The EU in perspective

Blogger Juan Nagel wrote on his first impressions during a visit to Germany. The Deutsche Well invited him to an event there. He was puzzled to still find people - he thinks many- who have a positive image of Chavismo or have good memories of Chávez.

But: is that  really the case? To some extent yes, but only partially. You can read his take and also my comment there. 

There are many ways to measure real support of a certain movement. Here I present another one. It is imperfect but it is also useful. This is the EU vote for an motion expressing concerns about human rights during the protests that took place in Venezuela from February through March.

In principle the vote was for something neutral: concern about human rights. It was not really a condemnation of the regime. In reality the voting went mostly along the lines: "deputy sympathizes with Chavismo or not". Virtually all parties of the extreme left voted against the  motion, some of them abstained. Still, 85% of deputies voted for the motion, only 8.3% against. There are a couple of curious cases. The founder of an extreme-right racialist party was the only Belgian to vote against the motion. Le Pen abstained. This might be proof that extremes touch.

There were EU elections afterwards and things changed a bit. In Spain the extreme left gained terrain but it lost in other places. 

First you see the percentage of deputies for each EU country that voted in favour of Chavismo:
(I made an error in one row, Netherlands. Actually: no one voted against the motion there, the 5 should go to the "abstention" side, I will correct the charts this evening)

This fits with my impressions of many encounters I had with EU citizens in the last few years. I still remember the EU employee from Cyprus who kept saying on an informal meeting "Chávez, Chávez!" when he saw I was from Venezuela and he wanted to show how much he knew about Venezuela. And the guy had an Armenian-Syrian background and didn't even feel Cypriot. Most Germans these days look at me with sorry when they hear I where I am from. "What a mess there, isn't it?" is what they say. And they are right.

And here you see how the weight of the voting went (total deputies per country for that motion):

Deputies do not equate completely what citizens think but this is another way of gauging how things stand for Chavismo.

There are still people, particularly among the extreme left and those in South Eastern Europe who still haven't realised Chavismo is an utterly corrupt, unsustainable, increasingly repressive movement based on an oil-price boom. Still, things are changing.

Arreaza justifies shooting traitors

Last week we saw how Maduro sacked Chávez's long-standing minister Giordani and how Giordani, the Monk, responded immediately by publishing a long letter trying to justify himself. Several bloggers have discussed this extensively. Another civilian leftist and former minister of general education, of university education and science during Chávez's time, Héctor Navarro, defended Giordani and got expelled from the Politburo. Then a former governor fallen in disgrace, Rafael Isea, criticized the way Giordani and Navarro have been treated.

And now we have three Boligarchs - Elías Jaua, Diosdado Cabello and Freddy Bernal - calling Giordani and others traitors.

Now Chávez's son-in-law, Arreaza, wanted to outdo the others. He said traitors should be executed. Of course, he used a very cheap trick: he went to Guayana, met the very corrupt governor (a former coup monger) and there he talked on national TV to remind Venezuelans how the caudillo Simón Bolívar had executed a competitor of his, the independence hero Piar, "for treason".

"The governor showed us today the wall where general Piar was executed by order of Simón Bolívar. It was a necessary measure because we (sic) couldn't allow treason in a moment when unity was essential to build the republic. Here there won't be traitors, president. Your people closes rank with you"

Чистка Единой социалистической партии Венесуэлы

Well, we saw how Maduro sacked 74-year old Giordani, the North-Korea admirer and CADIVI-creator. Giordani saw that coming, so he got a letter published on Aporrea, the semi-independent Chavista-base site. And the Boligarchs were not amused.

Miguel wrote a good post about Giordani's letter. Giordani is an old communist responsible for a lot of the very unsustainable, corruption-promoting policies of Maduro. Giordani just tried to justify his past - for the record and to bug those who sacked him after he held so much power-. Now that the government is running out of money in spite of the continuing oil boom, Maduro needs pragmatists. Maduro probably thought Giordani would go quietly and later accept some embassy, but Giordani decided to nag in public.

Former education minister Héctor Navarro, another civilian and very much a lefty, came up now and supported Giordani. And he has been expelled from the Politburo.

