of capitalism".

Oppenheimer makes the point that "The post-crisis world will be less U.S.-centered, but not necessarily less capitalist." In other words the same kind of market-centered rules on production and exports will apply whether the ultimate consumer is in the US, Europe or China. If anything it will be more competitive.

He cites Harvard Economic Professor Enrique Hausman

'Disciplined, market-friendly countries like Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay will recover,''......``Neo-populist countries with high taxes on exports and no access to credit markets, like Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Venezuela, will do poorly.''

It seems reasonable to conclude that countries that adopted and institutionalized many of the key tenets of the so-called and much-maligned "Washington Consensus" (macroeconomic stability, fiscal responsibility, export-oriented policies), will be in better shape to confront the crisis than those that adopted he "Caracas Consensus" - which in the end has left places like Venezuela even more vulnerable to outside crisis. A point that rarely is made by even centrist pundits and academics.

Sure, populist leaders are right in stating there will be a U.S. shift toward greater state regulation to prevent financial bubbles. But they forgot that it was precisely this financial bubble that caused the artificial world expansion that allowed their countries to grow rapidly without becoming more competitive.

Populism is the offspring of good times. Now that the pie has shrunk for everybody, Latin American countries will need to become more competitive in a more frugal world.

Bingo, again, a point that is left out of many discussions of the "financial bubble" n- at least when it comes to its international effects. Fact is the "bubble" not only enriched Wall Street financiers and gave a financial, boost to homeowners in the US. It accelerated growth in China and India among other places and placed an enormous demand on the resources of Latin American countries. In many ways it pulled 100's of millions of people out of poverty worldwide - as well as enabled irresponsibility in many quarters whether Wall Street or Caracas. But those countries that used the "boom" intelligently to "crisis-proof" themselves will be the ones that best weather the bad times ahead.

Existe YPFB

2009-04-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

¿Existe YPFB?
Jueves, 09 Abril 2009
2009-04-09 07:59:01 Carlos Miranda Pacheco* YPFB nunca dejó de existir, en enero del 2006 este gobierno encontró un YPFB reducido a un poco más de doscientos empleados dedicados a la...

HidrocarburosBolivia.com

Puedes contar conmigo - Mago de Oz -

2009-04-07T01:54:00.004-05:00

Gettin' Medieval....(or Rennaisance Fair)

Some things defy explanation....including Spanish folk-metal-band Mago de Oz, with their latest track Puedes contar conmigo, the theme to a Spanish TV show, Aguila Roja. Missing: dancing dwarves in period costumes. enjoy:

Why Bolivia's Murder-Bribery Scandal Matters

2009-03-23T16:31:00.013-05:00

It reads like a crime thriller: an oil company executive robbed and shot to death while carrying 450,000 dollars in cash to the house of the brother-in-law of an influential political figure. More than a month after the fact, the murder-bribery scandal involving Evo Morales former #2, Santos Ramirez continues to rivet Bolivians as more and more details come out about the widespread corruption and inefficiency not only in the oil company but in the entire Bolivia state. It poses the strongest challenge faced by the Morales government, and its future plans.

This crisis raises key questions about Bolivia's political and economic future. In some ways these issues are as important as the discussions on autonomy. It matters and will continue to matter for a long time for some of the following reasons:

Evo's Plans:Evo has said that natural resources are the "fundamental base of the countries development". He is in power in large part because of his calls for nationalization of the industry. Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales de Bolivia YPFB, the national oil and gas company. which (in theory) manages the hydrocarbon production which is at the heart of these plans. The government is going to appropriate a one billion dollar loan from the Central Bank this year to "strengthen" the company.

MAS Plans: YFBP is the building block in MAS conception of a centralized, state-directed economy, set out in the party's rhetoric, its 06 economic plan, countless decrees and laws, and meant to be enshrined in the approved Constitution. Many Bolivian experts see this as a return to the statist approach of the nationalist-military period that started in 1952 and ended in 1985 with the collapse of the economy.

Close to Evo: Santos Ramirez co-founded MAS with Evo, led the senatorial MAS block, helping draft and push through both the oil and gas nationalization and the new constitution. Ramirez got married recently, Evo was best man. He was seen as a potential VP candidate.

MAS Scandal - It is the biggest scandal in the oil industry in Bolivian history: Corruption at YPFB is nothing new - every government since the 50's used it as a piggy bank. Never has there been a case this big, involving the chief executive caught in flagranti. It is also the largest in scope, because revelations continue to come out involving all levels of the company starting with wrongdoing and incompetence at management to lower level employees kicking back portions of their salaries to the ruling party. In addition, the scandal is touching key government ministeries and regulatory agencies involved in the fiasco, as well as those where similar shenanigans are coming to light.

