Another thoroughly wasted year in Venezuela

The title, now that I think of it, is misleading. 2014 has not only being wasted, but it has also been destructive. We failed to advance on any aspect, and we went back quite a lot on others.


So yesterday Maduro held a press conference where supposedly he was going to announce economic measures. Of course I do not follow Maduro's addresses at all. Chavez, on occasion , I could tolerate. Listening to Maduro is always insulting to your intelligence, web/newspapers will suffice next day. Yesterday was no exception as the BBC itself reports (a joint which has been rather forgiving on Maduro):

He [Maburro Maduro]accused the United States of flooding the markets with oil as part of an economic war against Russia.
He said his country was suffering the consequences of an economic war launched by US President Barack Obama "to destroy" the oil producers' cartel, Opec.
"It is a two-year plan, which is affecting the prices of commodities and many developing economies," Mr Maduro said.
"The US wants to impose a unipolar world controlled from Washington. That is madness."
The crisis offered a "great opportunity for Venezuela to change its economic model," the president added.

It is simply amazing that Maburro Maduro keeps repeating the nonsense that the US is "flooding" the markets. I mean, the guy is president of a country and responsible of finding a lifeline somewhere. Has nobody told him that such idiotic display of ignorance and misinformation is a sure way to scare any possible bail out candidate?

But to add idiocy to ignorance Maduro speaks of a "two year plan"  without offering any proof, that Washington is trying to impose an unipolar world when Obama has been extensively criticized from his disengagement from the world, accused even of "isolationist" in the great old US tradition. This last one is particularly irking as Europe had to do the dirty job in Libya and if Syria is such a basket case is due in part of Obama's refusal to intervene as long as he could get away with it. Is Maduro that ignorant of what happened to his "allies"?

And of course Maduro rehashes the argument that Venezuela is going to change its economic model even though Chavez profusely while leaving Venezuela almost exclusively dependent of what oil it can export. Does Maduro believes the bulk of these journalists do not know that?

I think that at this point it must be a deliberate strategy of Maduro to come out as more ignorant than what he really is [dumb he is not, after all his intrigues landed him at Miraflores]. Watch Russian TV, RT, and you will see journalists repeating the same nonsense. Even our own Eva Golinger, recycled from track writer to alleged journalist, interviewed Cabello who said point blank that the opposition is who stole all the money through CADIVI. Were Golinger a journalist she could have pointed out that chavismo has been controlling CADIVI all the time while this cash passed away. But Golinger who is to journalism what I am to, well, I cannot come with an example. I can even assert that if I wanted to be a hack at RT I probably would do a better job than she does.

Whatever. The point here is that authoritarian petro states who did not invest their resources in semi sensible ways are hurting and have no choice but to launch a propaganda campaign once the price of oil collapsed.

But I have been digressing. The point is that Maduro called for a press conference to announce measures and he only announced that these will be announced next year.  To compensate he offered the same set of platitudes, including choice items like "it is forbidden to decrease social spending". Sure, through printing bolivares and devaluation of the currency at will it is possible to prove to the hurdled masses that in #bolivares social spending remains the same....

Thus 2014 came and went, the regime did nothing to deal with the crisis. That paralysis in turn made things worse and with the fall of oil prices we are bewildered as to what to do. The regime is itself in panic mode and we are batedly waiting if reform or communism are to be announced next month.