Uma estada breve (mas suficiente), na Bizarrolandia, uma experiencia inesquecivel - Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Não é exatamente Une Saison En Enfer, de Rimbaud (ou Mademoiselle Verlaine), inclusive porque o povo é simpático e acolhedor, mas é uma experiência edificante, tanto em termos econômicos, quanto políticos. Tudo é meio bizarro, surrealista, diáfano e vagamento enganador, a ponto de não se poder determinar ao certo se as novelas é que estão certas, ou se a vida real é assim mesmo maluca...
Em todo caso, foi o que me veio à mente, viajando de ônibus de Anápolis a Brasília, e me preparando para sair do Brasil...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Uma breve estada na Bizarrolândia

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

(www.pralmeida.org; http://diplomatizzando.blogspot.com) 

Acabo de passar dez dias num país profundamente anormal. Um país no qual as pessoas acreditam que existam coisas, qualquer coisa, bem ou serviço, que podem ser adquiridas em "dez vezes sem juros". A anormalidade é tão grande que as pessoas, vendedores ou consumidores, nem percebem mais a anomalia econômica. Esse é o preço final e está conversado, nem se discute e nem se contesta: ele está registrado nos cartazes, nos sites, em todos os lugares. E se por acaso você esquecer dessa particularidade, a mocinha do caixa se encarrega de lembrá-lo: "Em quantas vezes o Sr. quer pagar?"

E não precisa ser algum bem de maior valor, de consumo durável, que justifique algum financiamento embutido, aliás nunca explicitado, seja no preço, seja no ato do pagamento. Pode ser qualquer coisa, numa farmácia ou no supermercado: "Quer dividir? Em quantas vezes?" E você, meio surpreso, esboça uma resposta: "Dá para fazer em 55 vezes?" Não, em 55 vezes não dá, mas ela pode parcelar em até cinco vezes, está bem assim?

Eu sinceramente me pergunto quando começou o "dez vezes sem juros", mas sobretudo eu gostaria de saber se as pessoas realmente acreditam que elas estão adquirindo algum bem ou serviço em "dez vezes sem juros". Será possível isso? Essas coisas são normais?

Eu começo a desconfiar da capacidade de raciocínio de pessoas educadas, gente de classe média, com dinheiro, já fazendo pós-graduação: "Fessor, a gente tá viajando pra Flórida nas férias!" "Ah, tá bom, mas a alta do dólar não vai atrapalhar um pouco?" "Não, a gente tá fazendo tudo em 10 vezes sem juros." "Ah, tá bom então."

O que é que eu vou dizer? Vou chamar o cidadão de idiota, ali na frente dos outros? Mas aí eu percebo que o único anormal ali sou eu mesmo, que ainda me dou ao trabalho de questionar essas coisas e de ver anormalidades numa situação que é considerada a mais normal do mundo. Dez vezes sem juros, quem é que não gosta, quem é que não quer? Como é que eu ouso contestar essa santa paz dos negócios, essa absoluta normalidade do "Quer parcelar?"? E eu me pergunto se economistas sensatos, ou normais, não alertam para o tremendo engodo incorporado a essa mania -- ou seria já um hábito normal? -- do "dez vezes sem juros", e não começam a avisar os incautos que eles estão pagando o dobro do valor real, que eles estão pagando dois televisores e só levando um para casa, que eles estão na verdade adquirindo um financiamento a 100%, não comprando um bem ou serviço.

Mas essa não foi a única anormalidade que eu encontrei em minha recente estada na Bizarrolândia. Confesso que fiquei igualmente surpreso com o comportamento de uma tribo especial de cidadãos, os políticos, ou representantes do povo, como são chamados por aqui. Eles parecem se situar numa outra galáxia, não nesta onde estão os que os elegeram. Eles são capazes de tudo, menos de mirar a situação economicamente caótica que vive Bizarrolândia atualmente. Eles continuam a aprovar aumento de gastos -- geralmente para eles mesmos ou em benefício dos que lhes são caros -- na total indiferença em relação à inflação, ao desemprego, ao descalabro das contas públicas. E se acusam mutuamente de trapaças, de traições, até de roubalheira e de corrupção, vejam só.

Prepostos dos políticos confessam candidamente que desviaram tantos e tantos milhões de uma estatal qualquer, e que mandaram esses milhões para algum paraíso fiscal e já ninguém mais se espanta! Pior: não acontece nada, nadinha. As coisas continuam como se tudo fosse absolutamente normal. O cidadão, ou a cidadã, foi eleito com base em dinheiro desviado, extorquido de empresas privadas e tudo segue adiante na mais perfeita normalidade.