The funny thing: the one person in charge of coordinating "party discipline" within the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela is Rodríguez Chacín, a military honcho friend of Chávez who was actually active during the hated IV Republic and was in the team of military that carried out the Massacre of El Amparo (Rodríguez was himself not present during the massacre but that was only because he had had an accident with the helicopter he was traveling in and was in a hospital when his comrades were shooting innocent fishermen). Rodríguez Chacín is also a big landowner who bought thousands of hectares of land around 2003, 4 years after Chavismo got into power.

In any case, in these days purges are not what they used to be. They are mild, they are more selective. They are just about removing people from power and/or money.

Tod in Caracas und Erdölgeschäfte

Der venezolanischen Zeitung Notitarde zufolge war Cristophorus Wilhelm Klieuters, der Deutsche, der in Caracas kurz nach seiner Ankunft letzte Woche ermordet wurde, ein häufiger Besucher Venezuelas. Er war ein Geschäftsmann und hatte vor, mit mehreren Bonzen der staatlichen Erdölgesellschaft PDVSA zu sprechen. Klieuters hatte eine Firma, die mit Bohrinseln zu tun hatte, wie die Bild-Zeitung berichtet.

Kurioserweise heuerte er die Dienste einer privaten Sicherheitsfirma an, die einem aktiven General der berüchtigten venezolanischen Nationalgarde -Guardia Nacional- gehört. Wie kann um Gottes willen ein aktiver General so eine Firma treiben und das in einer sogenannten Revolution?

Hier könnt Ihr Dieterich auf Spanisch hören. Der Kerl, der sich als Ökonom bezeichnet, hat nichts verstanden. Er beschuldigt Maduro vieler Fehler, als ob Chávez damit nicht angefangen hätte. Er sagt, Maduro hätte nun inkompetente Minister, als ob die Minister des Caudillos Chávez andere Menschen gewesen wären.

Die Wirtschaft Venezuelas - Juni 2014 (I)

Der 74-jährige Jorge Giordani, Finanzminister des Hugo Chávez Frías, wurde am 17 Juni von Nicolás Maduro entlassen. Giordani hatte 14 Jahre lang die katastrophale Wirtschaftspolitik des Landes geführt. Giordani war ein alter Kommunist, der absolut nichts von Wirtschaft wusste. Er hatte Ingenieurwissenschaft vor langer Zeit studiert. Seine Eltern waren Kommunisten, die gegen Franco gekämpft haben sollen. Giordani war in der Dominikanischen Republik geboren. Dort soll er gegen den Diktator Trujillo eine kurze Zeit gekämpft haben. Paradoxerweise hat er dann dem Land, das die Diktatur des Trujillo so lange denunzierte so viel Schäden zugefügt. Er wurde zu einem Mentor des Chávez. Er wurde zu seinem Lehrer und dann zu seinem Finanzminister. In Venezuela konnte er nur aufgrund immer steigender internationaler Erdölpreise eine Rentenpolitik führen, die gegen jegliche nachhaltige Entwicklung, für die Wiederwahl des Caudillos dienlich war. Nun merkten die Boligarchen aber, dass diese Politik einfach so nicht mehr zu führen ist.

Am Tag nach seiner Entlassung veröffentlichte Giordani einen sehr langen Bericht in der Chavista-Seite Aporrea. Den Bericht hatte er offensichtlich schon lange in der Schublade gehabt. Der Mann weist jede Schuld von sich ab. Er sagt, Maduro improvisiert, die Regierung hat zu viel ausgegeben, und und und...er ist aber für nichts schuldig. Natürlich gibt es jetzt jede Menge Gerüchte und aufgeregtes Gemurmel unter den Chavistas.

Nun ist der Präsident der staatlichen Erdölgesellschaft, der Oligarch Rafael Rodríguez, der Mann, der die Wirtschaft steuern wird. Theoretisch wird der frühere Bildungsminister Ricardo Menéndez der neue Finanzminister sein...Rodríguez wird aber derjenige sein, der führen wird. Rodríguez ist auch kein Ökonom. Er ist aber viel pragmatischer als Giordani. Eine Abwertung steht bevor. Giordani war vehement dagegen. Giordani wollte eigentlich ganz absichtlich zuerst die private Wirtschaft völlig zerstören, um ein neues Model zu errichten...eine Idee, die nicht mal die Sowjets hatten.

Ich werden in den folgenden Tagen mehr auf Deutsch über die venezolanische Wirtschaftslage berichten...über die Pläne des Rodríguez und viel mehr.

