Chavez's gasoline rationing plan causes uproar

[Bacchus4.0]

http://news.yahoo.com/chavezs-gasoline-rationing-plan-causes-uproar-210016269.html

By FABIOLA SANCHEZ | Associated Press – Fri, Jul 20, 2012Related ContentFILE- In this Jan. 29, 2008 file …
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — As home to the world's cheapest gasoline, Venezuela has long had to contend with the hemorrhaging of supplies as smugglers haul gas across the border to cash in where the fuel costs far more.

In neighboring Colombia, drivers pay 40 times as much as Venezuelans to tank up — $1.25 a liter ($4.73 a gallon), compared to 3 U.S. cents a liter (11 cents a gallon).

So much gasoline is being taken out of Venezuela illegally that President Hugo Chavez's socialist government imposed rationing on motorists in one state bordering Colombia last year, and now it's touched off a furor in a second border state by announcing it will ration gasoline there, too.

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Rationing in Tachira, home of the busiest Colombia-Venezuela border crossing, varies with a motor vehicle's size, location and use. Private automobiles in the border town of San Cristobal are limited to buying no more than 42 liters (11 gallons) a day, for example, while buses are limited to 150 liters (40) gallons.

[dipsydoodle]

1. I don't blame him if that's what's happening

Subsidised fuel is for the benefit of the population of Venezuela : not outsiders.

[joshcryer]

2. Venezuelans are afraid it will go national. Capriles has used it as campaign rhetoric.

Making Capriles for unmitigated subsidization and Chavez for rationing. It's been pretty effective.

But yeah, the policy of subsidized fuel has always been a bad one. There has been a long term black market for cheap Venezuelan fuel in Colombia. Spend a few bucks to fill your car up in Venezuela, drive over the border, come back with a car load of food and other items.

Don't forget to bribe the border police. They'll take your money with a smile.

[Bacchus4.0]

3. the cheap gas doesn't exactly encourage conservation

for the most part, cars in South America are small fuel efficient variety. Its been a decade since I've been there but Venezuela had the big American gas guzzlers.

[joshcryer]

5. It doesn't help that the poorest don't even have cars and it subsidizes...

...the more affluent and the smugglers more than anything (I mean really, billions of dollars lost? It's crazy). They had planned to roll out a huge bus system but it still hasn't happened. It's crazy. Roll that out, give free bus rides, and pow, you have a real subsidy that actually helps the poorest people.

Eventually Venezuela is going to have to implement the rationing (basic idea is first tank is almost free, the next tank is going to cost you). I just think it's amusing that Capriles, the freaking tax lawyer, is championing nearly free gas while the Chavista's are trying to close the loophole (and doing so poorly, since, let's be honest, the casual border crossers who just go to Colombia to get food or other goods, are not nefarious, they're just trying to make ends meet, you can't blame them).

[Bacchus4.0]

7. good point, its a middle class/upper class subsidy. the gas comes from the US if I am not mistaken

as Ven doesn't have the refining capability. there is no way that 11 cents can represent cost.

[KansDem]

4. No wonder corporatists hate Hugo...

He doesn't permit gouging the consumer.

Chavez made reference to the new rationing measures for Zulia, one of 24 Venezuelan states, in a campaign speech July 13, saying it is meant to prevent lines at gas stations.

"It's not rationing," he said. "It's a means of control, to give everyone gasoline, because the gasoline here is practically free, so the idea is to give everyone what they need."

What a novel idea! But not very "capitalistic" (We older DUers remember the gas lines of the 1970s when the Saudis, family friends and business partners of the Bush Family, stopped shipping its oil to America, causing rationing and price increases. Probably a historical fact forgotten by Mr. Bajak).

I'm amused by the word "uproar" in the article title. The uproar should be directed to the hoarders and smugglers, but apparently the AP feels differently...

[joshcryer]

6. The hoarders and smugglers couldn't do it if it weren't for border police taking bribes.

And cronyism at the very top. How the fuck are you filling an entire tanker full of gasoline but with a massive mafia style operation? I mean, whole groups of people filling up their tanks, driving to some distributor, then it's loaded into tanks and then on to tankers. It's madness. Pure madness. Just go after the smugglers.

But that is extremely difficult when your own police are taking the bribes to turn a blind eye to the whole thing.

Instead they're trying to stop it at the gas pump but it won't work unless it's nation-wide, and that's what's causing the real uproar. If it gets expanded to another state it's only a matter of time before the entire country has it.