My current list of prominent inequality drivers

I do not care about some having much more wealth than others, for instance having Picasso's on their walls that if taken down only had to go up on somebody else’s wall… and I fret where all those jobs which are based on obnoxiously expensive manual procedures would be were it not for the insanely wealthy… and, if there were no accumulation of wealth where would all those savings that can be invested come from?... 

But I do care profoundly when wealth is acquired by ways of opportunities not accorded to everyone... like mothers (and fathers), not getting any direct monetary societal reward, for their extraordinary efforts when staying home to lovingly take care of their children.

And here are some new non traditional inequality drivers of which I am currently most suspicious.

Intellectual property rights which give way to incredible fortunes… there should be some more explicit limits on these… like a maximum amount of profits covered … a fixed number of units produced protected… or at least that profits derived from intellectually protected activities should be taxed at a higher rate than profits derived from competing naked in the market.

Monopolies… profit derived from monopolies should perhaps be taxed at a higher rate than ordinary profits.

Market shares/globalization… profit derived from activities that have achieved especially large local or global market shares should perhaps be taxed at a higher rate than ordinary profits.

Financial returns produced by the fact that banks because of implicit government guarantees are able to hold less capital than other normal commercial entities should be taxed at a higher rate than ordinary on their profits… something which they could naturally avoid by simply keeping more capital. 

And then there are those regulatory inequity drivers like pushing quantitative easing flows through a banking system with risk-weighted capital requirements, which so much favoring what is perceived as absolutely safe so much discriminates against what is perceived as risky, and something which of course impedes that liquidity and credit gets to where it is needed the most.

And had it not been for bail-outs and QEs Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century would not stand a chance to have seen the light as so much wealth would have been wiped out. 

And then there is the wealth tax, which if applied in a system where inequalities like those explained above persist, will only end up concentrating wealth more and more among fewer and fewer Plutocrats.

And, of course, perhaps foremost, all those other sources of discrimination that exist and hinders some from having the same opportunities as others... and all those resulting from the many existing inequalities at the start point.

And the list goes on, and the list goes on.. most likely including the low interests too.

And I also utterly dislike those who are only out to make a buck on the redistribution of wealth. If there is going to be redistribution do it through a system that guarantees that at least 99% goes where it was supposed to go… and that it all does not end in the hands of for equality fighting opportunists

But before ending let me pose the BIG Q.: Professor Thomas Piketty. What’s better, to live in your own inequality, or in somebody else’s equality?

A wondrous world!

“The persistence of global imbalances brings with it an important financial stability issue—the problem of sustaining the financial flows needed to support the imbalances.”

From the Global Financial Stability Report by the International Monetary Fund, April 2007, page 15

The current analysis of the remittances takes the eyes away from much bigger issues

The press announces that “Migrants send home $62bn to Latin America and Caribbean” and the commentaries that generally follow evidence how much, by focusing the attention on the remittances as such and which could in fact be compared to the cash dividends of the corporate world, the development banks might be missing so much of the real story.

If these remittances represent 15% of what the migrants earn then the real underlying economic activity is worth more than $420bn, and a country such as El Salvador has just as much GNP produced by its emigrants abroad than the GDP produced in el Salvador; and who is to argue that someone from El Salvador is less El Salvadoran just because he works abroad.

This calculation does also evidence that way too much detailed and expensive attention has been given to the analysis of what channels are used for the remittances, and the costs of these transfers. Frankly, in my book, this amounts almost to a lack of respect for the migrants since indeed these transfers do certainly represent the least of their thousands of problems and hardships.

Let us hope the development agencies will soon start looking at the real issues, such as how to increase the earning potential of these millions of sacrificed migrants; such as helping in the development of temporary migrant worker programs that satisfy the interests and meet the concerns of all parties; and to study whether they migrants could be better off reinvesting their savings in their own and their children’s educations instead of perhaps only ending up providing temporary support to their ineffective national governments who most probably were the main cause of why they had to emigrate in the first place; and to the rate of that heart-drain by which they might start to forget their homeland and how to slow it down.

Now, while analyzing all these issues, let us please never forget that all these remittances are of a very private nature; no different from any money a son could send his mother in a developed country; and so we need all to be extremely respectful of that.

Lost in the water of globalization

I have just returned from a trip to Central America (October 2000) during which I noted that an important issue in the debate on how to improve public services like water and power was the awarding of concessions to international water companies. I thought at that moment, not without some sadness, how some cultures that hundreds of years ago were expert at building and managing their aqueducts have today simply given up even trying.