The Monk's Memoirs

Rafael Trujillo, Dominican Republic's dictator until 1961, shaped the mind of Giordani, who then influenced Venezuela for so long

Jorge Giordani, a communist born in the Dominican Republic who became one of the closest allies of Hugo Chávez, was finally sacked yesterday. He wrote a long letter in Aporrea. There he tries to tell the story of his life, the struggles he had, his relationship with Chávez and how his downfall went during Maduro's term.

Several things become more clear than ever:

1) the guy was a real believer, a fanatic

2) the guy confirms a bit of the struggles going on within the regime

3) the guy was strongly moved by his childhood traumas with the cruel dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic.

It is kind of scary to think Venezuela wasted billions of dollars and corruption, always present, blossomed to ever higher levels precisely because of the power such a real fanatic - not a cold profiteer like Diosdado Cabello - could have for so many years. The ignorance Giordani had about economic and historical issues was just staggering and yet he was the key person to design Chávez's wrecked economic policies, policies that were completely unsustainable and that only fostered more corruption.

It is ironic that Giordani would be so traumatized by his childhood - the dictatorship of Trujillo and the stance his parents had - that he would end up destroying so much of Venezuela, a country that so openly opposed Trujillo.

Stay tuned. Different boligarchs will try to defend themselves after this. Corruption will go on, although the regime might become more pragmatic, which could make some adjustments for its own survival - at least for a bit-.

Ps. if you want to learn a bit about dictator Trujillo, you can read Vargas Llosa's masterpiece, The Feast of the Goat.

A new round in Venezuela's ministerial chairs: the Monk is gone (updated!)

Maduro does just as his "intellectual father" did: change ministers with incredible frequency. As Rory Carroll wrote in his book on Chávez, "the comandante went over 180 ministers in over a decade". 

Below you have an overview of the ministries as of  yesterday evening, 17 June 2014. Those with a diamond sign have military honchos as ministers. Other ministers might be like the minister of Tourism, Izarra, who is the son of a military and former coup monger, friend of Chávez, or former guerrillas who fought against democratic governments or related to a guerrilla aristocracy, like the minister of Energy, Boligarch Rafael Rodríguez.

Maduro has changed ministers once for those ministries in yellow. He has changed ministers twice for those ministries in blue. This is all since he produced his first cabinet in April 2013. That means those ministries in blue have seen three different ministers in fourteen months.

A very important event: Maduro demoted Jorge Giordani, aka The Monk, who...got no apparent position as an ambassador or at some institute so far. He also transformed the ministry of Planning into a vice-presidency. He appointed Menéndez for that position. The military Herbert Plaza, who was minister of Water and Air Transportation, became minister of Food. Things are not looking very bright on the food sector and Maduro thinks he can fix that without doing something about the economy. Menéndez was minister of University Education, so Maduro has to look for a replacement for him there and he found a guy called Jason Guzmán. Little is known about him.

Maduro took over many ministers from Chávez and some others he changed.

In the case of the Ministry for University Education we have this order since 2013:

Yadira Córdoba was the minister until Chávez died and Maduro replaced her as soon as he officially took office by Pedro Calzadilla, then Ricardo Menéndez and now Jason Guzmán.

In the case of Trade we have the following order since 2013:

Edmée Betanourt was the minister of Trade until Chávez died, then the job went to Alejandro Fleming, then to José Salamat Kahn and now it's in the hands of Dante Rivas.

Notice this: most key ministries but the one of oil are in the hands of military. That is the case for the ministry of Economy, the one of Interior, the ministry of Air & water transportation (control of airports and harbors), the ministry of Electricity (yes, that's key in Venezuela) and last but not least, the ministry of Food. The change we saw yesterday was from one military to another one there.

Wao: and Giordani writes a very long letter in Aporrea talking about his work. He breaks with Maduro and tries to justify what he did. There will be turmoil among the apparatchiks.

Chávez City and the rise of shameless repression

Francisco Ameliach, current governor of Carabobo, visited yesterday together with the Defence Minister what is going to become "Chávez City", a new urbanisation in Southern Valencia. The regime has built less social houses than governments that rule while world oil prices were just a fraction of what they are now and yet the regime will announce otherwise now. Who is there to verify? And the personality cult goes on. Saddam had his "Saddam City" while he was alive. Chávez will have his now...at least for a couple of years.

