----Chavista
Deputy Pastora Medina: “Corruption cases are overflowing in the country”
Wow! Really? You could have fooled me! I guess she does not
know the new motto of the revolution: Patria, Socialismo o Hummers! ----President
Hugo Chavez: President Hugo Chávez threatening cement plants with
nationalization “I am investigating cement companies, they prefer to export
rather than sell cement in Venezuela,
this is affecting our construction programs” Jeez, nothing like trying to blame someone else for your
incompetence. The opposite is exactly the truth: Cement prices are higher in
Venezuela than in the international markets by 30-40%, thus cement plants
prefer to sell locally than abroad. The reason? Transportation costs. When a
company like Cemex Venezuela exports cements, it leaves for its Pertigakete
plant which ahs a deep port inside and the price is FOB. When it sells in
Venezuela, there are few competitors, bad roads; long distances and thus prices
are higher. -----A new decree was issued on Friday exempting foreign
investors from taxes on the PDVSA n=bonds. The new decree says that the change in the decree was due to
a “material error” in the original one. I guess it would have been to strng to
call it what it was: material ignorance. ----Only
32.4% of all the cooperatives registered with the Superintendence of
cooperatives are still active. That percentage is only good in baseball. ----The Board of telecom company CANTV did
not give an opinion on whether investors should or not accept the
Government’s tender offer. They did exhort the Government to find a solution to
the “manifest inequality” in the price to be paid to foreign investors and
local investors. You see, foreign investors will be paid $14.84 per ADS which
is the equivalent paid in local currency to local investors, but at the
official rate of exchange, which locals have no access to. The group most
affected by this will be the company’s workers who will likely not have a
chance to convert their shares to ADS. On top of that the workers are getting
half of what they originally paid for their shares in US$. There is an easy
solution to this: Have the Government pay everyone in US$. Nothing like the revolution discriminating its own citizens!
5:20:33 PM 
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