Having three daughters of different ages, I have several times had to watch a movie aimed at adolescents called Clueless (in fact, it’s a great movie, and I might be using my daughters just as an excuse). In this movie a young girl tries to pass the exam for her driver’s license. After being severely reprimanded by her instructor for not knowing how to park her vehicle, she curtly answers back with the excuse that valet parking could be had everywhere. I feel that today many of us react in the same way to the difficulty of improving our public services and making them more efficient: “why try so hard when foreign investors can do it?” 

Evidently it is very often necessary to invest a considerable amount of resources or advanced technological know-how in order to offer an efficient and economically viable public service to the end user. In these cases a country may not have any alternative but to call on international investors and offer them a deal. However, in those cases where the only thing that is required to make a project go forward is good administration and a sound strategy for creating and maintaining relationships with users, specifically addressing issues such as quality and tariffs, it is difficult to condone the lack of desire to find a local solution to a local problem. One asks simply where we stand on our ambitions as a nation. 

You may ask what, for example, the administration of water systems or the distribution of power has to so with being a nation. The answer is probably “directly—nothing.” However, building a nation is not easy and requires at a minimum that its society learn how to resolve certain problems on its own. Taking the easy way out and simply calling in foreign assistance in order to solve problems in the water or power sectors could be compared to parents doing their child’s homework to insure a good grade while at the same time not allowing the child to learn how to do thing on his or her own.

Much of the pressure that creates the conditions for the sale of concessions of public services to multinational companies comes from multilateral agencies. You know the saying, “Do not give a man a fish, but teach him instead how to fish”? On occasion I ask myself whether these agencies “are not really asking developing countries to sell their fish-rods and their oceans. 

In Venezuela, we are close to renewing our efforts to privatize certain public services. In this sense, I feel it is important to ask ourselves without any inferiority complex, whether international investors should or should not have access to these services at all. I make reference to complexes simply because I feel many of us suffer from a “globalization insufficiency” complex that now exceeds that of the ardent nationalism that affected us a few decades ago.

What should we do then, in order to insure that national interests are always present in the privatizations that loom in the future? Above everything else, it is important to recognize that the way the privatization process is designed will either attract or scare away national investors. For example, if in the case of the privatization of a power distribution network the state wishes to obtain a large price for selling the utility which it has owned, a price which must then be passed on to the customers of the network itself, the total costs involved will be so high that they will automatically disqualify or discourage any local investor. If on the contrary, use of the power-generation assets were awarded on the basis of who offers to charge the end user the lowest possible rate, local investors would have a better chance of participating. 

Finally as no one is prophet in his own land, looking for foreign support I wish to make reference to a declaration I heard by David Montgomery, Viscount of Alamein, son of Field Marshall Montgomery (Monty) and the new British Ambassador to Mexico. He maintained that he simply could not understand why Argentina had sold all its public utilities to foreign investors. I do not understand it either, but what I am sure of is that unless we wish to lose our country in the waters of globalization, we must define with utmost clarity some strategic borders, and I don’t mean just our geographical ones. 

How depressing! With so much to be gained from globalization, why do they have to do it the wrong way, and why do they have to start doing it wrong just here and now?

Translated from El Universal, Caracas, October 27, 2000

As published in "Voice and Noise", 2006

Communications in a polarized world

(A speech at the World Bank Communication Forum May 19, 2004. Extracted from Voice and Noise 2006)

Dear Friends,

What I would want to use this precious one-lunch-speech-chance-only for, is to talk about a world where opinions seem to become every day more polarized, which is an issue that has worried me a lot lately, coming as I do, from a very polarized country that is a living proof of the dangers of it.

To illustrate the problem, and as we are supposed to be learning from cases, let me use as an example my very own amateurish case.

I write in green, but my readers can only read me in yellow or blue.

I write in purple, but my readers can only read me in red or blue.

Every week I sit down to craft out an article to publish in a major Venezuelan newspaper. Believing myself to be a sensible man, prone to reasonable attitudes (though some might say that’s just trying to make up for other types of behaviors), I usually find myself on most issues in an in-between position, where I can identify a lot of pros and a lot of cons.

The true challenge for any writer, who is not into darkness, is to transmit the message in the clearest possible way. In this respect, I like to think of myself as a conservative jumper from a diving board who prefers executing the easy-graded jumps well, rather than going for the spectacular triple in-and-outs, where you could indeed score higher, but you could also completely lose your reader trying.