Francisco Ameliach is a military and he was a coup monger in 1992, together with most of the rest in power now. And he is now stating accusations against Laurentzi Odriozola, the director of Notitarde, the last newspaper in the region that has kept a critical stance towards the regime. Notitarde is not a high quality newspaper but it does print what is happening in Carabobo. Ameliach is accusing the director of planning a murder...possibly of Nicolás Maduro.

Ameliach has a radio programme on Radio Nacional. When I was a child Radio Nacional was a state radio for classic or traditional music, for science and culture. Now it is a propaganda channel. Another military man, Diosdado Cabello, has his own TV channel on Venezolana de Televisión, where he shows illegally wire-tapped or fictional recordings of the opposition and accuses opposition politicians of anything without these to have a "derecho a réplica", a right that only pro-government people have. Ameliach was the one who call the colectivos, the pro-government paramilitary, to prepare themselves for the "fulminating counter-attack". Hours later these pro-regime guys killed a girl and wounded several others.

Another military oligarch

The regime is acting more and more shameless because it knows the rest of South and Central America won't do anything but state "their hopes for reconciliation" and the like. Virtually all the countries that count have now a nice trade surplus with Venezuela and any even tiny expression of concern about human rights and democracy in Venezuela would lead to the Venezuelan regime cutting off relations with those countries or, at least, cancelling the massive imports of food from there. That happened already for a couple of years with Colombia and Peru and for a few months with Panama.

Besides, the heads of Brazil, Uruguay and Chile were tortured under right-winged dictatorships and they seem to think "left-winged" autocracies are fine...specially as long as the entrepreneurs of Brazil, Uruguay and Chile make a killing with exports to Venezuela. Argentina's Cristina Fernández was not tortured but she still has an ideological link and a financial debt with the Venezuelan regime.

Inflation and shortages continue in Venezuela but people are tired. Several of their opposition leaders are in jail.

A new international development seems to be playing for Venezuelans' boligarchs: the mess in Iraq is making oil prices rise again...not that they were low but they have remained at the $105 level for a couple of years.

Venezuela's laziest people or just populism at a different level?

Aristóbulo Istúriz, governor of the Northeastern state of Anzoátegui, declared today is a holiday because the regional basketball team won the national basketball championship. It doesn't matter Venezuela is getting into recession, the country is lagging behind most other South American countries in spite of its oil and people have to spend endless hours queuing up for food. Or perhaps it does matter and that's why he does it.

Istúriz is one of those "revolutionaries" who was actually integral part of the IV Republic: before he became Chavista, he was an active politician of Acción Democrática, social democrats, and then of Causa R, left-left, both now opposition parties.

Declaring a compulsory holiday for everyone not working in emergency services or the like is not new in Anzoátegui. Back in January 2011 the previous governor, Tareq Saab (of Syrian and pro-al-Assad family, as many Chavista apparatchiks), declared a holiday also for a basketball victory at the national championship. In  July 2011 Saab did the same for another victory. The governor also declared another holiday in June of the same year because the Spanish soccer team was playing a friendly match with the Venezuelan team.

The state is called after a military caudillo.  Saab also declared a holiday on General Anzoátegui's birthday. Of course, you should add all the national holidays Venezuelans have.

Our country can go to hell but we won't work

Why did the Venezuelan chicken cross the road?

Why did the Venezuelan chicken cross the road? 


Venezuelans running to be the first to queue up for chicken and flour

• "It didn't cross the road. The fascist opposition smuggled it across the road to Colombia because of the economic war" Minister of Trade Dante Rivas
• "It crossed the road so that Bolivians, Nicaraguans and Cubans can eat as well. They give us beans and doctors for it".  Just a Maduro apparatchik
• "Every Venezuelan chicken will provide for ten Cuban doctors in Venezuela's slums and if you don't believe it you are evil and you want little children and baby pandas to die" Venezuelan ambassador to Cuba
• "It didn't. There is no chicken in Venezuela" Canadian journalist
• "Because a big man with a moustache kept staring and calling it Hugo"
• Did it? Did it? I'll give you one tomato if you help me catch it" A Venezuelan with two tomatoes
• "To get in line for one package of maize flour" A reader

Do you have any other ideas?

