Four-hour electric rationing to be implemented in Greater Caracas

[ChangoLoa]

Public utility La Electricidad de Caracas announced on Tuesday a plan on limited power supply beginning next Wednesday at midnight in Greater Caracas, for two-week cycles.

As reported by Javier Alvarado, the president of the major electricity company, the cuts will be on a day-one-day basis, from January 13th through May, and will be divided into six blocks.

Starting on Wednesday, rationing in block A will be from midnight to 4:00 a.m.; from 8:00 a.m. to midday in block B, and from midday to 4:00 p.m. in block C.

Starting on Thursday, the cuts will be implemented in block D from midnight to 4:00 a.m.; from 8:00 a.m. to midday in block E, and from midday to 4:00 p.m. in block F.

Schools, poles, and traffic lights are also included in the scheme. The electricity rationing in the capital city is expected to last five months.

Large private and public hospitals, airports, fire and police stations are the exception to the rule, as well as the media.

Link:
http://english.eluniversal.com/2010/01/12/en_eco_esp_four-hour-electric-r_12A3279811.shtml

[Downwinder]

1. Might I suggest:

Led Light Bulbs - Start saving money today with Led Light Bulbs!

LED Light Bulbs (light-emitting diodes) have come a long way, now able to replace 75-100 watt incandescent bulbs with equivalent light output and only consuming 3-13 watts, the choice to switch to LED home light bulbs has never been easier. The most notable advantages of LED light bulbs over conventional light bulbs are Led light bulbs last upwards of 50,000 hours, so if you buy a LED light bulb today and leave it on for 8 hours a day you will not have to change for over 10 years; Led light bulbs are very efficient and consume very little electricity, so you will see an immediate decrease in your electric bill. For example, a 7 watt LED home light bulb (60 watt direct replacement) will cost $2.00 a year to run left on for 8 hours a day vs. an incandescent which will cost $20.00 and you will have to change it 2-3 times every year. Imagine how much you can save by switching 4-5 fixtures to LED light bulbs! What’s more LED light bulbs are shatterproof, run cool to the touch, and contain no mercury or hazardous substances like CFL’s so the applications are endless and more importantly safer for your home or business. Earthtech Products makes the switch easy featuring LED light bulbs from CREE the world leader in advanced LED modules and stocking a wide range of LED household bulbs comparable to 45-100 watt incandescent bulbs to suit all of your home or business lighting needs.

http://www.earthtechproducts.com/energy-saving-led-light-bulbs.html

[ChangoLoa]

4. I have'em already, Downwinder

Thanks for the advice.

By the way, El Niño happens every 10 years too. Unfortunately, our population grows fast and the electricity demand even faster. So, yes, led light bulbs are a good advice... along with 2 or 3 new power stations.

[Downwinder]

6. I just don't understand why the LED bulbs are so expensive.

With the cost of electronics , they should be cheaper to manufacture than incandescent. Like Germany with solar panels, perhaps Venezuela should start producing LEDs.

[ChangoLoa]

9. Could be interesting

but the Chinese produce them for so cheap...

You know what? We could try gaining short-term competitiveness through devaluation. But it doesn't work, we're not able to produce the food we eat so we buy it in US$, not in our bolivares. Most of the goods people buy are actually paid in US$, even after the devaluation because we almost can't produce them. Just like the price of imports, the real salaries fluctuate with the US$, and so does, more or less, the price of domestic products. So the only thing we end gaining with strong devaluations is strong inflation. How could we possibly compete with the microscopic cost of labor that investors in China are able to impose to their workers? Our people would never accept that and they would be right.

We could also try to protect the sector of LLB... at least for a while. The protection could decrease gradually in order to avoid rent-seeking situations, while some local producers gain competitiveness. But how will they gain it? Will the state help them by investing in research or buying technologies? Lend them money to do so?

But, over all, why the hell would the government bother trying to create a new industrial sector where we have no experience, when it doesn't even assist our traditional industries where we can develop productive clusters?