Therefore, after duly taking inventory of all the pros and cons, carefully turning them around and finding suitable allegories and metaphors and similes that illustrate the topic at hand, I finally come up with what I normally believe is quite an excellent script. Cautioned by experience, I then take the script to my editors. If it is in English, to the closest available qualified colleague and, if in Spanish, then even much closer, to my wife Mercedes.

These critical editors, who probably assess my script in somewhat more realistic terms than my self-assessment, at the best murmuring a “so-and-so,” then usually proceed to split up my 5-line sentences into five 1-line sentences, to be shuffled around. Their professionalism is evident since they always seem to come up with a product that means exactly what I intended to say. I never understand how they can take it to pieces and still manage to put it back together again.

I then send the embryo away and sit down and wait until early Thursday morning, I can see the newborn on the newspaper’s Web line.

Let me now describe how my readers, through their e-mails, react to my babies.

They mostly start with a direct Per Kurowski, as many believe that “Per” is my title and not my name and just as many think that Kurowski is not my name but my alias. In life, I am frequently greeted with an “Oh! Per Kurowski, I didn’t think you existed.”

Their responses classify then in the following three significantly different categories:

“I hate your yellow . . . despicable . . . how could you . . . . Have you no shame?”

“I hate your blue . . . despicable . . . how could you . . . . Have you no shame?”

“Oh, thank you for explaining it so well and in such clear terms!”

Although I obviously prefer the amicable intentions of the third group, and they do help support my ego, I am still never sure whether their praise of my explanatory power is because they managed to see the green I wanted to show them, or just because they saw an even brighter yellow or blue.

And this is the big polarization that is blocking communications and creating worldwide divides.

In 1872, the British Parliament decreed Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park of London as a place reserved for free expression, and initially it attracted all those extremists who, although qualifying as nuts, still had the right to vent their opinions. Lately, we have all witnessed how the original Speaker’s Corner speakers moved into Speaker’s Studios and now radicalism, anarchy, or fundamentalism is voiced on prime-time television. All of us others, modest low-key analyzers or rational in-betweens, have to settle gratefully for slots in after-midnight cable television, dubiously sponsored by the most traditional professional services. As rationality could soon be viewed as symptomatic of a modern nut, we might all have to line up at Speaker’s Corner.

As you understand, this polarization poses many challenges.

How on earth, in an ever more colorblind world, can we be sure the reader knows what color we talk about?

How on earth do we know that we have communicated, when clearly rating is not all nor should be an end it itself and, on the contrary, sometimes a big rating just guarantees a bigger confusion, as when everyone finds it easy to read in his preferred color.

How on earth do you communicate, when the receiver is no longer decoding the message into its yellow or blue components, but only receiving the whole message, as is, through his one and only yellow or blue pipeline? There are times I actually suspect we are going through a genetic mutation, in response to modern information overload.

And friends, this is not a problem just in communications, as color blindness can hit us anytime, anyway, and anywhere. For instance, in the World Bank, most of those who currently speak about Public-Private Partnerships do so only because they feel they have found a more politically correct way of defending a 100% private or a 100% public alternative and not because they would truly believe in PPPs, or even understand what they are.

As you can understand, this raises all types of serious issues, especially for a World Bank that wants and needs to communicate so much Knowledge with Yellows and Blues but that—for it to become the development Wisdom the world so urgently needs—must all be mixed into various degrees of Green.

So, what do we do? You tell me. You are the experts! Anyhow, armed with the blissful ignorance of an amateur, let me daringly point out some directions.

We can perhaps keep it a very simple green so that there is no way it could take a blue or a yellow meaning, though running the risk of watering down the message so much, that it is just ignored.

Or—we can complicate it so much that the receiver is blocked from any channeling of the message, as he cannot even start to understand it. Though this does not at all sound very promising, it might in fact be the route some researchers in the World Bank are exploring. Just last week, I read a document that was very cleverly obscured in academic jargon, mentioning “modeling this in a tractable way using autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity” and including so many footnotes that a comparable reference to healthful food would most certainly have included a note: “(Mother. 1958. Published on the magnet memo board on the Fridge)

Or—keep the colors so pure that a blue channel would choke on a yellow message and vice versa. This could be a stupendous idea, but only if we were looking to be ordained as High Priests of the Purist Blue or the Purist Yellow Churches.

Or—do we need really to diversify and open two or three Web sites? One for each color extreme and one for the mix, and how do we hyperlink them?