Venezuela: no tin for coffins, no coffins for Venezuela's dead, more lies and repression for the living

Nice view until you start to fall

Maduro promised to eliminate extreme poverty for 2018. A few weeks earlier the Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas (INE) had published a report stating poverty had significantly increased in the last year but then one of Maduro's ministers said that was not true. That was the same minister who said the government didn't want to take people out of poverty for them then to become "squalid" (one of the words Chávez used to describe people who disliked his policies) and then said he had been quoted out of context. As the INE is fully dependent on the Executive and the Executive won't tolerate dissent, I am sure there will be more than reprimands. People are bound to get sacked for saying the truth or at least threatened with an immediate sack if they publish similar figures again.

All public organisations, including the Central Bank, talk about an economic war as reason for the complete economic decay and the shortage economy in Venezuela.

There is no tin production and hardly any dollars to import stuff, so even mortuaries are running out of coffins (which, I didn't know, usually contain tin).

The regime is going to investigate opposition leader María Corina Machado and others for "trying to assassinate Maduro". Since 1998 Chavismo has announced at least once every quarter a major assassination attempt. Since Chávez is "the Eternal Commandant" and Maduro is in power, the announcements have become more frequent.

The government wants to send all meaningful opposition leaders to jail or, preferably, to exile before the economy deteriorates further.

Meanwhile, South America's leaders are pretending they don't see anything. Almost all of their countries still have a trade surplus with Venezuela and the leaders of Brazil and Uruguay were tortured during dictatorships of the right...they apparently think human right abuses from regimes that wear the label "left" are better than others.

Ah, in Valencia, Venezuela's third largest city, there was a new march to protest the extreme pollution of the region's tap water. In the nineties bad sewage planning led to an increase in the Valencia Lake levels - levels that had been receding for centuries -. Chávez had the "great idea" to connect the water of the Valencia Lake with a water reservoir in Southwestern Valencia, the Pao-Cachinche reservoir. The problem is that the Valencia Lake waters are highly polluted, they are becoming more polluted by the day and the water treatment plant in Los Guayos that is supposed to deal with that is not enough and pigs could maintain it better than the current employees do.

If you open a tap in most of the Carabobo region and there is water, it will stink a lot and it will be either dark yellowish or extreme white, with chlorine levels that are not healthy at all.

Venezuela is falling apart.

Maduro, al-Assad und as-Sissi oder "ein Esel gefällt dem anderen"

Der venezolanische Machtshaber Nicolas Maduro hat nun al-Assad in Syrien und as-Sissi in Ägypten für ihre Wahlsiege gratuliert.

Dass Maduro den Massenmörder al-Assad gratulieren würde, war von jedem zu erwarten. Die al-Assad-Diktatur war mit der Chávez-Regierung seit je eng befreundet. Viele Venezolaner-Araber, deren Eltern oder Grosseltern aus dieser Region stammen sind zur Zeit Bonzen in der Maduro-Regierung. Dass Maduro sich aber auch mit Lob an den Militärcaudillo as-Sissi wenden würde, hat mich schon ein bisschen überrascht, denn vom Autoritarismus mal abgesehen hatten sie bis jetzt nicht viel zu tun gehabt. Vielleicht hat Maduro einfach gesehen, dass die US-Amerikaner sich von as-Sissi distanzieren wollen. Vielleicht sehnt sich Maduro für mehr Anerkennung und will an jede Tür klopfen.

Tarek El-Aissami, einer der syrisch-venezolanischen Bonzen

How many barrels has the Venezuelan regime pawned?

In the last few years the Chavista regime increasingly borrowed money by promising to deliver oil in the future. The government has been doing that in spite of the fact oil prices have remained at very high levels. 

I want to ask my readers to send me information about all the different agreements of "money now for oil in the future". There is only so much oil Venezuela can produce and, given the corruption and complete incompetence of Venezuela's government and of the current state oil company PDVSA, things will have a limit. That limit will to a big extent decide how many days the regime has.

Thanks for your help.

Chinese loans (past):
?? 20 billions pending for ??? oil

Chinese loans (past), refers to the same stuff:
More details on the "rounds"

Chinese loan (latest): 05.2014
Got: $5 billion

Russian loan: 24.05.2014
1.6 million tonnes of oil
7.5 million tonnes of oil products within 5 years
Got: $2 billions

From Russia without love

Venezuela is one of Russia's most important clients for its weapons export. The South American country has spent over 9 billion dollars in Russian arms since 2006. Venezuela's government has even used a lot of money from the FONDEN, the "Fund for Endogenous Development", in order to pay for those arms. Chávez saw to it that the National Parliament cannot do anything to control the use of that money.