We have no industrial policy. We still function on the same basis of the IMF's 89 reform.

[Downwinder]

13. Sort of reminiscent of the Raj in India. Make someone dependent on your

industrial production, then when it disappears claim innocence. Also look at the famines during the Raj.

I wish I could help on the food, I have had a garden for the last three years and have not had to purchase any produce. This year I am going to have to locate another plot. The one I was using has been sold.

I was very serious when I commented on another thread about having community food sustainability. To me food is more important than energy. Without energy I can make it to winter. Without food I might make a month. Without water two days(?).

[ChangoLoa]

14. Didn't get your comparison with the Raj.

What do you mean? We can buy from any country, the Indians couldn't. Wasn't that the point?

[Downwinder]

15. The U.S. has made a concerted effort to make ALL of the Americas

dependent on them. Thereby disrupting the local economies. What is the reason that Venezuela is not self sufficient in food supply? You have a long growing season and sufficient land.

[ChangoLoa]

17. No one has ever forced us to buy products from the US in the 20th or the UK in the 19th

We've been free to choose what we buy and where we buy it from for 2 centuries. If we started buying american products in the 20th, it's because they were cheaper and transportation costs where lower than for european products.

Your comparison with India's British Raj doesn't apply to post-1809 Venezuela. We stopped being a captive market 200 years ago when we declared our independence. India was a captive market. They weren't allowed to trade with any other country than the UK, nor produce certain products made in England such as textiles. We were free to choose our trading partners and to develop any activity we could in our domestic economy.

If we aren't food self-sufficient, it's because of our own social trends, not because of the US. Massive rural exodus and the multiplication by 12 of our population in a century are the main reasons. At the beginning of the 20th, we were a poor and rural food self-sufficient country where 75% of the people lived of agriculture. Today, 94% of the population lives in the cities. No country has ever reversed that trend. Urban people don't go back to the farms, even with incentives. Urban folks have developed different consumption habits as well, such as wheat bread instead of maize. And since wheat doesn't grow in tropical areas, we have to import it.

From a historical perspective, we (Venezuela, not talking about Latin America in general) haven't been anyone's victims in this process.

[Downwinder]

21. It's happening all over.

In reversal, federal regulators now propose to limit oil and gas commodities

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/14/AR2010011404472.html?hpid=topnews

[Judi Lynn]

2. Tragic! Vast government handling, or just the kind of thing we're familiar with here?

No one attempted to smear the California governor or the US President any of the times California has had to endure unbearable endless rolling blackouts, brownouts, and other areas of our country similarly affected periodically.

[Downwinder]

3. Councils told to cut gritting by half to protect salt supplies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/12/gritting-cut-salt-supplies-low

[Judi Lynn]

7. Same thing happened here, in Kansas City, Downwinder! All the winter road clearing supplies are gone

and were used up in a split second by local Kansas and Missouri road crews.

Looks like it's everyman/woman for him/herself next time it snows, and we've got frozen rain scheduled, apparently, in the near future!

Not to mention the total catastrophes we get all over the cold areas across the country when there is frozen rain which breaks tree limbs which fall on power lines and black out entire communities.

We personally have been without electricity and heating multiple times for ages, sometimes lasting as long as almost a couple of weeks with the temperature below freezing. People who can either afford their own generators or are able to pick up and move into hotels for the duration are the ONLY ones who don't suffer horrendously, and have their entire lives put on hold, living from second to second, waiting for the heating and electricity to snap back.

In Kansas City a man was found in a house without power last week, frozen totally to death. Damned sad. And what of the other cases we've heard about in which our for-profit power companies have cut off power to homes for insufficient payment during sub-freezing, or during dangerous heat periods, and people have simply dropped dead while trying desperately to stay alive.