Or—should we use ex-ante censorship, like some radio and TV channels, where you are only allowed to call in your opinions on line yellow or line blue, to help the producer avoid mixing colors? By the way, this new era of media apartheid seems already to produce its counterrevolutionaries as we can already hear an insurgent movement of color cheaters, the blues on line yellow and the yellows on line blue.

Or—set up ex-post filters with questionnaires that the receiver is obliged to answer before being allowed to leave?

Now, as long as I have you all sitting there, let me also dare some recommendations that could generally help the World Bank in reaching out to a world that does not seem to hear even our loudest fire alarms.

First, I dislike the concept of “The Knowledge Bank,” as it sounds too much like arrogant yellowist or blueist to me, and I would much rather prefer a more humble “The Search for Solutions and Answers Bank” or, even better, “The Learning Bank”: knowledge comes from learning, and the Bank—although having acquired a significant stock of cumulative knowledge over sixty years of operations—has still a lot to learn from its clients. Such an approach would stand a better chance to transform its knowledge pool into wisdom, which, at the end of the day, is what the developing and the developed world really needs.

Second, we need to start talking more with the world instead of with one another, hoping the world listens in. I myself would prohibit the use of all acronyms. I am certain that Mary Poppins would never have been able to communicate as effectively had she used an SCE instead of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, much less Shakespeare had he used a TBONTB instead of a To Be Or Not To Be. Today, I tell you after having asked around, the sad fact is that our lead product, the MDGs, has very low name recognition among the NONNGOs, the normal citizens, and this does not bode well for our future. Do we need a flashy MDG logo?

Third, whatever we do, let us not badmouth the NGOs, since they might very well be, at least for the time being, the only wall that echoes our voice and so, without them, we could find ourselves with virtually no voice at all.

Fourth, we all might benefit from better focusing. Doing and communicating about so many things, ninety and then some thematic themes, might signify, or at least leave the impression, that we are not doing anything at all—which might also be true. For instance, the way the Board is drowned in tons of communications, might be exactly the reason why, frankly, it is currently quite nullified.

Fifth, I believe that it would not hurt if we also lighten up our ways of verbal expression. It has lately become an unbearable fashion to speak in a grave voice, in a tone of solemnity, and with an accent that could come only from using the same tutor as Robert Williams used for the role of Ms. Doubtfire.

Finally, as for myself, as a true green, a radical of the middle, an extremist of the center, with perhaps poor ratings and condemned for ever to Hyde Park Corner, I will go on, doing just the best I can, searching to communicate with simple natural and organic ingredients, while following Dori’s safeguards of … just keep swimming … just keep swimming.

Thank you and, now I am ready for your answers.

NO ANSWERS … just questions, some on the issue of voice.

Q. What do you think about more voice for the developing countries?

A1. Before we worry about our voices in the Bank we should perhaps worry about the voice of the Bank. The sad fact is that were it not for a couple of NGOs, the whole world might be unaware of our existence. Hey! They even ignored our 60th Birthday. We were not able to rouse up even 60 protesters. Is that not a sign of irrelevance?

A2. I could have a big voice and still not be heard at a Knick final at Madison Square Garden, or out in the desert of Tucson. I could have a small voice, and still be heard a lot, if the acoustics are right and so, let us work on the acoustics. At this moment, with about a thousand formal board documents that come our way each year, plus about four thousand other projects, plus about a hundred seminars and brown-bag lunches, plus having to call home now and again, in fact no one at the Board has a voice … and so in the famous words of Alfred E. Neuman: “What, Me Worry?

PS. Some posts by which I started to fight odious polarization profiteers

Red and blue, or, red or blue

PS. The "yellow, blue or green" I speak of above had its origin in an Op-Ed I wrote in Venezuela. Translated to the USA it would read as, "red, blue or purple". That Op-Ed ended with: 

"Friends, how do you communicate something when the receiver is no longer able to separate the yellows, blues or green resulting from the mix and only knows how to capture it through a single unicolor channel? This problem of media color blindness is not unique to Venezuela, since it seems that humanity is mutating, probably in reaction to the exaggerated volume of information in the modern world. Will the day come when we will never be able to see green again?"

Distinctively alike

PS. That Speaker’s Corner I then said had moved to TV Speaker’s Studios has now moved to Social Media, where you can connect with millions with a zero marginal cost. Never ever has Speaker's Corner been so dangerous.

