Moisés Naím / Financial Times
The enormous influence that Cuba has gained in Venezuela is one of the most underreported geopolitical developments of recent times. It is also one of the most improbable. Venezuela is nine times bigger than Cuba, three times more populous, and its economy four times larger. The country boasts the world’s largest oil reserves. Yet critical functions of the Venezuelan state are either overseen or directly controlled by Cuban officials.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Amid all their vicissitudes, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency leaker, can rejoice in their good luck in at least one aspect: they are not Ecuadorian journalists. They are very lucky that the president of the nation aggrieved by their leaks is Barack Obama of the US and not Rafael Correa.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Latin America’s giant economy urgently needs someone like Facebook’s founder and chairman. Not to disrupt business models but to disrupt its immigration policies – like Mark Zuckerberg is now doing in the US.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Scene 1. Carmen felt both exhausted and thrilled. Exhausted because her 78 years made the 15-hour bus ride too long. And thrilled because she had voted in Venezuela’s presidential election. To do so, she had to travel from Miami to New Orleans, the nearest place where Venezuelans living in South Florida could vote. The long journey was caused by President Hugo Chávez’ decision to close his country’s consulate in Miami. So the 20,000 Venezuelans who live there (most of whom are not Chávez supporters) had to choose between not voting or going to New Orleans. Thousands travelled on buses, cars or aircraft. They voted in the October presidential elections and – after Chávez’ death in March – again in the snap election on April 14 to elect his successor. Television channels in New Orleans broadcast surprising, and very moving, images of young people, couples with babies and elderly voters barely able to walk doing what was necessary just to be able to cast their ballot.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
What do Europe’s economic crisis, Syria’s civil war and global warming have in common? No one seems to have the power to stop them.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
In most of Latin America, February means carnival, and carnival means costumes and dancing in the streets. Venezuela is no exception, save for the fact that carnival also means a devaluation of the currency is highly possible. Since 1983, the country has suffered 10 massive devaluations. Seven were announced during the carnival holidays. It happened again last week, when the government announced a devaluation of more than 30 per cent against the US dollar. This means that during Hugo Chávez’s presidency, the bolivar has been devalued by 992 per cent.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Last Sunday Goliath crushed David. Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s political giant, defeated Henrique Capriles, the 40-year-old opposition candidate, by more than 10 percentage points to win another six-year term leading this oil-rich country. If he completes the term, Mr Chávez will have been in office for two decades.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Mitt Romney is the presidential candidate of one of the world’s oldest and most powerful political machines. Henrique Capriles is the candidate of an ad hoc and inchoate amalgam of Venezuelan political groups. Both men are running against incumbents who are deft politicians with broad popular support, but the similarities end there. The US Republican is running for office in a mature democracy where the incumbent faces strict limits on using the state’s resources in his campaign. Mr Capriles faces Hugo Chavez, one of the world’s longest serving heads of state and an autocrat who has never shied away from treating the nation’s oil wealth as his own or changing laws at will.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
It’s not easy being a former president. The old joke is that ex-presidents are like Chinese vases: everyone says they are very valuable but no one knows what to do with them. Some, like Bill Clinton, continue with a frenetic flurry of activity, others such as Vladimir Putin, do not actually relinquish power while those such as Silvio Berlusconi seem to treat their post-presidential time as a hiatus before running for office again.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Repsol “pursued a policy of pillage, not of production, not of exploration”, the Argentine president thundered on Monday. “They practically made the country unviable with their business policies, not resource policies.” Such was Cristina Fernández’s sulphurous stance as she announced her government was renationalising YPF, the country’s largest oil group.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
The White House should propose a bilateral economic treaty that Brazil’s leader cannot refuse. Such a deal would, of course, be a huge political gamble for a US president facing plenty of difficulties elsewhere. But the benefits for the two countries and the rest of the region would be considerable …”
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
As it begins the search for a new president of the World Bank, the Obama White House risks repeating the very same mistakes that all too often in the past have led to the wrong person being appointed.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
The ancient Greeks thought that “those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.” For them, the surest way to destroy a person is to fill him or her with success, power, prosperity and fame. Excessive success induces inordinate self-confidence, which inevitably leads them to make disastrous mistakes and to failure. Hubris, they called it.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Inequality will be the central theme of 2012. It has always existed and is not going away, but this year it will top the global agenda of voters, protesters and politicians running for office in the many important elections scheduled.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
The elites didn’t revolt and the people didn’t take to the streets. What ended Silvio Berlusconi’s 17-year run as Italy’s most powerful man was the skyrocketing spread between Italian bonds and the German bunds. Had this stayed at under five per cent, Il Cavaliere would still be in power today.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Being stuck in traffic is more bearable if the other lanes are moving. If all lanes are jammed for a long time, tempers flare. And if the police eventually arrive and let a few selected cars get out of their lanes and move through a special path, a riot is likely to ensue. This in short is the sentiment that propels the Occupy Wall St protests. We should take note.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Brazil’s problems of poverty, crime and inequality remain significant. But Brazilians are cheerful, and with good reason: their boom has lifted millions out of poverty and their impressive business performance has seen the nation grow as a global force. But this leads to a common conversation: how long will the party last?
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Uri Dadush and Moisés Naím / Financial Times
During the worst days of the financial crisis, investors and policymakers talked of decoupling, asking if emerging economies would continue to grow if the rich countries crashed. They did. But this spawned another mantra: the two-speed world, in which emerging markets surged even as the advanced nations stagnated. We believe it is time to start talking about another, more ominous moniker for the times ahead: the four-speed world, and the dangers it poses to global growth.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Never say never. Because of the economic crisis, habits that seemed unalterable are suddenly being altered. Americans are now saving more and consuming less. Financial institutions are no longer betting the house on risky investments they do not understand. Many wealthy oil-exporting countries are tightening their belts. Everywhere, change is in the air.
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Moisés Naím / Financial Times
Royal Dutch Shell is one of the world’s largest and most powerful companies. Bolivia is one of the planet’s poorest countries; its gross domestic product is a mere 3 per cent of Shell’s annual revenues. Recently, Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer noted, somewhat meekly, that his company was resigned to accepting Bolivia’s decision to break the contracts it had signed. He said it was no longer a good idea for oil companies to put up a legal fight against the nationalistic policies of countries such as Bolivia. Once upon a time, giant multinationals did not bend to the will of tiny governments. The behemoths of industry did not just stand by as their oil, gas or mining fields were seized under a national banner. They fought back and not just rhetorically.
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