MAS big - For comparison: another soap opera in neighboring Peru, a scandal involving politicians and a VP of the national oil company rigging the bidding to favor a Norwegian company, caused the sacking of ministers, the entire cabinet resigning, protests in the streets and Garcia's popularity plummeting further. While that scandal showed the vulnerability of the the bidding process, and involved powerful figures in and around the government, Bolivia's scandal directly involves the CEO of the national oil company, one of Evo's 4 or 5 major collaborators, with his hands directly in the pot. Call it a blatant example of corruption 101- showing a total lack of transparency in the company and absolute impunity.

Evo's fault: While not directly linked to any ill-gotten gains, he pretty much put his "compadre" in a position where ripping off the state was easy as taking candy from a baby.. Evo signed A series of decrees granting the higher ups at YPFB authority to award no-bid contracts to outside suppliers, directly, and further giving the president of the company (Santos) the right to directly authorize payments without approval of the board, as well as directing that funds be available in the state bank for immediate disbursal. That is why Santos alone was able to sign a contract to build a 86 million dollar plant with a front company incorporated only 3 days before. Company being able to draw from a government bank without any proof of work done, and literally being able to withdraw nearly half a million dollars in cash. ,

As Carlos Miranda the Bolivian hydrocarbon industry expert put it, this set of measures - combined with the nationalization decree - did away with "20 years of contracting experience" set out in the previous hydrocarbons law, which required open and international calls for bids and approval at least by the board of directors of the company. Miranda was writing last October when he said that this new regime could lead to "graver" situations than the (then) unfolding Peruvian case. This results from the MAS governments attempts to erase the past, by deligitimizing institutions and laws from prior governments. Evo's government readily breaks existing laws -Evo himself admitted to doing. These laws are "neo-liberal" in his conception, tainted and therefore illegitimate.

MAS Incompetents: From the beginning of the Morales administration YPFB was staffed by political hacks, cronies and family of MAS bigshots. Santos Ramirez notched it up when he came in, adding almost 500 people to the 1000 person roster. "Administrators" replaced oil and gas professionals and technical people, at all levels of what is an organization dedicated to exploring, extracting, and commercializing hydrocarbons. To make matters worse, in the supposedly "autonomous" company, salaries offered were at first lowered making it uncompetitive with the regional standards. And people with experience in multi-nationals and previous governments were dissuaded and/or barred from working there. The result a brain drain of Bolivian hydrocarbons talent to places like the gas fields of Peru.

Even MAS Incompetents: Directing this lunacy is Evo and the handful of ideologues who are clueless. The MAS/officialist leadership has had SIX different presidents and five hydrocarbons ministers in only three years. The company once required its president to have 10 years of executive experience at a high level in the hydrocarbons industry. Now it seems enough to have a college education. Santos (prez #5), was a rural schoolteacher and lawyer. The current president Carlos Villegas - who at least is an economist - was most famous for authoring angry polemics against the multinationals using suspect numbers. He is also one of the main geniuses behind the disastrous nationalization process, and specifically authored decrees barring transnationals from the domestic hydrocarbons industry. In other words he now has to deal with the shortages and lack of investment caused by his own stupid advice. Not to mention the corruption that went on under his own watch as Minister of Hydrocarbons - when the actual contract in question was signed. Morales government is so low on qualified people it has to recycle people like Villegas to try to set the house in order. In Peru by comparison, everyone connected with the scandal was fired.

NO MAS Investment: Evo's war against multi-nationals, including Brazil's state company Petrobras has meant a significant drop in investments, causing production to level off the last couple of years, even at a time when demand in the continent was high,. That has the practical effect of making it hard to supply the internal market when demand grew, since associated products like diesel and keresone depend on gas production - and on infraestructure investments. Evo has placed YPFB in control of the entire cycle of production and commercialization internally, excluding the multinationals from the downstream side of the business . In the end that explains why there are chronic shortages of products like cooking gas, diesel, and gasoline in Bolivia a country that has been self-sufficient in the past.

MAS Irrationality and Improvisation: As a result of both the improvisation, ideological silliness and incompetence YPFB is a mess. Its mistakes are masked by the record earnings that are largely the result of sectorial policies of the governments Evo rails against. It lacks transparency, no more public information available on budgeting and contracting - it took a murder to publicize this crooked contract. Meanwhile the company seems to be acting on government whims, It is spending millions on building gas stations. Meanwhile, only four wells were drilled last year, in comparison to the 65 drilled annually at the beginning of the decade. Peru in contrast drilled 153 last year, with smaller gas reserves. All the while Evo continues feuding with multinationals, and presses forward with constitutional provisions that seem to doom international investors in the sector.