PS. A decade later I came to suspect that the most profitable business in town is polarization. “You attack me as hard as you can, I attack you as hard as I can, we convince our followers we are the best ones to save the world from the horrible threat each one of us poses… and then we split the profits 50-50”

PS. Social media, which allows polarization and redistribution profiteers to send out their hate and envy messages at zero marginal cost, has become social harmony’s worst enemy.

PS. It is now 2018, polarization is getting worse, and I have found myself forced to tweet comments like:

“Since things got way out of line during the White House Correspondence Dinner, and ordinary decency was abandoned, at least the polarization profiteers had a bad night. And that’s good news, for all of us citizens.”

To: “When the constipated Left and the smug Right blow off in social media...True to the laws of physics, when two identically charged particles meet, they repel each other”... I answered, “Are you sure of that? What if many of these Left/Right members are just the same, namely polarization profiteers engaging in fake fighting?”

“The polarization profiteers are having a heyday exploiting the “separated children” issue up to the tilt with blatant exaggerations and crocodile tears. I am afraid that will backfire on those we wish to protect.”

“Are polarization profiteers throwing first stones? That anti-Trump restaurant owner who booted out Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is he appealing to the same refusal rights as those in that case where someone refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple?”

"It saddens many of us seeing John McCain exploited by polarization profiteers, and not being able to publicly rebuff them, as he could and did while being alive"

"I saw some twitter threads generated by the Nathan Phillips vs. Covington Catholic School incident. I now ask, how long before polarization profiteers convince their respective targeted and exploited tribe members to tattoo themselves in best MS-13 fashion?"

Polarization Profiteers must be stopped!

We should keep a ranking on the web of the 100 most aggressive and insidious polarization profiteers continuously updated, so as to shame them accordingly.


PS. April 13th 2019, when walking on Fleet Street I heard a 7-8 years old girl ask:
"Mommy, what's worse murder or Brexit?”

Now in the US, 2020, any moment I expect a child ask her mother"
"Mommy, what's worse Trump or Coronavirus?”

We sure are suffering the impact of a polarization pandemic😡

Main and social media write in red or blue, purple is all but gone 

Coronavirus / COVID19 has provided all polarization profiteers an extremely potent resource that they are now exploiting up to the hilt

PS. April 15, 2019 I went to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park London, sadly I heard the sound of silence, there was no one speaking there, there was no one but me there :-(

Indeed Speaker's Corner has been relegated to history

PS. Dated 2020: When a majority of social media, teams up with a majority of the main media, all in order to imposing political correctness gags, thereby silencing not-fitting facts and impeding frank discussions, that dangerously weakens any nation’s willingness to defend itself.

PS. Dated 2020: The most dangerous underlying condition of Covid-19, is that it broke out in the midst of a raging Polarization Pandemic, in which way too many polarization profiteers have a vested interest in blocking the development of a harmony vaccine.

PS. November 2020: In these times when we are all suffering the impacts of a worldwide raging polarization pandemic, whether the loser in USA’s presidential elections is Biden or Trump, is of much less importance than the losses produced in the democratic spirit of America

PS. January 2021: Social media threatens the survival of newspaper so these have sought refuge in more profitable polarization and bad/false news. So, paraphrasing Upton Sinclair "It is difficult to get a journalist to report the truth, when his salary depends upon his not reporting it!"

PS. January 2021: Can it be that the Senior Advisory Committee of the Institute of Politics at Harvard among its members have explicitly declared not to include one single of those 72 million Americans who voted for Trump? Please tell me I’m wrong.

PS. March 2021: The battle of our times: Herd Immunity vs. Herd Docility

#AI #ChatGPT #Grok: Help us human to be undivided: on abortion.
#AI #ChatGPT #Grok: Help us human to be undivided: on gun control

In 2023 I asked ChatGPT: "Could AI be used for constructing political-bias-index Apps, which could in real time indicate where between defined political extremes an opinion article finds itself? If so, could those Apps be deemed to limit the freedom of expression?"

Time to scratch each other’s backs

Do you remember the ‘no-driving day’ in Venezuela? Somebody’s brilliant idea to ease congestion! Depending on your license plate number, there was one day a week when you couldn’t drive your car. Even if the idea had worked, I still would never have liked it because, as traffic kept growing, logic would lead us towards a blind alley as—inevitably—the next step would be two no-driving days, then three, all the way up to seven, when everything comes to a complete standstill. It’s rather like applauding the fact that a patient’s breathing problems have ceased—because the patient died. 

