Sunday, October 05, 2014

Danilo Anderson, Eliecer Otaiza and Robert Serra

Even though I am far away, in a country where there is medicine and food, where there are no power outages and where I can sleep on a ground floor room with my window open, waves of bad news keep reaching me even if I avoid my computer as much as possible.


I am not going to discuss the morbid details of the death of Robert Serra. I am too far away, I do not care enough and he certainly was not one of my favorites. The PSUV representative that may have been more chavista than Chavez himself was an histrionic character, always looking for exhibitionism. His death was murky, his house was not broken in, the murder had clear ritual pagan hints and was barbarous by all standards, the female that accompanied him in death was qualified from a mere assistant to carrying his child even though Serra himself was rumored gay (I would agree with that guess) or a womanizer. Nevertheless the regime made him a hero, a macho hero at that, just as it did with two other notable murders, those of Danilo Anderson and Eliecer Otaiza. Notable murders in that they also exhibited strange connotations, starting with the brutality and nastiness of the murder itself. As such the regime has been obliged to sanctify the victims least too much of a magnifying glass were to be used on its shadowy mechanisms. But maybe the regime should have refrained, truth comes always, if late.

In the case of Serra, there had been plenty of evidence of his associations with "colectivos", those paramilitaries groups sponsored by the regime to administer political violence through civilians. Totalitarians always do create such monstrosities, from chavismo colectivos to the Cuban CDR, to fascism brown, dark, blue shirts. For example he was infamously exposed one day at a joint where children were carrying weapons. Certainly someone that was promoted by Chavez was highly sought by these groups to broker favors, deals, or protection. Soon enough our boy Serra joined their mafia mentality and his speeches reflected it.

Unfortunately not everyone is cut to deal with this type of world, and the pressures. For example, a basic rule is that when you make a "deal" you should always have a fall guy in case the deal fails. Otherwise you will have to pay for the failed deal, maybe with your own life. I have no doubt that Serra was involved in such deals and that his inexperience did him in, the more so that he never seemed to be of the type of politicians eager to learn... Same thing happened to Anderson whose extortion ring went too far; or Otaiza who was supposed to distribute funds to colectivos but who may have kept some for himself, or given to some else that the original destination.

The point I am trying to make here is that no one should be surprised that such things are happening inside chavismo, a mere mob system aggravated by vulgarity and poor education, ornamented with pagan rites imported from Cuba. Cases like Serra, I am sure, hide cases from lower level officials though we hear all time of bodyguards and cops murdered in mysterious circumstances. I can assure you that the Venezuelan opposition is likely 95% free of guilt in this mob, gang, drug deal wars. Chavismo has to look inside itself, its methods to find the culprits. But it will not, of course, blaming every Uribe and his brothers.

Thus for me Serra is not an important piece of news. The important news is that the price of oil keeps going down in spite of all the Middle East turmoil. The important news is that the regime is not taking any constructive measure to manage the crisis in a rational way. The important news is that the illegal dollar has finally crossed the 100 line in Cucuta when the official rate is still a paltry 6.3.

The regime may give state funerals to a creep like Serra, but that will not hide the reality....

4 comments:

  1. Maybe you should add Chikunguya and Dengue to the list. On the other hand Venezuelan bonds recovered a bit after the CITGO sale seemed to fizzle. Investors are more confident when they buy Venezuelan bonds if they think they have CITGO available to seize in case of default. I wonder where Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips come in when they win their arbitration cases?

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  2. ergo, weil stabbed gazillion times serra, according to villegas....

    it must be hard to be a chavista and put up with this self bullshitting all the time....

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  3. There is a news item today in the Wall Street Journal that Venezuela has missed the "Holcim compensation payment". http://online.wsj.com/articles/venezuela-misses-holcim-payment-1412578700

    This brings home the fact that with Venezuela manufacturing and growing less each year, the needs of Venezuela increase and the strain of meeting such needs increases.

    Today, oil prices went below $90 a barrel. This is light sweet crude. The typical Venezuela blend went below $90 some time ago. Probably much of Venezuela heavy crude is selling in the mid $70s to low $80s per barrel. The reason is that heavy oil requires more expensive refining and produces a lower value product unless expensive upgrading is done.

    Many may think that this reduction in oil prices causes a more or less linear reduction in money for Venezuela. But this is not the case.

    For foreign partnerships, the Venezuela government enacted "Windfalls profits taxes".
    The taxes work this way: PDVSA and foreign partnerships pay the state 20 percent of the income from sales of oil between $55-80 per barrel, 80 percent between $80-100, 90 percent between $100-110, and 95 percent over $110.

    Venezuela gets a much larger percentage of the value of oil sales when oil is above the windfalls profit tax values. That means that there is a much greater drop in Venezuela revenue as oil prices drop than many may have expected. From PDVSA, Venezuela can take money directly from the company coffers. But there are costs associated with producing oil that can't be differed without immediate drop in production. From the foreign partnerships, the drop in revenue due to low oil prices is immediate.



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  4. Boludo Tejano5:29 PM

    Chavismo has to look inside itself, its methods to find the culprits. But it will not, of course, blaming every Uribe and his brothers.
    As you predicted.

    Thus for me Serra is not an important piece of news. The important news is that the price of oil keeps going down in spite of all the Middle East turmoil.

    Granted, it was just another Chavista gangland slaying. Some have speculated that there is a relation between the Serra slaying and the recent fall in the price of oil. Colectivo leader José Miguel Odreman was killed by the CICPC yesterday. Some speculations are that Serra didn't make sufficient payment to Odreman's colectivo- a consequence of there not being as much money these days to distribute due to the drop in the price of oil. Speculation then goes that Odreman's colectivo killed Serra as a consequence. The CICPC closed in on Odreman and friends during the investigation of Serra's death.

    It may be that this particular Chavista gangland slaying will have greater consequences than the previous ones.

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