MAS Refounding: The chaos and corruption scandal is in big part a result of an ideological attitude that puts politics above practicality. This ideological obsession which attempts to re-impose the heavily statist economy and centralize government that operated in Bolivia for years. Attempting to recreate this model is silly in light of the obvious evidenceof its failure worldwide. Not to mention the fact that its spectacular collapse in Bolivia led to world-record inflation. Evo's schemes in ypfb show that a really bad idea, executed with incompetence is even worse. Simple reality shows that Bolivia needs foreign investment and expertise to properly manage its natural resources. And that continuing on this path is disastrous. It also resurects the demons of corruption and impunity that proliferated in Latin American countries with centralist governments whose economies were anchored by large state-run enterprises, before the type of reforms that made possible world-class companies like Petrobras.

The government still barely concedes mistakes in 3 years of mis-management . While they now will bring in experts from Norway, Holland, and Canada and GASP! the World Bank, Evo has so far refused to announce any change of direction, even reaffirming that the billion dollar loan will go ahead. They prefer to make big media productions of such events as a drilling rig arriving from Venezuela. Failing to note later that said drill has been sitting idle for months, while PDVSA is asking for money for rental. And underneath all the revolutionary bla, bla, bla, the government has only unlocked the oil company making it vulnerable to the same old school corruption that plagued Bolivia for years. And again it says something that it took a murder to uncover it.

Lula Smacks Down Evo Part 2 - Evo's Moods

2009-03-20T17:46:00.004-05:00

This week Lula again took shots at Evo Morales while discussing Brazil's plans to become self-sufficient in natural gas. While he did clarify again that Brazil "will continue buying gas from Bolivia, we have a contract until 2019" he continued with this statement:

"It is important that the world knows that we will have gas, that we have other ways. We will not be dependent on anyone's good mood,

To make sure everyone understood whose "mood" he was talking about he further said:

At the peak of our crisis with Bolivia when there were only difficulties, when Evo had a lot of complaints against Petrobras and Petrobras had complaints about Evo, when there indications that we might or might not have gas, we had a meeting of the National Council of Energy Policy..[it was there the government decided] to make it a priority to find gas, because we can not have an important energy matrix dependent on another country.

En el auge de nuestra crisis con Bolivia, cuando sólo había dificultades, cuando Evo tenía muchas quejas de Petrobras y Petrobras tenía quejas de Evo, cuando había indicaciones de que podríamos tener o no tener gas, hicimos una reunión del Consejo Nacional de Política Energética........ [Fue allí que el Gobierno decidió] “transformar en prioridad, encontrar gas, porque no podemos tener una matriz energética importante dependiente de otro país

Lula Smacks Down Evo

2009-03-14T02:08:00.004-05:00

At an event inagurating a natural gas processing plant, Lula had this to say about Evo Morales and Bolivia as a natural gas supplier

I am very happy. If Petrobras continues on this path, there will be a day when I will call Evo Morales "Dear Evo, now we wil leave you in peace to sell gas to whoever you want to, Brazil doesn't need any more. we are self-sufficient" Its logical that strategically Brazil will continue buying, because for our own growth we have no interest in a poor neighbor. We need to grow......in our relation..its important that people understand, that when we fight less, we produce more..."

“Hoy estoy acá feliz de la vida. Si Petrobras continúa en el recorrido en el que está, va a llegar un día en que voy a poder decir a Evo Morales: ‘Evo querido, ahora nosotros te dejamos en libertad para vender el gas a quien quieras. Brasil no precisa más. Somos autosuficientes. Es lógico que estratégicamente Brasil va a continuar comprando, porque para nuestro crecimiento no nos interesa tener un vecino pobre. Tenemos que crecer. Pero para que tengas una dimensión de la relación entre nuestros países, voy a decir, y es importante que la gente comprenda, que cuanto menos peleamos, más producimos’”.

Not The First Time
\
Last February Lula in a very significant speech in front of the Argentine Congress....also had this to say in reference to Bolivia's request for a voluntary reduction in gas volumes in order to comply with Argentina's requests...

We don't have gas, those who do don't exploit it as they should.

El presidente Lula da Silva, que concurrió a la cita con unos días de anticipación, describió perfectamente la situación con la siguiente frase en su intervención ante el Congreso argentino: ´No tenemos el gas... Algunos que lo tienen no lo explotan como deberían´.

Et Tu Lula?

So what gives? Isn't Lula Evo's ideologically-attuned buddy? In public Lula is all smiles with Evo, praising him to high heaven. But Lula's policy is Brazil's long-term strategic interest in achieving self-sufficiency in hydrocarbons. And through Petrobras they are laying down billions in investments - at home and abroad. Specifically it is investing in natural gas exploration and production to achieve self-sufficiency. Lula's government has just passed a new natural gas legislation, strengthening the regulatory framework and ending Petrobras monopoly to permit competition both in downstream and upstream.

