I'm a former [short-term] Executive Director of the World Bank (2002-2004) for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Spain and Venezuela. I write this blog to echo my voice and my noise. Though I know many will only be able to read it in yellow or blue, I do make an effort to write it in green. The Radical Middle or the Extreme Center is not any wishy-washy place to be, in a world where swimming to any of the ideological shores provides for a much calmer shelter.
Saturday, March 23, 2013
Never make a rhetorical question on the web
You will get hundred of unwanted volunteers willing to answer it :-)
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Hugo Chavez and the poor of Venezuela
Now upon his death, we often hear news-media reporting in reference to Hugo Chavez, that he helped to pull a lot of Venezuelans out of poverty. That is simply not true.
Hugo Chavez did indeed help many poor to live better in poverty, good for him, but that is far different than pulling poor out of poverty. To do so exceeded by far Hugo Chavez’s capabilities, and that of his collaborators.
Those Venezuelans who did manage to pull themselves out of poverty, did that entirely on their own, or with the help of oil revenues and corruption and very little else.