Die Neue Zeit
30th October 2007, 05:58
Once in a blue moon, bourgeois media actually voices constructive criticisms of the Chavez government. Here's one of them:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/am....html?ref=world (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/americas/30venezuela.html?ref=world)
Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon compared with an average $2.86 a gallon in the United States.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Mr. Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company’s sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Mr. Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Mr. Chávez called the gasoline prices “disgusting” and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure “financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive.” But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
...
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
“We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel,” said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
...
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted S.U.V. of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Mr. Chávez.
“What kind of a revolution is this?” the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. “One of Hummers?”
“No,” he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. “This is a revolution of truth.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/am....html?ref=world (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/world/americas/30venezuela.html?ref=world)
Thanks to a decades-old subsidy that has proven devilishly complex to undo, gasoline in Venezuela costs about 7 cents a gallon compared with an average $2.86 a gallon in the United States.
Many Venezuelans consider the subsidy a birthright even though it bypasses the poor, who rely on relatively expensive and often dangerous public transportation. Economists estimate that it costs the government of President Hugo Chávez more than $9 billion a year.
Critics of Mr. Chávez, and the president himself, agree that the subsidy is a threat to his project to transform Venezuela into a socialist society, draining huge amounts of money from the national oil company’s sales each year that could be used for his social welfare programs.
Gasoline prices have often been a taboo subject for Venezuelan governments. There are memories of the riots in 1989, in which hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people died after protests set off by an increase in gasoline prices that resulted in higher transportation costs. That instability helped set in motion a failed coup attempt by Mr. Chávez in 1992, which first thrust him into the public eye.
After his re-election to a six-year term last December, when his political capital was abundant, Mr. Chávez called the gasoline prices “disgusting” and said his government was planning to raise them with a measure “financed by those who own a BMW or a tremendous four-wheel drive.” But he turned his attention to other matters, avoiding the touchy subject.
...
Economic uncertainty makes it harder to tinker with fuel prices because a small increase could cascade. There could be an impact on the poor, with higher costs for food and other goods for which transportation costs are important, said Francisco Rodríguez, a former chief economist at the National Assembly.
One option is to keep the price of diesel cheap, because it is used in most freight and public transportation, while raising gasoline prices for relatively prosperous car owners. Another idea is to give transportation vouchers to people in poor neighborhoods.
“We are gradually moving toward an economic storm because of our addiction to cheap fuel,” said Orlando Ochoa, an economist at Andrés Bello University in Caracas.
...
Despite government efforts to open the market to car manufacturers from Iran and China, bulky, gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles from the United States remain among the most sought-after automobiles here.
Perhaps the most coveted S.U.V. of all in Venezuela is the Hummer, an ethical quandary for Mr. Chávez.
“What kind of a revolution is this?” the president said on his television show this month, after a report here that General Motors was planning to import 3,000 Hummers to meet a rising demand. “One of Hummers?”
“No,” he said with the angry tone of a schoolmaster, answering his own question while announcing a measure that makes it more expensive to import Hummers and other luxury items like whiskey. “This is a revolution of truth.”