Bolivia was once considered a long-term supplier of natural gas and strategic partner of Brazil. At the government of Brazil's heavy prodding, Petrobras invested heavily in developing Bolivia's gas reserves and laying the pipeline to Sao Paulo. Bolivia now supplies 50 percent of Brazil's natural gas. But Evo's government after three years in power is unreliable, and unpredictable as El Deber says. Even after the rift caused by Evo's very public humiliation .of Brazil and Petrobras during the "nationalization" media theater, Evo has had 3 years to make it right. But through ideological intrasigence, incompetence, and simple idiocity the Morales government has mismanaged its hydrocarbons industry neither able to produce as a "nationalized" industry and uncertain and risky for foreign investment.

Lula's seemingly out of character comments might carry a bit of payback for the May 2006 "nationalization". Or it simply may be frustration at 3 years of trying to work Evo Morales behind the scenes to back off a bit and accept the fact that Bolivia's hydrocarbons industry needs technical know-how and investment from abroad. Evo only seems to have ears for Hugo Chavez, and Lula may have simply given up. And he can afford to. At the rate Petrobras is going it will also be in a position to export gas and oil in quantities rivaling those of Venezuela. Chavez should also be worried.

TV: Burn Notice Season Finale

2009-03-10T12:38:00.005-05:00

USA Networks Burn Notice The filmed-in-Miami show had a hell of an ending. One of my favorite shows on TV. Smartly written spy story - with a dose of humor, very well acted by Jeffrey Donovan -fresh off an acclaimed role in Clint Eastwoods "Changeling", uber-hottie Gabrielle Anwar (Scent of a Woman), the one and only Bruce Campbell as the 3 main characters. Throw in the re-occuring characters played by Sharon Gless and Caprica 6 herself, Tricia Hefler blessing us twice a week in cable....

Ultimately what really worked was the resolution of the storyline that has been built up these two seasons. Really good shows like Heroes and Lost can get muddled and complicated - with spy stuff it can get out of hand. The writers of Burn Notice were really smart in making the solution to the Burn Notice question fairly simple. It is an off-the-books government operation that "recruits" the best intelligence operatives by first of all "burning" them and then bringing them into the fold on a limited knowledge basis. So there is a paper trail that says they were kicked out of the CIA or whatever, making everything deniable. And they are indebted to the shadow agency thinking it saved them. And it is easy to go rogue. Of course it was diabolically hard to figure out. And it keeps thB e story human and dependent on the characters. Elegant and not entirely implausible.

Boli Bonus Points: Tricia Hefler....Gabrielle Anwar....and a black Saab 9-3 Turbo convertible as a kick-ass spy mobile!!

Financial Times: Bolivia pays a high price for nationalisation

2009-02-20T15:55:00.003-06:00

The financial Times has an article detailing how badly Bolivia's nationalization of the hydrocarbon industry has worked. This on top of the biggest scandal in the history of YPFB that just broke open shows the enormous price paid by the Morales governments ideologically-inspired policies.

Bolivia, the linchpin of gas supplies to the southern half of Latin America, is struggling to secure long-term investment for its hydrocarbons sector amid questions over its reliability as a supplier and uncertainty over demand from export markets.

Evo Morales, the country’s popular leftist president who faces a presidential election in December, travelled to Russia this week to sign an agreement with Gazprom, the state gas monopoly, to develop Bolivia’s gas reserves until 2030.

The government estimates the Gazprom agreement, which includes a joint project with Total of France, will be worth $3bn (€2.3bn, £2bn). It says Venezuela and Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), Bolivia’s state-owned gas company, will together invest a further $240m.

The fact that Bolivia has to go so far abroad highlights the damage it did by nationalising its energy industry in 2006, driving away technically able international companies with a proven ability to raise funds.

EARLY 80'S CLASSICS

2009-02-09T14:02:00.003-06:00

SOMETIMES DEPRESSIVE, SOMEWHAT TRIPPED OUT, GREAT TUNES FROM EARLY 80'S.

Bolivia's Constitution - Referfendum

2009-01-25T22:13:00.002-06:00

The Economist gets it:

At heart, the constitutional referendum involves a choice as to whether or not Bolivia should graft on to an imperfect Western liberal democracy a socialist model that owes rather more to the corporatism of Spanish colonial rule (but with Amerindians, rather than conquistadors, in charge) than to Marx. A less confrontational president than Mr Morales might find a more harmonious way to blend the two. As it is, his probable victory risks setting his country on a path of chaotic conflict, government paralysis and continuing economic backwardness.

Rick Warren At Obama Inaguration: Guess Who's Also Mad

2008-12-19T10:09:00.000-06:00

Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to lead inovocation has drawn a lot of fire from gay rights groups and liberal democrats.

Looks like a good number of religious conservatives are angry too!

In an interesting twist, plenty of conservatives are mad, not at Obama for inviting Warren, but at Warren for accepting the invitation.

David Brody, a correspondent for TV preacher Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, reported today that he's been "flooded with emails and most of them absolutely rip Pastor Warren for doing this."

