The sucre and the exchange rate stability

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

One theme that emerges from the ALBA proposal to establish the sucre as a common currency, is the exchange rate stability.

From a macroeconomic perspective, the smallest economies are the most vulnerable to domestic and international events. In that sense, a common currency would be beneficial for the ALBA countries as it would be backed by a larger economy, which would allow the new monetary unit to better withstand the impact of the economic problems than the currency of a single nation could resist.

However, that's the theory, because a practical problem for the sucre is that the ALBA is composed of only nine members -of which Venezuela is the only with resources for such a project- and has failed to attract the interest of giants like Brazil and Mexico. This creates an obstacle because those who make up the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean are small economies with serious difficulties, that will have many setbacks when devoting resources to support a multinational exchange rate.

Therefore, until the leading nations of the region do not join the ALBA, it will threaten the goal of the sucre to provide exchange rate stability to the countries that adopt it.

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Some contradictions of the radical left in Latin America

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Anticapitalist, but Venezuela makes money from oil, Cuba from sugar, and the FARC from drugs. All preferably negotiated in US dollars, and at the highest price that the free market is able to pay.

Anti-imperialist, but a follower of a political model imported from the Soviet Union.

Atheist, but a fanatic believer who cannot tolerate those who do not share its socialist faith.

Enemy of the development models invented by foreigners, but none of the founders of socialism were born in Latin America.

Preacher of class equality, but the party leaders always occupy the highest positions of power and live in opulence.

Critic of the FMI's academic discourse, but Marx, Engels and Lenin were intellectuals who tried to justify their proposals in a scientific manner.

Critic of the Pinochet dictatorship, but an admirer of Castro's dictatorship.

Critic of the private media, but the governments of Cuba and Venezuela are owners of large media chains, where the objective journalism is replaced by the communist party's propaganda.

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Venezuelan legislative: Grassroots opinion about opposition's campaign

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In Venezuela, elections will take place in the middle of next year. Therefore, in order to investigate how the opposition supporters think the campaign should be guided, we did from 15 to 20 October a series of focus group sessions consisting of grassroots typical representatives, from popular-class, with an age range between 21 and 45. Following is a summary of these sessions.

The focus group participants:

1) Have preference for the primaries as a method for choosing candidates to represent them in legislative elections of 2010. They believe that this system is more democratic, participatory and inclusive.

• "The primaries are the most democratic method for unity”.

• "Enough of the clique and arbitrary selections. I want primaries”.

2) Although they prefer primaries over other methods for choosing the candidates, they believe that unity is a higher goal. That is to say, going to the elections together is more important than whether the opposition candidate is elected by primaries or consensus. In fact, they know that the primaries are not a guarantee of unity.

• "Unity by consensus, primaries or polls ... but unity."

• "Remember that Emilio Grateron won in Chacao in primaries, but Liliana and Muchacho, among others, continued in the ring".

3) They think that the opposition campaign must go beyond a unity candidate. They also want the opposition to propose a legislative agenda that focuses on solving the problems of Venezuelans.

• "In the slums, people do not care if the candidate was elected in primaries or consensus, what they concern is unemployment and crime”.

• "Unity, consensus, primaries, and the draft laws? Where is the legislative agenda?”.

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Cuban oil dependency: Venezuela's importance

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

In another article we show that Venezuela is not a vital oil supplier to the U.S. economy. But if we want to know about a country truly in need of Venezuela's energy resources, we must direct our gaze toward Cuba.

To function, the weak Cuban economy must import about 120 000 barrels of crude daily, according to IEA. But fortunately for the Cuban government, since Chavez is in power, Venezuela sends to the communist island -under very favorable conditions for Cuba- an approximate of 100 000 barrels of oil per day. What represents 83% of the Castro regime's imported oil requirements.