Mais estranho ainda, o que eu fiquei sabendo nessa breve estada em Bizarrolândia, foi que os guardiões do Tesouro, dos recursos duramente amealhados dos contribuintes, fraudaram completamente as contas, despeitaram o orçamento, violaram as leis e a própria Constituição de Bizarrolândia, e nada se passa: as coisas continuam fluindo na mais perfeita (a)normalidade.

E não só os guardiões, mas inacreditavelmente foi o principal responsável pelo respeito à lei e à Constituição quem incorreu nesses crimes contra a moralidade ou ao simples dever constitucional. Como é que pode?

Confesso que não sei. Não sei como é que o povo de Bizarrolândia consegue conviver com essas coisas, assim numa boa, como se tudo isso fosse absolutamente normal. Será que sou eu o anormal?

Não sei. Só sei que estou deixando Bizarrolândia por algum tempo, mas vou ficar observando de longe. Confesso que gostaria de voltar. Encontrei um povo simpático e até brincalhão, no meio do caos econômico e das esquisitices políticas. Mas gostaria de encontrar algo mudado quando eu voltar.

  

Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Em viagem, Anápolis-Brasília, 16/07/2015

EUA: loucuras economicas no seculo 20 - livro de Burton A. Abrams

A Century of Government Blunders

The Terrible 10: A Century of Economic Folly

By Burton A. Abrams

The Independent Institute, 27/08/2013

The U.S. economy made impressive gains in the 20th century, but this progress makes it easy to forget a harsh reality: Americans were also the victims of disastrous government policies that cost trillions of dollars in wasted resources, created mass unemployment, and kept millions in poverty who otherwise could have participated in the nation's growing prosperity. Government decision-makers, regardless of political party, have tended to favor short-run benefits for friends while imposing costs on current and later generations. The ten worst blunders divide equally among Democrats and Republicans. The Terrible 10 also provides key lessons to help us avoid repeating such policy mistakes in the future.

Contents:

1. Prohibition: The War on Booze
2. Monetary Policy During The Great Depression: How to Turn a Recession into a Depression
3. The Hawley-Smoot Act: Holy Smoke, We Started a Trade War!
4. Social Security: America's Greatest Ponzi Scheme?
5. Tax Follies: The 91-Percent Solution
6. Medicare and Medicaid: Unsustainable Promises
7. The Nixon-Burns Political Business Cycle: How to Create a Decade of Inflation
8. Environmental Mismanagement: How to Make a River Burn and Other Magic Tricks
9. Government Failure and The Great Recession: Turning the American Dream into a Nightmare
10. Decades of Deficits: The Real Red Menace

Read the Book's Full Summary »

Buy The Terrible 10 for $19.95 (hardcover) or $16.95 (softcover)

The Terrible 10

A Century of Economic Folly

By Burton A. Abrams

Highlights | Synopsis

Highlights

• Politicians and bureaucrats foisted a host of costly and destructive economic blunders on Americans this past century. The worst include: Prohibition; the Great Depression; a global trade war that helped spark World War II; a complex and wasteful tax code; pay-as-yougo entitlements that discourage saving; inflation and political business cycles; environmental mismanagement; the Great Recession; and decades of deficits. These disasters resulted from policymakers doing one or more of the following: (1) caving in to special-interest groups; (2) treating adult citizens like they’re the government’s children; (3) allowing electoral majorities to take advantage of the rest of society; (4) obsessing about the short run (what Burton A. Abrams calls immediosis); (5) choosing to stay ignorant about the deeper ramifications of government policies; and (6) rationalizing bad policies on the grounds of their “plausible acceptability.” 
• Without a doubt, the worst economic mistake of the past one hundred years was the Federal Reserve’s handling of the Great Depression. The U.S. economy was hit so hard in the early 1930s that even if the nation’s central bank deserves only a modest portion of the blame (and that’s a big if ), it would still be responsible for trillions of dollars in lost output. Consider a thought experiment: Suppose the Fed deserves blame only for the portion of unemployment above 10 percent in the years 1931 to 1935. That amount of joblessness alone caused an estimated 23 percent decline in production and income—a loss of $15.5 trillion over five years!
• The Hawley-Smoot Act of 1930 imposed an average tariff rate of 53 percent and thereby hiked up consumer prices, ignited a retaliatory trade war, and intensified the Great Depression, making this protectionist legislation among the costliest economic blunders in U.S. history. Due partly to the trade war sparked by Hawley-Smoot, by 1933 world trade had fallen 67 percent. The trade barriers also helped set the stage for World War II.