Brody doesn't seem to share their concerns -- he asks, "Why can't a pro-life pastor pray for a pro-choice candidate?" -- but he republished a variety of the angry emails. This one stood out:

"Unless Rick Warren has changed, he is very disappointing in the pro-life cause. Just ask pro-life leaders their opinion. He doesn't like to deal with it at his church. It just seems funny that he is known as 'pro-life' when he largely ignores the subject and teaches others to do the same. I fear God for these 'men of God'. We have lost 50 million babies, and most won't say a word. Reminds me of Nazi Germany or our slavery days. Very few spoke out. It was more comfortable to keep quiet."

:

Given the disconnect b/w some major media and parts of the evangelical community, this controversy might have started at the same time as the gay rights groups.

Its the A word...

So Warren is not only wrong for delivering the invocation for a pro-choice president, Warren is weak on the abortion issue to begin with.

Given this new wrinkle, a cynical-campaign-PR-spinmaster would try to get a lot of ink on this twist to the story. Puts brakes on the well publicized backlash from some Obama supporters. Warren is seen as well-respected religious leaders caught between extremes, Obama looks like roses to moderates

Very Cool Video

2008-12-14T23:27:00.004-06:00

Patrick Depallier in Ken Tyrrells unique six wheel Tyrrell P-34 doing a lap at Monaco.

Now For Some Weirdness

2008-12-09T22:35:00.000-06:00

The Alternate History Theme Park Where Dinosaurs Fought in the Civil War

LMAO....no comments needed...

Blago Gets Busted! Bigtime...

2008-12-09T20:24:00.006-06:00

talk about blatant influence-peddling, bullying critical media, general corruption, ego-centered paranoia!

No its not Chavez, or for that matter business-as-usual politics of many LA countries regardless of ideology.

Its the wacky reign of Gov. Rod Blagojevich in Illinois busted for trying to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat, shaking down the Chicago Tribune, shaking down business and individuals for contributions among other shenanigans. The federal indictment details all this fun, which has shocked even cynical Chicagoans used to outrageous behavior from politicians. Count Blagola is in for it....

Some wags have already said that US Attorney Fitzgerald should be appointed to the Senate - leaving Illinois polls in peace.

EDIT: For anyone not familiar with the Loop area in Chicago, the US District Court in the Dirksen Center where the governor was dragged in, is directly across the street from where the transition is being run...Actually they are 2 of the 3 buildings in the complex known as the Federal Central , designed by Mies Van Der Rohe.
It is this proximity that explains why the national media covered the Courthouse action so quickly, and ran back to get quotes from the President-elect. And the US Attorneys office and detention areas are also there.

Latin American Finance Ministers - Bolivia and Venezuela get trashed

2008-12-07T09:41:00.004-06:00

Latin American business magazine America Economia has a recent special rating Latin American finance ministers, particularly how well prepared they are to deal with the current worldwide financial crisis. 140 prominent professional economists were surveyed, asking them to rate the finance ministers performance based on four criteria: macroeconomic stability; pro-competetivenes/pro-growth strategies; leadership within the government as a whole; and projecting confidence to citizens, the business community and investors.

Rated highest were Chile's minister Andrés Velasco, followed by Mexico's Agustín Carstens, Peru's Luis Valdivieso, and Brazil's Guido Mantega. Among individual categories, Guatemala's minister is rated very high (#3) in the leadership category - which focuses on how well the minister leads "in the economic plans of the government" as a whole, and how he is able to work with the "demands of his colleagues" i.e. the ministers of labor, housing, education, health.

Biggest Losers

Bolivia's El Nuevo Dia (reprinted in Petroleumworld) acidly notes that Bolivia's Luis Arce is ranked at the tail end of the survey alongside colleagues from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Argentina. Coinciding with the countries worst prepared to deal with the current crisis.

Bolivia would probably be rated worse if it weren't for the countries reserves and recent macroeconomic stability. Most Bolivian experts will quickly point out that those are "in spite of Evo", rather than because of Evo. Previous governments fiscal policy choices and macroeconomic policies bear a lot of credit. Gas revenues come largely from investment that Evo has chased away. The pattern continues with Bolivias exports and trade policy, which face an uncertain future due to the Morales government bungling of Andean trade preferences and demoralizing of the export sector. With this kind of incompetence and ideological idiocity from the top, it is hard to see how poor Mr. Arce would make the grade.

President-Elect.... Picking Strong....