Cuba is supposed to pay for this oil through a confusing barter that goes something like this: Venezuela exports the oil, in return Cuba sends physicians, then, Venezuela must pay to Cuba a salary in dollars for each Cuban doctor. And what Cuba calls for each physician is so high that in the end Venezuela owes money, without Cuba having to spend a single dollar.

Thus, given the high percentage of Cuban oil demand supplied by Venezuela, and the unusual conditions under which Cuba acquires Venezuelan oil, it makes more sense to talk about energy dependence in the Venezuela-Cuba relationship than in the case of Venezuela-USA.

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Radical leftists more affected than the moderates in Latin America

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

The global economic problems have caused declines in the popularity of many leaders in Latin America. But when comparing only the recent surveys of countries led by the left, we note that the extremist governments of this trend are being evaluated in a much more negative way than the moderates, with the exception of Evo Morales in Bolivia.

In Venezuela, according to IVAD, 64.2% of citizens think that Chavez should not continue in power beyond 2012.

In Ecuador, according to Gallup, Correa's popularity has fallen to 49%. His lowest since he took office.

In Nicaragua, according to the research firm M&R Consultants, 62.4% of the population thinks that Daniel Ortega is heading down the wrong track.

And we can also mention the case of Mel Zelaya in Honduras, who three months ago caused a political crisis just as he intended to follow Chavez's extremism.

In contrast, several moderate leftist leaders are doing just fine; as are the cases of Lula in Brazil, Bachelet in Chile, Vazquez in Uruguay, and Funes in El Salvador. Presidents who maintain high levels of public approval -all above 60% - despite the international economic difficulties.

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Venezuelan medicine leads Cuban in recognition

Authors:
José Alberto López Rafaschieri and Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

Under the Chavez government, the replacement of Venezuelan doctors by Cuban physicians is increasingly. A substitution based on the Castrist propaganda praising the Communist health care system, but that does not take into account the higher international recognition of the Venezuelan health science over the Cuban.

Just remember that Cuba has no Nobel prizes, while an immunologist and geneticist of Venezuela -Dr. Baruch Benacerraf- received the Nobel Prize of Medicine in 1980. Equally, Dr. Convit, also Venezuelan, developed an effective vaccine against leprosy that won him the medal "Health for All" of the Pan American Health Organization, the Prince of Asturias Prize, and being nominated for the Nobel Prize of medicine in 1988.

At another point, Cuba's ability to produce quality drugs is questioned by many international experts as Enrique Soto, head of Molecular Virology in the National Institute of Medical Sciences of Mexico. However, it doesn't happen with medications developed by Venezuelan specialists.

Furthermore, we cannot ignore that every Venezuelan beauty queen crowned by the world is also a success for the Venezuelan aesthetic medicine. A medical area where Venezuela leads Cuba widely.

In conclusion, supplanting the professionalism of Venezuela's doctors with that of Cuba, is to ignore the superior prestige of the Venezuelan physicians over the Cubans.

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Venezuelan oil myth: The vital supplier

Authors:
Luis Alberto López Rafaschieri and José Alberto López Rafaschieri
www.morochos.net

For decades, Venezuela has been shaping an energy ideology based on the assumption that Venezuelan oil is a strategic resource for the stability of the global economy. A notion that has been taken to extremes during the presidency of Hugo Chavez.

However, with a few simple calculations, we can demonstrate the error of those who believe that without Venezuelan oil the system would collapse.

According to the most optimistic estimates, Venezuela exports about 2 million barrels of oil a day, but the world consumes, according to OPEC, 83 million bpd. From which it follows that Venezuela covers only 2.4% of world oil demand.

And if we talk only about the United States, Venezuela's oil exports to that country reach approximately one million b/d. That is to say 4.8% of the 20.7 million barrels consumed daily by the US.

So, where is the relentless dependency of which Venezuelan politicians speak of? if statistically, Venezuela's energy exports are so small that the global economy, and the United States, could continue to function perfectly even if it received no Venezuelan oil.

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