The conversion of Social Security from a “full service” retirement program to a pay-asyou- go system in 1939 is perhaps the worst of several bad decisions associated with the plan. This blunder permitted the government to postpone increasing taxes to pay for the program and enabled several increases in unfunded benefits. From 1960 to 2011 the program’s outlays as a share of GDP rose from 2.4 percent to 4.8 percent, and they’re expected to reach 6 percent around 2030. By then the ratio of workers to retirees—which has hovered around 3.2 since the early 1970s—is expected to have fallen 35 percent to around 2.1. This mismatch will require future tax hikes, cuts in benefits, and/or more government borrowing to cover the shortfall. Worst of all is Social Security’s damaging effect on savings and investment: by weakening people’s incentives to save for retirement the program has reduced the amount of funds available to borrowers for private investment and wealth creation and has thereby hampered economic growth. As hard as it may be to imagine, Medicare presents an even worse threat to the nation’s fiscal health.

Synopsis

The U.S. economy made impressive gains in the 20th century, but this progress sometimes makes it easy to forget a harsh reality: Americans were also the victims of disastrous government policies that wasted resources, created mass unemployment, and kept millions of people in poverty who otherwise would have participated in the nation’s growing prosperity. A strong case can even be made that the success of the U.S. economy cannot be fully understood unless the story of these abysmal policy failures is told.

The Terrible 10: A Century of Economic Folly, by University of Delaware economics professor Burton A. Abrams, tells this story.

The Terrible 10 takes both political parties to task to show the causes and consequences of their worst policy mistakes. Leading the list of causes is that government decisionmakers, regardless of political party, tend to favor short-run benefits for friends—especially major campaign contributors and special-interest groups—while imposing costs on the rest of us or imposing the costs on later generations. The ten worst blunders therefore divide equally among Democrats and Republicans.

The Terrible 10 provides more than an identification of the worst policies. It provides lessons to help avoid repeating such blunders and for developing policies that might extricate us from the lingering costs that those wasteful policies spawned.

Worst Economic Blunders of the Past Century

The book begins with an introduction laying out key factors that have motivated politicians and bureaucrats to enact destructive laws and edicts. With those preliminaries out of the way, the book proceeds more or less chronologically, with a chapter-bychapter look at the past century’s worst economic blunders. The book concludes by offering guidelines to improve government decision-making.

Prohibition

Ratified in 1919, the 18th Amendment reflected the desire of a minority of Americans to impose their views of morality and the proper lifestyle on the majority. The effort failed miserably. In hindsight, most Americans—and especially those who lived through it—probably view Prohibition as a bizarre, foolish, and even dangerous experiment: a massive, precedent-setting governmental intervention in personal freedom, a waste of our national resources, a loss of an important source of tax revenues, a boon to criminals, a corrupting influence on public officials, and an encouragement to otherwise law-abiding citizens to disregard and disrespect the law. Prohibition produced many more costs than benefits and clearly belongs among the ranks of the worst economic interventions of the last 100 years.

The War on Drugs has had the same sort of unintended and undesirable consequences that Prohibition had, and it has failed for exactly the same reason: government officials cannot stop people from engaging in mutually agreeable exchanges. They may reduce the extent of such exchanges with harsh penalties, but they won’t stop them. Efforts to stop such exchanges will spawn many unintended and undesirable outcomes.

Monetary Policy During the Great Depression

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was created to resolve a problem: frequent banking panics, or widespread runs on banks, that plagued the U.S. economy. The Act created a central bank—the Federal Reserve System—which was expected to eliminate them. But the biggest banking panic in U.S. history was in the making, and the Fed did little or nothing to prevent it. What would have been a recession was turned into the Great Depression. The Fed’s failure to act decisively was one of the most costly economic policy errors to have been made in the past 100 years.

The Hawley-Smoot Act

In an unprecedented show of unanimity, over 1,000 economists from the United States signed a letter urging Congress and President Herbert Hoover to reject the Hawley-Smoot Act. Their warning went unheeded. The Act touched offa trade war, intensified the Great Depression, and helped set the stage for World War II. The Act and the story of its passage highlight Congress at its worst in pandering to special interests. More than fifty years after its passage, President Ronald Reagan referred to the Republicansponsored Act as “the most destructive trade bill in history.”