2008-12-04T15:51:00.003-06:00

From The Economist

. He has embraced his former nemesis by making Hillary Clinton secretary of state. He has outraged the left by keeping Robert Gates at the Pentagon and making James Jones, a former NATO supreme commander who campaigned for John McCain, his national security adviser. He has reassured the markets by putting Tim Geithner in the Treasury and appointing Larry Summers as his White House economics guru. And he has made history by appointing Eric Holder as America’s first black attorney-general. The Justice Department, which once spied on Martin Luther King, will now be in the hands of a child of the civil-rights revolution.

it must be the hangover of 8 years of Bush's power-hoarding White House, and the Republicans embrace of mediocrity. relief to see people with actual brains and skill getting tapped to run things now. And those on the right whining about "socialism" during the campaign, were so way off it is almost funny...

: the imprint Mr Obama is already putting on history is impressive. He has demonstrated that he is self-confident enough to surround himself with big brains and strong personalities. He is also signalling that he intends to govern pragmatically—changing America’s foreign policy by degrees, not precipitously, and focusing his energies on America’s miserable economy.

As for the whining by some netroots/Daily Kos/moveon.org types...get a clue..... Some of the more leftish loudmouths need to figure out that a lot of the rage that ate up a lot of online space was directed at the extraordinarily obnoxious administration, and was not representative of a defined ideological position. Not many people want to resurect the substance or the attitudes of 70's or 80's east-coast liberalism. Our President-elect understands that perfectly.

Drug Wars: Erradication in Colombia and Bolivia

2008-11-08T21:45:00.009-06:00

From the New York Times article on the failure of Plan Colombia's goals of erradication.

Despite record aerial eradication, coca cultivation rose by 15 percent during Plan Colombia’s 2000-2006 run, the report said.

It added that cocaine production rose by less — 4 percent — because eradication efforts forced growers to disperse their crops more widely, contributing to lower yields.

In Bolivia, the issue of erradication of coca and fighting trafficking has come up again due to Evo expelling the DEA, as the Economist points out:

The government points out that it is wiping out more than 5,000 hectares (12,000 acres) of coca this year (though the UN reckons Bolivia’s cocaine output rose 11% in 2007)..

Comparing Apples And Oranges

Both countries erradication efforts are often compared by analysts. The Bolivian government itself often cites its "successes" erradicating illegal coca and cocaine production, in contrast to the expensive and allegedly unworkable efforts in Colombia.

In some ways this is comparing apples and oranges. Most of the illegal coca production in Bolivia is centered in one clearly delimited area in Chapare. The area is controlled by growers, organized in unions that happen to be the core of the support of the governing party. You have the curious case of the president as commander in chief of the armed forces (including anti-narcotics units) and at the same time being the elected leader of of the coca growers unions. There has long been a sort of Mexican-standoff in the area b/w authorities and cocaleros, which at least on the surface it looked like coca leaf production was contained and not expanding back to pre-2002 levels.

Colombia on the other hand has coca growing areas - some enormous - spread out over the country. Given the size and topography it is easy for farmers whose crops have been destroyed to literally "move down the road" and replant elsewhere.

Complicating the entire situation is that growing areas are disputed by tens of thousands of guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug smuggling bands. In one sense creating "mini-conflicts" within the larger war in Colombia, over growing/production areas and key smuggling routes. Rents collected finance all the warring parties. The FARC's continued existence owes a lot to taxing coca and cocaine and direct involvement, while the paramilitaries are largely product of drug smuggler money.

It is using these funds that the FARC is able to mount its war against the Colombian state. And this larger conflict acts as a sort of buffer - by denying control of territory and diverting resources - insulating many of the actors involved in the drug trade from central authority. If the government has to focus on FARC guerillas attacking authorities in a given area, drug dealers who go out of their way to avoid authority often can go about their business - more so if they kill guerillas and anyone connected to them on their own dime.

Growing Vs. Production

Given these differences it is hardly surprising that coca production has increased in Colombia and remained more or less constant in Bolivia.

But, if we measure actual cocaine production, it appears that the increases in coca leaf acreage have not yielded a corresponding increase in cocaine production in Colombia. In other words the growers are forced to grow more to provide the labs with raw materials.

On the other hand in Bolivia, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that under this regime, it has become much easier for coca to reach cocaine producers. The cocaleros have become more efficient. Since there is no comparable 'existential' threat to this Bolivian government as the FARC presents in Colombia, there is much less excuse for the Morales government. Or at minimum it shows just how hard it is to show real results in erradicating coca - and cocaine production.

Election 2008: PRESIDENT OBAMA....

2008-11-05T00:20:00.003-06:00

Great speech.....

Grant Park in Chicago...David Gergen & Carl Bernstein both made comments on the symbolism.. Site of infamous riots in 1968 Democratic convention...riot in the sense that Richard Daley Sr.'s cops ran amuck beating up protesters. National TV showed hizzoner melting down, while chaos reigns on convention floor in reaction to Grant Park. 40 yrs later it is Richie Daley Jr.'s Chicago that is the site of a historic celebration.

Election 2008: Done Deal Baby!!!!