There’s a hint of all coming to a standstill in the theory about how globalization will optimize the world economy, by ensuring that merchandise will always be produced at the lowest marginal cost. What good does it do us to have products where the cost of the labor component gets smaller by the minute, if workers can’t buy the very products they produce?

What could be waiting for us at the end of that tunnel is a world of desperate wage earners, willing to work for pennies, who might never be able to afford even a reasonable part of the fruit of their efforts. Doesn’t it seem as if we’re getting nowhere?

This wouldn’t be as much of a problem if there were more jobs than workers, but unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Just ask the millions of professionals competing for jobs as taxi drivers in the world’s capital cities! Not even the United States has managed to escape unharmed from the pangs of globalization. In fact, over the past few months, for the first time, we have seen economic growth in the United States coupled with an increase in unemployment. As it turns out, over the past three years, the United States has “exported” 2.5 million jobs to low-wage countries like China.

I don’t have a solution. How can we increase profits, create jobs, increase wages, put an end to poverty, and make everybody happy? Nonetheless, sometimes I’ve toyed with the idea of a macro global fiscal reform aimed at creating jobs. The principle behind it would be that whoever requires the most services ends up creating the most jobs, and so should end up paying the least taxes. Under such a system, you’d pay double sales taxes on a frozen pizza you eat at home; standard sales tax on a pizza you order over the phone for home delivery, while a pizza eaten at a restaurant wouldn’t just be tax free; it would automatically be credited on your income-tax return. 

Friends, let’s give one another jobs, scratching each other’s backs—paying each other good salaries of course.

From El Universal, Caracas, August, 2003

Excited about the Constituent Assembly 2000

Like many Venezuelans, I have reflected on the Constituent Assembly. At first, I was one of those who believed that although it was true that it seemed necessary to make some changes to our Constitution, these, in any case, could be made through reforms, without the need to resort to what would undoubtedly be a process cumbersome.

Today, when the Constituent Assembly, due to its reception, is almost an accomplished fact, my approach becomes one of "if we are going to do it, let's do it well." Analyzed from this point of view, shaken off the fear of the process and embraced the hope of its potential, I must admit that I have become a fervent and enthusiastic defender of the Constituent Assembly.

My enthusiasm multiplied when I discovered that Venezuela has, at this moment, the unique opportunity to create, for the world, the first Constitution of the next millennium. To be able to live up to these circumstances, I believe it is essential to apply the Chinese proverb, which asks us to aim high for the stars because, even when we do not reach them, we will reach much higher than if we aim for something closer.

I do not downplay the importance of history and I believe that we can and should extract a lot of knowledge from it, when drafting a constitution. However, giving excessive importance to constitutional experts could make us lose an opportunity to thoroughly modernize our constitutional reality.

I accept that there are necessary reforms, which are situated within the context of a traditional constituent debate, such as those that concern the judicial power and the tax capacity of states and municipalities.

Likewise, we require reforms that arise from our own realities. Among these and given our disastrous experience, is that of limiting the State's debt. Because I am absolutely certain that, from time to time, we will have governments incapable of resisting the siren songs, ending up, at no cost, by mortgaging the future of other generations of Venezuelans, I believe that the limitation on the State debt must be have constitutional rank. If Venezuela had not incurred its external public debt, because there is a constitutional provision that prohibits it, I swear to you and I bet you my entire professional career, that thanks to that Constitution, Venezuelans today, "would go better to the supermarket."

Another reform, one of those originating in our own reality and that I consider necessary, is one that establishes the obligation that in the administration of State companies, there is effective representation of civil society. For example, I believe that a PDVSA Board of Directors, whose members were elected by popular vote, rotating a certain percentage of them in each national election, could be an excellent option, to ensure that there is no undue pressure from the political sector or of the oil technocrats.

Notwithstanding all of the above, at this time, what I most wish to highlight is the fact that, as a result of the great changes that have occurred in the world, there is an urgency to introduce constitutional considerations on aspects that have never been contemplated. , in their Magna Cartas, for any country. Allowing me, for these purposes, to suggest the following:

• The information revolution. If it can be stated that "a Democracy with hunger is not Democracy", it must be more valid to say that "a Democracy without information is not Democracy either." Is it not a citizen's right to be able to know the public payroll, the amount of the country's external debt, the “real” recoveries of Fogade, etc.?