Social Security

The pay-as-you-go government program originally was designed to have a “full reserve,” but members of Congress couldn’t keep their fingers out of the cookie jar. The result is the second largest Ponzi-type scheme sponsored by the U.S. government (Medicare is the biggest). Social Security has contributed to de-capitalizing the economy by substituting government promises of retirement income obtained through taxation in lieu of income that would have been obtained from private-sector savings. The Social Security program is a non-transparent welfare program that redistributes enormous amounts of wealth, often in ways that most Americans would find undesirable.

Tax Follies

The 16th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1913, made the income tax a permanent fixture of the U.S. tax system. The first personal income tax was quite simple: three pages of forms and one page of instructions. Income taxes today are excessively complicated, non-transparent, and costly. There are now over 500 separate tax forms and over 7,000 pages of taxpreparation instructions. In 2009, the IRS estimated there were between 900,000 and 1.2 million paid tax-preparers to help hapless taxpayers through the morass of tax rules. Worse yet, the income tax hides over a trillion dollars in hidden subsides that distort economic decision-making and produce economic waste. Reforming our wasteful tax system remains a difficult-toachieve goal as entrenched special interests fight hard to resist change.

Medicare

The pay-as-you-go health insurance program for retirees, unlike Social Security, was not designed to have a full reserve. In fact, Bess and Harry Truman received the first Medicare cards despite never paying any taxes into the program. Today, the program is the single worst Ponzi-type scheme in the government’s arsenal. It is $20 trillion to $30 trillion dollars in the red and is in far worse shape than Social Security. This chapter sheds light on the extent of the transfers and the impending crisis in financing the program.

The Nixon-Burns Political Business Cycle

The Nixon tapes, secret recordings made in the White House, reveal how Richard Nixon pressured Federal Reserve Chairman Arthur Burns to overheat the U.S. economy prior to Nixon’s reelection bid. Acting against his better judgment, Burns caved in to Nixon’s lobbying and set the stage for a decade of inflation that required three recessions to extinguish. The tapes reveal how the Fed’s independence can be compromised for political gain and why the power of the Fed’s printing press must be kept out of the reach of politicians.

Environmental Mismanagement

The failure to take into account pollution costs in the pricing of various goods leads to the production of goods that are worth less than their costs. Economists generally agree that some type of environmental regulation is needed to correct market failures arising from producers and consumers neglecting the costs of pollution. And often they’ve assumed that once a market failure was identified, the government would take the appropriate corrective actions.

When they’ve investigated regulatory behavior, however, they’ve discovered that government regulations all too often failed to correct market failures and all too often created market failures of their  own. Wasteful environmental regulations are the rule, not the exception. And usually they benefit special-interest groups while harming the society at large. This chapter highlights the problem with two case studies: a proposed “clean coal” power plant for northern Minnesota and the federal ethanol mandate.

Government Failure and the Great Recession

The busting of the real estate bubble beginning in 2006 sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin. This chapter reveals the government’s role in fostering the bubble. The Great Real Estate Bubble was nourished by paternalistic policies, fostered by both Democrats and Republicans, to engineer a better society by greatly expanding home ownership, especially to the young and lower income groups. In contrast to government’s role in Prohibition, government became a “pusher” during the housing bubble. The government’s “policy drugs” hooked millions of lower-income Americans on homeownership, indebtedness they could ill afford, and eventual bankruptcy. The economic damage done to the young and less fortunate added another cruel dimension to the economic catastrophe.

Decades of Deficits

The rapid and unprecedented peacetime run-up in the nation’s public debt, begun at the turn of the 21st century, threatens to sink the U.S. economy. Unlike the situation following World War II, paying down this debt will be much more difficult due to expected increased outlays for entitlements as the baby-boomers begin to retire. At the very least, the burden of the public debt will slow economic growth and raise the normal unemployment rate. This chapter explains why irresponsible deficit spending is one of the terrible ten.

Can Government Governance Be Improved?

The final chapter reviews the causes of bad policies and makes suggestions for improving the institutional setting in which policymaking takes place. The task of improving government governance is possible but daunting.

Argentina e seu manual de deseconomia cambial: penuria de dolares

Argentina’s Shrinking Currency Reserves Point to Further Controls

By Ken Parks

The Wall Street Journal, September 24, 2013

BUENOS AIRES — Argentine President Cristina Kirchner may have to impose further U.S. dollar rationing on her citizens in coming months as the slide in the hard currency reserves that Argentina uses to pay its import bill and creditors shows no sign of abating, analysts say.