2008-11-04T22:01:00.003-06:00

CNN CALLS IT FOR BARACK OBAMA.................Virginia goes Democrat!!!!

THANK GOD! GOD BLESS AMERICA....

A good percentage of the American electorate does right by all of us...

Election 2008: 10 pm eastern.

2008-11-04T21:00:00.002-06:00

New Mexico for Barack...Iowa for Barack...

CNN Cuts to McCain/Palin HQ in Arizona...weird scene: Faithful waving red flags and US flags..looks like Nixon visiting China.....Hank Williams Jr sings one of his songs about how he used to booze it up. I think Hank Sr. would be more appropriate for the event...."I'm so lonesome I could cry"....LOL.....

Election 2008: Ohio & PA....W00t!!

2008-11-04T20:39:00.002-06:00

F-Joe The Plumber

CNN projecting Barack Obama wins key states of Ohio and Pennsilvania. Taking the blue collar vote....where McCain concentrated his efforts.......

COME ON FLORIDA....

Christopher Buckley, William F. Buckley's son endorses Obama

2008-10-15T16:40:00.004-05:00

Author Christopher Buckley son of the "patron saint of conservatism" William F. Buckley, a self-described "small-government conservative" and "libertarian" on other issues has endorsed Barack Obama for president. The firestorm has caused him to resign from National Review the magazine WFB founded, which is often credited with helping launch the modern American conservative movement.

Buckley describes Obama as a "first-class temperament and a first-class intellect"

on John McCain:

John McCain has changed. He said, famously, apropos the Republican debacle post-1994, “We came to Washington to change it, and Washington changed us.” This campaign has changed John McCain. It has made him inauthentic. A once-first class temperament has become irascible and snarly; his positions change, and lack coherence; he makes unrealistic promises, such as balancing the federal budget “by the end of my first term.” Who, really, believes that? Then there was the self-dramatizing and feckless suspension of his campaign over the financial crisis. His ninth-inning attack ads are mean-spirited and pointless. And finally, not to belabor it, there was the Palin nomination. What on earth can he have been thinking?

On Obama:

Obama has in him—I think, despite his sometimes airy-fairy “We are the people we have been waiting for” silly rhetoric—the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.

So, I wish him all the best. We are all in this together. Necessity is the mother of bipartisanship. And so, for the first time in my life, I’ll be pulling the Democratic lever in November. As the saying goes, God save the United States of America.

Economic Mess - Bailout Nothing New Really

2008-10-13T18:06:00.002-05:00

For a historical and global perspective of what the US Govts bailout/rescue plan Britain's The Economist

[H]istory teaches an important lesson: that big banking crises are ultimately solved by throwing in large dollops of public money, and that early and decisive government action, whether to recapitalise banks or take on troubled debts, can minimise the cost to the taxpayer and the damage to the economy. For example, Sweden quickly took over its failed banks after a property bust in the early 1990s and recovered relatively fast. By contrast, Japan took a decade to recover from a financial bust that ultimately cost its taxpayers a sum equivalent to 24% of GDP.

All in all,[B] America’s government has put some 7% of GDP on the line, a vast amount of money but well below the 16% of GDP that the average systemic banking crisis (if there is such a thing) ultimately cost[/B]s the public purse. Just how America’s proposed Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) will work is still unclear. The Treasury plans to buy huge amounts of distressed debt using a reverse auction process, where banks offer to sell at a price and the government buys from the lowest price upwards. The complexities of thousands of different mortgage-backed assets will make this hard. If direct bank recapitalisation is still needed, the Treasury can do that too. [B]The main point is that America is prepared to act, and act decisively.

Basically, the "bailout" is nothing that hasn't been done elsewhere, and the consequences for doing nothing could have been devastating.

Seen this shit happen in the 3rd World with much, much smaller and less complex economies, but the fundamentals are the same.......

one scenario, similar to what happened in East Asia, Russia in the late 90's, which dominoed into South America...

The trouble is that because of its large current-account deficit America is heavily reliant on foreign funding. It has the advantage that the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, and as the financial turmoil has spread the dollar has strengthened. But today’s crisis is also testing many of the foundations on which foreigners’ faith in the dollar is based, such as limited government and stable capital markets. If foreigners ever flee the dollar, America will face the twin nightmares that haunt emerging countries in a financial collapse: simultaneous banking and currency crises. America’s debts, unlike those in many emerging economies, are denominated in its own currency, but a collapse of the dollar would still be a catastrophe.

Are Republicans Getting Dumber???

2008-10-10T19:55:00.004-05:00

....Or at least more anti-intellectual as David Brooks argues in the NYT.

[O]ver the past few decades, the Republican Party has driven away people who live in cities, in highly educated regions and on the coasts. This expulsion has had many causes. But the big one is this: Republican political tacticians decided to mobilize their coalition with a form of social class warfare. Democrats kept nominating coastal pointy-heads like Michael Dukakis so Republicans attacked coastal pointy-heads.