There is no doubt that the technology that exists today, to collect and disseminate information, allows a society to have the right to demand from its rulers a level of information, dramatically different, than what could be contemplated when the constitutions currently in force were drafted. I believe that in our 2000 Constitution, the right of the citizen to be informed about government management, in a valid, detailed and real-time manner, should be enshrined.

• The power of advertising. Had they known, in their time, the impact that advertising media have today, I am sure that the drafters of the current constitutions would have introduced limitations to official advertising. The Nation, states, municipalities, government entities and/or state companies should be prohibited from spending a single cent on paying for advertising, clearly aimed at promoting the personal and political image of any public official on duty.

• The globalization. Without a doubt, just trying to redefine the concept of Nation, within what is a world, where global relations intensify, second by second, is a challenge whose importance is lost from sight. How proud it would be for Venezuela to be able to rediscover itself, in a way that guides and illuminates other countries that are lost, which is probably all of them.

Let us enthusiastically face the challenge of showing the world that Venezuela is capable of producing a Constitution that will be an example for the next millennium. Otherwise, not only will we have wasted a historic opportunity, but, to make matters worse, soon after, we would surely have to convene another Constituent Assembly...

Economía Hoy January 12, 1999

My Constitutional wish list

As do many Venezuelans these days, I have dedicated some time to reflection about the Infamous Constituent Assembly (La Constituyente). 

At the beginning I was among those that believed that, although it is true that our Constitution requires some changes, these changes could be made without having to go through what seemed to be an unnecessarily complicated process.

Today, this assembly, due to its enormous public appeal, is basically a done deal. My outlook, therefore, is now more in the realm of “if we are going to do it, let’s do it properly”. Having analyzed this point of view, having expunged my fear of the process and having embraced the hope in its potential, I must admit I have now become a fervid supporter of the Constituent Assembly.

My enthusiasm is based on the fact that Venezuela now has the opportunity to create the first new Constitution of the next millennium in the world. It is our challenge and our responsibility to ensure that this Constitution is in line with the requirements of this next millennium. To achieve this, we must follow that ancient Chinese proverb that states something like: aim for the stars, and although you may not reach them, you will surely reach higher than if you had aimed at something within easy reach.

I certainly don’t wish to minimize the importance of history. Certainly, we must take heed and learn from the past if we wish to come up with a good Constitution. 

However, if we allot excessive importance to the gaggle of “constitutional experts” that surround us today, we will most surely miss the opportunity to truly modernize our Constitutional reality.

I accept the fact that there are various reforms that are based on traditional constitutional debate. Among these are, for example, those that correspond to reforms in the judicial system and in the fiscal capacity of decentralized entities such as the States and the Municipalities to create and collect taxes.

Likewise, there are other reforms that are born out of our own particular realities. Among these, I have given special attention to the following two reforms.

The first is a strict constitutional restriction on public indebtedness, specially in light of our disastrous experience in the past. This is vital for our country, since we know with absolute certainty that every now and then, the government of turn will not be able to resist the bankers’ siren song, incurring in debt and mortgaging the futures of several generations of Venezuelans without producing tangible results. These limitations on indebtedness should be established in our Constitution.

The second reform born out of our own realities, is one that inserts an effective representative of civil society between the political and technocratic sectors. I personally consider that the Petroleum sector as well as other productive activities undertaken by the State (Sidor, CVG and Pequiven) should be governed by a Board of Directors whose members are elected by popular vote, rotating a percentage of them at every national election.

Notwithstanding the above, what I really wish to address is the fact that as a result of the profound changes that have occurred worldwide, it is urgent that we introduce aspects based on today’s realities that were never taken into account by any country in the world when drafting previous Constitutions, simply because similar problems never existed before. Among these I can highlight the following:

The information revolution: If we can say that a democracy with hunger is not democracy, we can also safely state that a democracy without information is also not democracy. 

Without a doubt, new technological advancements that make the collection and dissemination of information quick and easy also give societies the right to demand of its governments a level of information that dramatically exceeds the level present at the moment the world’s existing Constitutions were drafted. 

In this sense, Venezuela’s next Constitution must include the citizens’ right to be informed as to the government’s management of the Nation’s affairs. This information must be valid, truthful, detailed and in real-time.

The power of publicity: Should the drafters of previous Constitutions have been aware of the immense power that the public media can wield, I am absolutely sure that they would have included an article that limits the amount of publicity that governmental entities can undertake. 

To begin with, they would have put a stop to the spending often undertaken by a Nation, a State, a Municipality or a governmental agency or company on behalf of, and to promote the name of, a particular public official.