Argentina faces significant dollar outflows at a time when the foreign currency provided by trade, the South American nation’s only significant source of the U.S. currency, is shrinking due to surging fuel imports.

The trade surplus accumulated between January and August narrowed by 32% on the year to $6.29 billion, the government said Monday. With the last few months of the year a seasonally slack period for exports, the Kirchner administration may struggle to reach its latest target of a $10.6 billion surplus in 2013.

If the government’s past behavior is any indicator of future behavior then more belt tightening could fall on tourism and imports. Net dollar outflows from tourism rose to $4.53 billion in the first half as Argentines continued to travel and shop abroad even after the government slapped a special 20% tax on those activities.

“We believe they will need to put the brakes on the outflow of hard currency via tourism,” says Mauricio Claveri, an economist at research firm Abeceb. “The trade surplus isn’t going to compensate and there is going to be a loss of reserves.”

Deutsche Bank economist Gustavo Canonero thinks the government will likely muddle through by fine tuning the currency controls and import restrictions it has used to keep dollars from leaving the country.

“They will have to ration international reserves even more than today and that means you are going to have less imports for growth and therefore the economy will be stagnant,” Mr. Canonero said.

A spokeswoman for the Economy Ministry declined to comment.

For almost two years, Mrs. Kirchner has subjected Argentines to unpopular foreign-currency restrictions. Businesses can face long delays to import equipment and materials, which usually have to be paid for with dollars.

“We are at a very dangerous point where [additional] limits on imports will have very negative collateral effects on the economy and job market,” says Diego Perez, president of Cira, an association that represents importers

Argentines are also banned from buying dollars to protect their savings from one of the highest rates of inflation in the Western Hemisphere, while the government doles out very limited amounts of foreign currency for tourism. Some people have turned to the black market for dollars, where they pay a 63% premium compared to the regulated foreign exchange market.

Reserves at the central bank fell to a six-and-a-half year low of about $35 billion on Friday, down 19% from the beginning of the year and well below a record $52.7 billion in January 2011.

Unable to borrow abroad due to the high interest rates lenders demand, Mrs. Kirchner has used at least $27.5 billion in reserves to pay creditors and fund public-works projects. Her 2014 budget proposal would tap another $9.86 billion for the same purposes.

The steady decline in reserves could spell trouble for Argentine stocks and bonds if investors start to question the government’s ability to pay.

The government needs to quickly stabilize reserves or risk a selloff in dollar debt like the Boden 2015 bond and debt-linked securities, says Siobhan Morden, head of Latin American strategy at Jefferies.

“The pace of decline and the level are now both a concern, especially if this pace of reserve loss continues into next year,” Mrs. Morden said.

At the current rate of depletion, reserves could drop below $20 billion in the first quarter of 2015. That could set markets up for a “moment of tension” because the central bank would have only a thin cushion of liquid assets on hand at that point, says Orlando J. Ferreres, an economist and former deputy economy minister.

“There isn’t an easy solution. These are problems that will take three to four years to fix from the moment you start fixing them,” Mr. Ferreres said.

Those problems include annual inflation that many economists say has been running at or above 20% for years as a result of the central bank printing pesos to finance government spending.Official data put economic growth at 1.9% in 2012, and the government has forecast 5.1% growth this year and 6.2% in 2014. Many economists say those projections are unrealistic for an economy hobbled by dollar shortages and inflation.

Barclays Capital economist Sebastian Vargas is optimistic that a weak economy will eventually force Mrs. Kirchner to adopt more pragmatic policies such as moderating spending and mending fences with foreign creditors.

“If the government continues with monetary financing and doesn’t change its agenda the foreign exchange reserves could deteriorate further and that would have an impact on investment,” Mr. Vargas said.

Venezuela e seu manual de antieconomia: loucuras cambiais

Venezuela divisas

El boom del turismo cambiario en Venezuela

Reuters
Caracas, 25 de septiembre de 2013

Las claves

• Los venezolanos que viajan a Lima encuentran ofertas hasta por Internet. Sitios de venta o remate de artículos ahora ofrecen a los caribeños la posibilidad de hacer también compras ficticias para recibir dinero.