Some might think lots of Russians feel like buddies with Venezuelans. That is not the case. If you read the recent polls published by the Levada Centre, you will see Venezuela is far away in most Russian minds. When asked what countries they could name as close friends of Russia, people named Belarus, China, Kazakhstan, Armenia, India, Cuba (yes, still Cuba), Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, Moldavia, Uzbekistan, Kirghistan, Serbia and only then Venezuela. Venezuela is now just slightly "closer" to Russia than Germany and Turkey. The best popularity Venezuela got was in 2009 and it has been dropping off the radar for Russia since then. It only surpassed Germany this year because of the Ukraine crisis. Let's be honest: Venezuela is indeed very far away from Russia and other than oil and arms dealers a a bunch of Latin American fans with lots of adventure will, few Russians have anything to do with Venezuela and most Venezuelans who ever had anything to do with Russia were communists, a tiny group of Russian expats - but then Venezuela had expats from all over the world - and a couple of others with exotic or weird cultural interests like me.

Venezuela is one of the few countries that has followed Putin's will to recognise Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia as independent nations. The ambassador of Venezuela to Russia also deals with the non-existent relations to Abkhazia and Southern Ossetia.

Two weeks earlier several Venezuelan honchos went to Russia to ask for more money and cooperation. Here you can read about how mogul Rafael Ramírez signed on 24 May 2014 a deal with ex-KGB man Igor Sechin to get 2 billion dollars in advance in return for over 1.6 million tonnes of oil and 7.5 million tonnes of oil products within five years. Venezuela's government was one of the few governments that supported at United Nations Russia's move on Ukraine on 27 May 2014. The other only countries were North Korea, Belarus, Cuba, Zimbabwe, Syria, Bolivia, Sudan, Nicaragua and Armenia.

Venezuela is having to pay dearly for Russia's loans and weapons - as well as some SIGINT-. It's not precisely love or will for honest cooperation that binds both countries together.

Venezuela's rulers are doing this even if oil prices are still at a record high. For those of you who do not follow the development of oil prices, here a perspective:

La Vida en Venezuela

Kilos de pollo, tomate y cebolla que se podían comprar con un sueldo mínimo

En el gráfico pueden ver cuánto podía comprar un venezolano de tres productos con el salario mínimo en 1998 y en 2014.

El gráfico indica cuántos kilos de pollo, de tomate y de cebolla se podían comprar en 1998 y ahora con el salario mínimo. En 1998 se podían comprar 250 kilos con el salario mínimo de aquel entonces. Ahora solo se pueden comprar poco más de 42 kilos.

Hubiese podido haber elegido un sinnúmero de otros productos o servicios y la relación habría sido parecida. Solo hay algo que se ha vuelto mucho mucho más barato: la gasolina, que es prácticamente gratis. La electricidad también se ha venido haciendo cada vez más barata. El gobierno prefiere financiar la gasolina a gastar en buenos hospitales o en seguridad para la población.

Venezuela padece uno de los mayores niveles de obesidad del continente americano. Para la gran mayoría es un lujo comer vegetales. Un tomate o una cebolla son ahora mucho más caros en Venezuela subtropical  con sus 916000 km2 que en Bélgica o Alemania en invierno. Un kilo de filet de pollo cuesta en Venezuela el equivalente a unos 14,36 euros, un kilo de tomate 5,83 y uno de cebolla 11,67. Eso es a cambio oficial. Por supuesto, que sería mejor ver cuántos kilos de tomate, de cebolla o de pollo puede comprar un europeo con el salario mínimo de su país o algo equivalente.

Por supuesto que para muchos venezolanos, no es tan fácil acordarse de cuánto era su poder adquisitivo hace 15 años...las dádivas del boom petrolero ante todo a partir de 2002 y hasta, aproximadamente, el 2010, hicieron relativizar mucho del pasado. Pero ahora, aunque los precios del petróleo siguen muy altos, el nivel de vida del venezolano es hoy en día peor que en 1998.

Algunas referencias:

1998
1998
Aporrea
2014
2014 "Precios justos"