Globalization: Without a doubt, to try to redefine the concept of a “Nation” within a world in which global relationships intensify second by second is a challenge of incredible importance. 

What a source of pride it would be for Venezuela if we could find our way forward in a way that would guide and illuminate the other countries around the world (probably all of them) that have lost their way. 

Let us face this challenge with enthusiasm and show the world that Venezuela is capable of producing a Constitution that is an example for the world of the coming millennium. 

If we don’t achieve this, we will have wasted a golden historic opportunity. Worse still, we will soon have to call for another Constituent Assembly.

PS. 2023 I asked ChatGPT and in 2025 Grok: Can you visualize Artificial Intelligence being used to measure the effectiveness of governments? They both say YES!

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2023/08/ai-chatgpt-openai-can-you-visualize.html

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2025/03/grok-can-you-visualize-artificial.html

 

Let's, all whakapohane!

I remember having read a few years back about one particular method used by the Maori of New Zealand to protest about something that bothered them. This method consists of lining up a group of Maori tribesmen, turning their backs towards the person or persons that are the target of the protest, dropping their trousers and showing them their naked backsides. This rite is named Whakapohane. 

Without delving further into this tradition, and in spite of the fact that it seems primitive and is most certainly an ugly spectacle, I think it could be also classified as a civilized and most efficient way to protest. Civilized because it does no damage to anyone or anything (except to those people with a well-developed sense of esthetics) and efficient because it manages to consolidate into one single act and gesture all the sense we could possibly assign to a real social sanction.

There is no doubt that we are often frustrated at not being able to find a way to vehemently protest about the stupid, naive and criminal behavior that negatively affects our country on a daily basis.

The idea of putting together a group of citizens, family men, professionals and white-collar workers with briefcases and ties and heading out to the street to shamelessly whakapohane any deserving person is appealing. Consider the following:

What has been demonstrated without doubt over the past decades in Venezuela is an utter incapacity by government to manage its resources. The International Monetary Fund, for example, predicates that the solution to Venezuela's problems can be found by giving government even more resources to squander by way of increased taxes (as if our oil income wasn't enough taxation).

Clearly, the IMF deserves an act of Whakapohane from our citizens. 

Banking charters are usually awarded in order for them to participate actively in the development of the country's economy.

It is not enough for them to simply return the funds they have received on deposit, since if this were so, it would be better to simply buy a good mattress and put it into a large safe.

There are still many who think it is best to be puritan and to simply continue to tighten the screws on financial solvency of banks without paying attention to the real purpose of banking institutions These people deserve a solid Whakapohane.

There are many national authorities that evidently are aware of the damage to economies that short-term capital flows can cause, and also know that other countries have put workable legislation into place to limit these damages.

They cannot be bothered to take the 48 hours required to simply copy this legislation and enact it in Venezuela. There is no doubt that these authorities deserve to be Whakapohaned.

Those people related to the oil sector that have not been able to either see or warn the country about the possibility of a fall in world oil prices, who, in spite of arguing in favor of conquering new markets, run for cover behind OPEC's skirts when confronted with adverse situations, and who continue to invest scarce resources in projects of low significance such as the expansion of our gasoline stations' capacity to sell snacks, should certainly be offered a great Whakapohane.

Many illustrious representatives of the private sector applauded the privatization of CANTV, without realizing that it was all an elaborate trick perpetrated by the government to collect taxes in advance which we now have to cover through exaggerated service charges. These guys are due a good Whakapohane.

Those die-hard defenders of free trade who simply do not understand that in a globalized world economy each country must, when the chips are down, defend itself and guarantee a minimum internal level of employment should be urgently Whakapohaned.

The entire political and economic system is based on centralized income and decentralized personal apparatchiks.

Members of this system have not been able to come up with a real solution to our problems and should be considered traitors.

They should all be paraded to La Carlota Airport and given the Mother of all Whakapohanes .

We have heard that one of the people most clearly and widely questioned in our recent history is due to return to Venezuela after statutes of limitations have expired.

Just imagine what a marvelous message a small delegation of our "notables" dispatched down to Maiquetía to receive that person with a mini-Whakapohane would send. 

We should definitely not lightly discard the possibility of introducing an ancestral aboriginal custom from New Zealand in to the Venezuelan political scheme . 

Whakapohaners of the world, unite! The alternative are much worse.

Spanish translation

The first version was a blue one

Then, I don't know when... some applied the original concept