What had been a disdain for liberal intellectuals slipped into a disdain for the educated class as a whole.

Republicans developed their own leadership style. If Democratic leaders prized deliberation and self-examination, then Republicans would govern from the gut.

Ultimately, this has meant that the more educated sections of society have been staying away from the Republican party:

The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions — Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.

Questioning Colombian Hostage Liberation.....As if...

2008-07-31T18:39:00.003-05:00

Talk about trying very hard to rain on a parade..

Some on the very goofy left - including the usual Chavistas and FARC fellow travellers, are now claiming that the helicopter rescue of hostages was in fact "staged", that a ransom was paid...

it's clear that the official story has begun to unravel and will require some serious PR airbrushing to keep from falling apart altogether. It's looking more and more like the whole farce was concocted by Uribe

The "evidence"??? Well mostly FARC's own claim that Cesar (hostage "security" guy) was bribed with $20 million bucks. Not quite the Secretariat getting millions for their 4 most valuable and high profile hostage.

YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME....

EVEN IF..Cesar was FLIPPED for $20,000,000.00 chalk one up for Colombian intelligence. For the price of roughly 3 military choppers, military intelligence was able to reach the very security chief for the FARC's high-value hostages and get him to turn on his comrades. Not to mention get him to go to the landing zone with the hostages, surrounded by literally hundreds of men who would kill him and the captives without hesitation should news of his defection leak out.
that is...unless the Colombians also bribed just about every FARC fighter in the immediate vicinity of the pickup point.

At the very least there were a heck of a lot of fooled FARC fighters around that helicopter.

So basically the spin from these idiots at best shows that Colombia's intelligence and special operations personel penetrated a notoriously tight terrorist organization and bribed a top operative to betray the organization and release its most valuable and protected hostages. And mounted a succesful rescue mission that publically humiliated the terrorists.

Seems like a bigtime success..

Some people are just sore losers.

Bolivian Oil & Gas Companies / Professionals migrating to Peru

2008-07-11T16:34:00.001-05:00

The Morales governments nationalization process - rather a reversion to majority government control of oil and gas companies has resulted in a precipitous drop in investment and production in Bolivia's once booming gas sector. Neighbor Peru has been agressively courting international partners to boost its own fledgling gas sector based around the Camisea gas fields. With much less than half of Bolivia's gas reserves it has attracted US $3 billion dollars in investment for exploration and production in hydrocarbons a staggering 10 times the $300 million for Bolivia this year.

And another effect has been a brain drain of Bolivian oil and gas professionals, skilled workers and managers to Peru where their expertise is valued highly. La Razon quotes one expert who estimates 800 top industry professionals moving to Peru to take on top managerial and technical positions. In addition, other workers have gone to Peru as employees of multinationals like Respsol YPF.

If that were not enough, several of the most experienced Bolivian companies, like Serpetbol which has have taken up shop in Peru's gas fields. That company billed nearly $60 million dollars in Peru, and employs 1000 workers.

What this exodus of experienced professionals and companies shows is Bolivia's current governments complete mismanagement of its oil and gas sector. Chasing away investors, hurts the entire national hydrocarbons industry, which includes the valuable human capital and 100 percent Bolivian service companies.
All the more glaring due to the enormous boom in price, which allows Peru to pulls in Billions of investments - as well as Bolivian expertise for much less gas than Bolivia has. Bolivia should have billions in investments, a vibrant national industry, operting at higher production levels. After nearly 3 years of Evo, it can not even comply with its Argentina and Brazil contracts. Promised Venezuelan/Russian/Iranian "investments" are more media events. I would be there are more Bolivians working in exploration in Peru, than there are Venezuelans doing the same in Bolivia.

DAYUM!!!: BETANCOURT ....US HOSTAGES FREED

2008-07-02T18:38:00.005-05:00

way hot off the presses. The FARC's biggest captives were apparently freed in one major millitary operation - if this is for real, it will go on record as being one of the most impressive hostage rescues in history. These people were seized and held by some of the most ruthless, sophisticated, well-armed, kidnappers ever seen.

this will be a deathblow to the FARC. They just lost their best negotiating chips.

By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer 17 minutes ago

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors Wednesday in a daring helicopter rescue so successful that not a single shot was fired.
ADVERTISEMENT

Betancourt, who was seized on the campaign trail six long years ago, appeared thin but healthy as she strode down the stairs of a military plane and held her mother in a long embrace.

"Thank you for your impeccable operation," she told top military commanders. "The operation was perfect."

Eleven Colombian police and soldiers were also freed in the rescue, the most serious blow ever dealt to the 44-year-old Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, which considered the four hostages their most valuable bargaining chips. The FARC is already reeling from the deaths of key commanders a

nd the loss of much of the territory it once held.