Elections with sanctions are not free

Detractors dismiss oil as excrement. Just as drug traffickers take pains to flood the streets of civilized countries with a wide range of drugs, oil producing countries also have the option of increasing or decreasing supplies according to our geopolitical strategies. Venezuela has the right to restore its oil industry, and it is our moral obligation to demand that Biden administration lifts sanctions against us. Venezuelans have endured recession during several years because we have been prohibited from exporting our main product.

Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran succesfully pursue dedollarization goals, as they increasingly trade in euro, yuan or ruble. Due to our western hemisphere location, Venezuela remains within dollar sphere of influence. We must be removed from enemy category. United States Congress has irresponsibly deployed resources to wars. China succesfully argues that diplomacy is cheaper and more effective. New treasury debt should no longer be issued. Austerity seems foreign to shoppers, its value can be learned or imported from abroad.

Treasury debt was considered healthy when it was capped to only 50% of Gross Domestic Product, as was the case in the 1980s. Thirty-one trillion dollars of securities must be smashed, to a more reasonable reading of eleven trillion dollars of interest-generating debt. United States Congress should set target of 50% debt to gdp ratio. Inspiration is available by discipline shown by the Federal Reserve, which will stubbornly ensure that yearly inflation rate returns to 2% target. Excuses supporting anything else belong to banana republics.

Unitary Platform negotiator Gerardo Blyde is dismissed as lousy by such peers as Milos Alcalá Ambassador. No negotiator whatsoever is able to persuade Venezuelans to voluntarily endure and welcome further sanctions. Elimination of sanctions must be carried out as soon as possible, since they generate negative expectations on our economic growth, whose recovery we must promote. 

Dialogue must include economic sectors of Venezuela willing to promote investments in the country. Issues of human rights are being duly processed by International Criminal Court, according to the leadership of Tamara Suju, who receives adequate funding for such activities. So the dialogue focuses on the need to lift sanctions to promote economic freedoms.

Career politicians issue a string of complaints regarding division of opposition. To achieve unity, we must project optimism and a vision of future. Career politicians desire to be awarded positions if their parties win the next electoral festivities, contravening citizen's desire to immediately access the international financial system, which vetoes us through sanctions.

International community extends beyond United States, European Union and United Kingdom. These countries are our main oil clients, eager to receive our supplies in this context of high crude oil prices. At the beginning of the Fourth Republic, Venezuela founded OPEC along with Arab countries. Our alliance met last weekend in Caracas and decided convenience of cutting oil supplies, to support prices tending to fall. Countries do not have friends, just interests. Our interest is to sell oil in optimal conditions. Chevron paves the way for oil companies in consuming countries to help us restore the industry, because it is also in their interest.

International community is fed up with political crisis in Venezuela. We foster emigration to overwhelm immigration services of the rest of the world. We wander from country to country, advising citizens of other countries not to vote for specific candidates in foreign elections. Our recommendations are generally not obeyed. 

Venezuelan opposition does have a strategy: promoting maintenance of sanctions, and threatening that sanctions will be lifted if and only if Unitary Platform wins the elections. Thus elections won't be free, because they will condition the country's economic recovery to our voting for certain candidates. Parties do not know how to lose, so it is fashionable to loudly accuse fraud.

Elimination of interim regime in Venezuela is applauded. Four years were mispent by promoting sanctions and emigration. Resentments of diaspora were privileged, to detriment of priorities for Venezuelans residing in our homeland. We demand audit of our assets. U.S. Department of Treasury may no longer rely on a Venezuelan Interim President to become beneficiary of our country's assets, as the position of Interim Presidency has been extinguished. 

Normalcy should be restored by removing sanctions against our country. Bank of England remains determined to keep Venezuela's gold. Those countries are no longer reliable, our assets stuck there seem unrecoverable. In 2023, expansion of the BRICS may introduce an alternative international reserve currency. That is where we must direct energies.

Oppressive economic sanctions are routinely imposed by a handful of countries, aimed to prevent development of the rest of the world. Recent withdrawal and bankruptcy issues in crypto platforms suggest worldwide insolvency, disguised as political retaliation. Sovereign funds locked at financial system of sanctioning countries must be withdrawn. Legal action at International Court of Justice must be attempted to retrieve our wealth from robbery. Alternative central banking must be made available by BRICS to transfer sanctioned funds.

All Crypto businesses should be audited according to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) or United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (USGAAP). Consolidated Financial Statements, including notes and auditor's opinions, of such industry leaders as Binance, Tether or Greyscale should be publicly posted.

Mazar's Group and other crypto auditing firms should reassess their business model, as they migrate into agreed upon procedures, proof of reserves, attestations, and other euphemisms meant to hide deficiencies. Non-compliant auditors no longer supply the old-fashioned, solid audits that investing public requires for basing informed decisions.

Central Banks worldwide must continue increasing nominal interest rates in order to offer positive real interest rates to savers, not just for reducing inflation. Compliant banking industry should regain ability to supply adequate yields. Sound financial alternatives must be made available so that investors discontinue usage of anonymous crypto delinquency.

Wasteful spending by United States government dwarfs accusations against Third World debt crises. Expansionary money supply funds war in Ukraine and Taiwan. Sanctioned assets from Venezuela and Iran should not be collateral for U.S. debt.

Resolve to balance federal budget is a welcome political landmark, after decades of horrid spending that failed to solve violent crime, excessive immigration, unsatisfactory educational levels, and other plagues endured by American society.

U.S government shutdown should be regarded as necessary medicine for a populace accustomed to frivolous borrowing, backed by little tangible output. Downward corrections are meant to eradicate systemic, unprofitable endeavors.

Federal Reserve is bombarded by requests to eliminate its succesful, yet incomplete program of interest rate hikes. Jobs created by permanent bubble remain strong, leading to unanchored expectations of wage spiraling inflation.

Industries subsidized by federal government spending should reassess future sources of revenue. Competition from cryptocurrencies and emerging market alliances compel fiscal restraint, a virtue seldom practiced in U.S. dollar financing.

A number of Third World countries have succeeded in adequate balancing of their national budgets. Such lessons should be learned by the United States if it wishes to reduce erosion of its safe haven reputation. Uncertainty is here to stay.

Urban Photography Maracaibo. Zulima González, 40 Grados Bajo el Sol