Not to mention what has happened in California time after time when people who are ill and depend upon various life-sustain machines for their lives in their homes are suddenly cast into the void. Good grief!

http://www.spaboomblog.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/no-sale.jpg http://news.prestolite.com.nyud.net:8090/images_news/no_sale.png http://hudsongoodsblog.com.nyud.net:8090/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/tavern6.jpeg

"No sale" to those who hope to use every event to lie to US certifiably sane people about leftist Presidents.

[ChangoLoa]

12. Them sheep

America is the center of the world... everything refers to it. If you have nothing to say, talk about how miserable your empire can be sometimes. Really, I'm sorry about the guy who froze to death. That sure won't happen to him in Venezuela, you're right!

Welcome whining oligarchs.

[Peace Patriot]

8. That's a little too subtle for some, Downwinder. The salt SHORTAGE is in ENGLAND,

where they have SOCIALIZED medicine, which is probably responsible for the CRITICAL salt SHORTAGE, so important to KEEPING ROADS OPEN with England getting hit with unseasonable COLD, which is no doubt due in some way to SOCIALIZED council housing and NOT to global climate destabilization caused by "first world" corporate polluters--but it all ultimately goes back to HUGO CHAVEZ, who keeps selling oil to fucking polluters and using the money for lavish SOCIALIST schoolbooks with COLOR pictures and for SUBSIDIZED food, for godssakes, which is JUST KILLING some middle class business people whose LITTLE GROCERY STORES are even now being invaded by JACKBOOTED HUGO CHAVEZ SOLDIERS who are SHOOTING FOOD!

----------------------

"The government has ordered councils and the Highways Agency to reduce gritting levels by up to 50% after admitting that major roads could be closed as salt supplies run dangerously low across Britain."--Dan Milmo, transport correspondent for The Guardian

[ChangoLoa]

10. Don't soil the word "socialism", girl. nt

[Downwinder]

11. And New York is trying to halve salt consumption. Being that salt was

one of the first commodities of trade, is this a failure of the free trade market? What next, a failure of the shell and bead market?

[ChangoLoa]

5. He was in charge of the power generation system and no one attempted to criticize him?

Wow, you sure are a great people for politicians.

:thumbsup:

[social_critic]

18. Smearing

I do recall reading and hearing a lot of smearing during the California electricity crisis. But what I hear is the Venezuelans got themselves into a pretty nasty crisis, their damns are running out of water, their thermoelectric power plants are breaking down, and the government has been neglecting the transmission system. It's pretty serious, and I bet the government isn't going to last very long, they'll get replaced the next election cycle.

[Peace Patriot]

16. Funny we never hear about the 15 to 1 increase in the number of primary care doctors

in Venezuela, or the 8 to 1 increase in primary care centers, or the 30% to 40% reduction in food prices for the poor, or the school lunch programs for 1.8 million children by 2006 (compared to 250,000 in 1999), or the 45% increases in secondary and higher education enrollment (from 1999 to 2006), or the near quadrupling of growth in the number of public schools (1999 vs 2005), or the 314% increase in social spending overall (since 1998; now 20% of GDP), or the poverty rate cut in half (as to cash income--plus new access to education, health care, etc.), or about unemployment cut by 1/3 to 1/2, or the increase of 1.8 million jobs in the private sector (since 1999), or that Venezuela's GDP grew nearly 90% between 2003-2007 (vs 30% in the 1970s expansion), nor any of the other in some cases astonishing achievements of the Chavez government,

yet,

we DO hear news about Venezuela, in the corpo-fascist media and from anti-Chavez posters, but virtually only when Venezuela, say, suffers a drought and a drop in hydroelectric power, or any negative story they can come up with from the vigilant monitors of the Chavez government, and when they can't find anything, they just make shit up--like the awesome bullshit about Chavez being "anti-semitic"--or they consult the CIA newswire and reprint shit like Chavez giving $700,000 to a guy named "Guido" in Miami, to carry in a suitcase through airport customs in Argentina (ahem, he got caught), then returning to Miami and somehow hooking up with a Bushwhack U.S. attorney as a "witness" in a case against other businessmen, alleged to have pressured "Guido" in Miami to keep the Chavez connection quiet, and, in doing so, failed to "register as agents of a foreign government" with U.S. Attorney General Alberto 'torture memo' Gonzales.

