Venezuela. Election Victory strengthens Maduro. Next attack launched from US | Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela |Axisoflogic.com

"True power comes when others offer it to you and you merely accept it as a gift, not as the spoils of some personal war."

- Laurell K. Hamilton,
Narcissus in Chains

President Maduro is given the power of the Enabling Law which allows him to deal directly with speculation and usury in the US-led war on the Venezuelan economy.

The December 8th local election results in Venezuela were a solid victory for the socialist policies of the Maduro government both in terms of the number of municipalities won and the share of the popular vote.

The final results are:

Number of municipalities contested:	337
United Socialist Party of Venezuela and allies (PSUV)	255 (76%)
Opposition Alliance (MUD – 41 parties)	75 (22%)
Others	7 ( 2%)

Popular Vote:

United Socialist Party of Venezuela and allies (PSUV)	5.65 million (55.4%)
Opposition Alliance (MUD – 41 parties)	4.5 million (44.4%)

Government majority 11% (up from 1.5% at the April 14th presidential vote)

In addition the PSUV and allies won 30 out of the 40 (75%) largest cities in the country.

Add to this the fact that the PSUV and its allies have a majority in the National Assembly of 99 deputies versus 66 and have state governors in 20 out of 23 states it is abundantly clear that the political power in Venezuela lies in the hands of the socialists that are a legacy of the late President Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution based on the democratic vote of the people.

And what a democracy it is! Vibrant and participatory with an average of 80% voter participation in the last two presidential elections and almost 60% in the municipal elections – a record for the whole of the Americas.

Compare this to the 58% ABSTENTION in Sunday’s second round of presidential elections in Chile – the country long held up by the US as being the “shining example of democracy and economic level headedness in the region”.

Coincidences

After it became clear on Monday December 9th that Chavismo had wiped the floor with the fascist right wing once again inflicting the fourth national election defeat in fourteen months and the eighteenth out of nineteen since 1998, strange things began to happen.

The opposition was silenced; supermarkets were suddenly full to bursting with products both local and imported; random power outages ceased; the government continued inspecting businesses and forcing prices down to stop usury of more than 1200% plus; the Caracas stock market continued to climb and yesterday (December 18th) hit another historic high of almost 2,700,000 after being just 8,990 on December 31st 2002; the November unemployment figure was just 6.6%……………….Christmas was coming and it looked as if everything would calm down now that the elections results had diffused tension built up over the months of political battling in the media and attacks on the economy.

Caracas Stock Market 2009-2013

The Attack

"Most governments in the United States in a hundred years have not respected the peoples of Latin America. They have sponsored coup d'etats, assassinations."

- Hugo Chavez

Just over a week went by and then, as has been the case for well over a decade, the next attack was launched against Venezuela. It is obvious that the capitalists and corporations that control the world just cannot abide a free, vibrant, democratic country where the government acts to further and protect the interests of its population and not banksters and rogue speculators or usurers.

This time the attack emanated from Wall Street in the international media via the Ratings Agencies – Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s Rating Services. Both of these agencies lowered Venezuela’s international credit rating almost to junk bond status and in their commentary predict a social and economic collapse “within weeks”. It is telling that S&P and Moody's made their move within 2 weeks after the capitalists were roundly defeated in the December 8 elections in Venezuela.

The reasons given for this dire warning were “macroeconomic imbalances, galloping inflation and the depreciating parallel exchange rate”. Moody’s also noted that what was making the situation worse was Maduro’s insistence on controlling inflation by forcing merchants and retailers to lower the prices of consumer goods. No mention is made by Moody’s that retail profit margins had reached usurious levels rarely seen of between 1,000% and 15,000% which were obviously propelling galloping inflation.

Alexander Guerrero (L), José Guerra (C) and Otto Reich (R) parrot Moody's prediction of an economic collapse in Venezuela in this new attack on Maduro and the country's economy.

The timing of the reduction of Venezuela’s credit rating and the comments from Moody’s encouraged Otto Reich to parrot the same reasoning in Miami and various discredited Venezuelan economists such as José Guerra and Alexander Guerrero – both of whom forecast an economic cataclysm in Venezuela every year - to take to the airwaves. Both predict that Venezuela will have to run, cap in hand, to the IMF accept help and be forced to implement “adjustment” (i.e. austerity) policies such as cuts in social spending, raise the gasoline price and other unpopular measures so as to avoid the economic collapse they have been praying for since the bosses’ lock-out and oil industry sabotage of 2002 – 2003.

Guerrero’s closing statement was that Venezuela would suffer “shortages, inflation and unemployment” in the first quarter of 2014. If Guerrero’s track record is anything to go by then he will be wrong once again, as will be Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.