45% increases in secondary and higher education enrollment (from 1999 to 2006)

increase of 1.8 million jobs in the private sector (since 1999)

GDP grew nearly 90% between 2003-2007 (vs 30% in the 1970s expansion).

But, hey, "Guido" says Chavez is corrupt. And corp-fascist 'news' monopoly editors say Chavez has hurt corpo-fascist "free speech." And DU posters say Chavez is a fool, a clown, an egotistical despot, a fascist (?!), a dictator, and his repeated endorsement by Venezuelan voters in transparent elections is just "buying votes." (Um, if he is a "dictator," why does he have to 'buy' votes and why couldn't he "dictate" more electricity production in Venezuela?)

These are the kind of things we are bombarded with, in the corpo-fascist media and by the corpo-fascist media trumpeters at DU. It just strikes me as curious, after having just reviewed an exhaustive report on Venezuela's economy and Chavez government actions, that people in this country don't know that the Chavez government has overseen a 45% increase in school enrollment in Venezuela. Think of how many young lives are thus being re-directed out of poverty and desperation, and saved by that policy--to become creative, useful, responsible adults, and to help create a better future for Venezuela!

The Chavez government gets no credit for this, no praise, no acknowledgement of what the odds against it were, how the rightwing fought it--and when they were in charge, utterly neglected education for the poor--how the U.S. government fought it and tried to topple Venezuelan democracy. They did this and much more, despite being under siege. The Chavez government gets no breaks at all.

And this is why I am constantly posting the other side--the pro-Chavez side--because our corpo-fascist media and some DU commenters never do. Their view is completely unbalanced. Maybe Chavez is an egotist and needs to be watched. That's a kind of odd charge to make against a politician. I'm sure that FDR was an egotist. And of course all politicians need to be watched. I watch Chavez, from a distance, through the hostile media and alternative sources. I look for signs that the charges against him are true. I look into it. I read a lot. I review as much factual information as I can find. I check out what other leaders in the region say. I watch vids of Chavez and of Chavez with other leaders and various people. I can't understand the Spanish very well, but I can read faces and body language. This has added to my understanding. And I have not found any substance in most of the charges against Chavez, and where some criticism has a grain of truth, it's usually something that is a quite normal political flaw--typical of any political party in power for ten years--or a typical government failure (given all that government does). Compared to what OUR government has done, and what OUR leaders have done, it is just nothing. Compared to the accomplishments of the Chavez government, the flaws and the mistakes and the inefficiencies fade into insignificance.

45% increases in secondary and higher education enrollment (from 1999 to 2006).

Think about it.

----------------------------

http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/cepr%20report.htm

[social_critic]

19. Venezuelan government credibility lacking

On the other hand, their GDP dropped 2.9 % this year, after Chavez claimed they wouldn't suffer at all. And they sure look headed into a perfect storm - I bet their economy is going to lose steam due to the power cuts, and it'll show the worst performance in Latin America, except for possibly Ecuador, known to be a pretty serious basket case.

[social_critic]

20. 15 to 1 gain in primary care doctors?

LOL. Their health system is a disaster. You sure know how to make up false statistics.

[Mika]

22. "Their health system is a disaster."

So some people say. :dunce:

[social_critic]

23. So says the government of Venezuela

The government itself declared the national health care system to be a disaster, declared a national emergency a few weeks ago. Your "socialist of the 21st century" friends who lay on the propaganda don't like to discuss it. The Maternity hospital in Caracas is in such disrepair, and so overcrowded, women are giving birth in halllways. Doctors are resigning due to the high crime rate WITHIN hospitals, the low pay, and the total lack of materials to work with.