Remember 2008

Readers should not forget that it was Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s that maintained AAA ratings for Lehmann Brothers and AIG just days before these financial giants were bailed out by the US Federal Reserve in September 2008. Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s are being closely looked at by the US Attorney General for defrauding investors by assigning AAA ratings to stressed financial institutions when they were on the verge of collapse. Both are being prosecuted in a Class Action in Illinois State Court.

In a nutshell these so-called experts in assessing economic risk contributed to almost destroying the world economy and now they want to apply their “expert” criteria and neoliberal policies to Venezuela whose economy has grown from a GDP of US$90 billion in 1998 to over US$408 billion in 2012, according to the CIA World Fact Book; lowered poverty from 62% to 23%; boosted consumer spending from US$65 billion to US$272 billion in just over ten years; received recognition from the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) for doing more to defeat hunger than any other country this century. President Maduro would be wise not even to consider buying a used car from these clowns as the policies that he inherited from President Chávez have been proven to benefit the mass of the population………and not the banksters and corporations as in the US and Europe, leaving the population struggling.

For these reasons can the credit ratings assigned to Venezuela that are designed to undermine confidence in the country and its economy be blindly believed? They are mindlessly quoted as gospel by capitalist and imperialist puppets such as José Guerra and Alexander Guerrero, both Venezuelans, who have access to the mass media and who actually want the economy to collapse.

This would serve US interests by contributing to the eventual downfall of the chavista government, the demise of the Revolution and the opening of doors to the selling off and privatization of PDVSA and Venezuela’s oil resources that are the largest in the world, surpassing those of Saudi Arabia. (Look at what happened to PEMEX in Mexico a few days ago)

This is the long term objective of this latest attack.

Will there be an economic collapse and social explosion?

An economic collapse could occur if Venezuela were to default on its international debt obligations. This is what Otto Reich, Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, Guerra, Guerrero and the international banksters and oil multinationals are betting on so that they can then pick over the bones of the economic carrion.

Venezuela had grave difficulties in paying its debts in 1987 and 1989 when it owed over US$40 billion based on an economy of around US$50 billion with almost zero tax collection either from the population or from the oil multinationals operating in the country. At that time it had to run to the IMF.

Since that time the Chávez government paid off the IMF in early December 2002 and has not missed a single payment to its international creditors since he came to power in February 1999. There is no reason to believe that doom and gloom forecasts by failed economists who still support the debacle of the dying capitalist system and who have been consistently wrong about the Venezuelan economy for over a decade. In fact, the economy has grown and has become stronger with less inequality (GINI Index declined from 49.8 in 1998 to 39.0 in 2011) and more consumers spending.

They point to the “dangerously low level” of international reserves of around US$21 billion. But do not mention the fact that PDVSA’s income in dollars in 2012 was US$93.5 billion and total imports (both state and private) were just US$59.2 billion. (See Mark Weisbrot's in depth analysis of why Venezuela is not the Greece of Latin America) Some US$30 billion of this amount was granted to private importers in 2012 and latest estimates indicate that 40% or US$12 billion was spirited away to private bank account defrauding the nation of a large slice of cash.

This embezzlement scenario is being investigated and has been addressed by the Maduro government and now a Special Import Agency has been set up to double check exactly what dollars have been granted to importers. These will have to sign a legally binding contract with the government to guarantee that they import correctly and at non-inflated prices using dollar denominated bank account in Venezuelan state banks so that the dollars remain within the country and do not vanish forever to the US.

With external debt of US$104 billion being just 25.5% of GDP – a ratio that is the envy of all developed economies in Europe – huge revenues from oil income plus estimated tax revenues of Bs. 317 billion (US$51.13 billion) in 2014, there is little or no chance of an economic collapse or social explosion in Venezuela in the next three months as predicted by these paid agents of the CIA and / or US State Department.

Conclusions

The rolling coup continues in Venezuela and there is never a week’s respite from attacks against the country, the state, the government and the people in order to destabilize the nation.

This latest attack to undermine the economy and sow fear & dissension in the population will not stop no matter what is said or done in diplomatic circles. The US and their oil multinationals need to have access to the world’s largest oil reserves for their benefit.

The US and its lackeys working as the “enemy within” will do all they can to hasten an economic collapse in Venezuela using their traitorous media allies. Nevertheless, we are confident that the Mass of the Venezuelan people and their strong participatory democracy, recognizing how their lives have improved and backing President Maduro’s economic counter-offensive against speculators and usurers will prevail in the context of the Bolivarian Revolution.

This will provide the necessary bulwark against this internationally based conspiracy aimed at destroying the growing socialist example on the northern tip of South America that is a model to be followed by all humane leaders throughout this hemisphere and beyond.

¡Chávez vive, la lucha sigue!

READ MORE ANALYSIS AND ESSAYS BY
AXIS OF LOGIC COLUMNIST, ARTURO ROSALES