Un pasaje de avión de Caracas a Lima cuesta hoy casi ocho veces más que a principios de año. Y eso si uno tiene la suerte de conseguirlo: los billetes están agotados para los próximos cinco meses.
La posibilidad de comprar dólares baratos para viajar al extranjero disparó la demanda de pasajes a destinos como Perú, Ecuador y Cuba, a medida que los venezolanos aprovechan el “turismo cambiario” para burlar una década de controles de divisas en la nación petrolera.
En el primer semestre del año aterrizaron en Perú más del doble de venezolanos que en el mismo período del 2012.
“La diferencia abismal entre el dólar oficial y el (del mercado) negro ha hecho que viajar sea un negocio”, dijo Humberto Figuera, presidente de la Asociación de Líneas Aéreas de Venezuela.
El Gobierno socialista de Venezuela limita desde hace una década la compra de dólares para evitar la fuga de divisas. Pero en un país que importa la mayoría de los bienes que consume, los controles de cambio generaron escasez de carne, pollo, harina y hasta papel higiénico.
El mecanismo ideado por el fallecido presidente Hugo Chávez y mantenido por su sucesor Nicolás Maduro permite, sin embargo, que los venezolanos que viajan al extranjero compren hasta 3.000 de dólares anuales a la tasa oficial de 6,3 bolívares, siete veces más barato que en el mercado negro.
En el 2012 las autoridades vendieron un récord de unos 3.000 millones de dólares baratos para viajes al extranjero.
La jugada se hizo tan popular, que conseguir un pasaje a Quito o Lima se volvió literalmente una hazaña. Muchos viajeros están reservando boletos para la Semana Santa del 2014.
“RASPAR” LA TARJETA
Los venezolanos que viajan a Perú, Ecuador e incluso Cuba tienen derecho a cambiar hasta 2.500 dólares a la tasa oficial.
Y en algunos de esos países el mercado se adaptó rápidamente a la demanda, con tiendas donde los venezolanos pueden realizar compras ficticias y recibir el efectivo a cambio de una comisión de hasta un 20 por ciento. El mecanismo tiene hasta un nombre: “raspar la tarjeta”.
“En Quito puedes preguntar en el mismo hotel donde te hospedas. Ellos te llevan a un sitio donde puedes raspar la tarjeta por una comisión de entre 10 y 15 por ciento”, contó un hombre que acaba de regresar de “raspar” su tarjeta en Ecuador y prefirió no ser identificado por temor a sanciones legales.
De vuelta en casa, los venezolanos venden los dólares en el mercado negro.
“Se gana bastante plata”, explica el turista. “Compras al dólar oficial en 6,3 bolívares y lo vendes en el mercado negro en 45 bolívares”.
Los venezolanos que viajan a Lima encuentran ofertas hasta por Internet. Sitios de venta o remate de artículos ahora ofrecen a los caribeños la posibilidad de hacer también compras ficticias para recibir dinero.
“Te ayudamos a raspar tus cupos viajeros con total seguridad y transparencia”, dice un aviso online de una agencia de viajes en la capital peruana.
Hay venezolanos que “compran el cupo” de otros compatriotas y viajan con varias tarjetas de crédito en el bolsillo realizando operaciones que pueden involucrar cientos de miles de bolívares.
“Sé que es un negocio al margen de la ley, pero no me queda otra”, dijo un venezolano que viaja varias veces al año al extranjero con diferentes tarjetas de crédito, la mayoría a nombre de otros. “Aquí un profesional gana una miseria y el sueldo mínimo apenas alcanza”.
“NO SHOW”
A principios del año, un boleto aéreo a Perú costaba el equivalente a 476 dólares. Hoy ronda los 3.810 dólares como consecuencia de la excesiva demanda.
Eso generó un problema mayúsculo para las aerolíneas, cuyos aviones despegan con más de un 30 por ciento de sus asientos vacíos pues muchos pasajeros no se presentan y piden luego el reintegro de su dinero.
Hasta ahora el Gobierno no controla si la persona que obtuvo dólares efectivamente viajó o no.
Pero en un intento por combatir el esquema, la Asociación de Líneas Aéreas de Venezuela envía la lista de “no shows” a las autoridades para que verifiquen si los pasajeros que no se presentaron en la puerta de embarque compraron divisas al precio preferencial para viajeros.
“Estamos frente a una mafia que se mueve a medida que se toman acciones”, dijo Figuera a Reuters. “Ya notificamos a los cuerpos de seguridad de la última modalidad. Nos informaron que ya se actúa para detener a las personas que cometen ese tipo de fraudes”.
En el pasado, las autoridades redujeron de 3.000 a unos 1.300 dólares la cantidad de divisas vendidas para viajes a Colombia e islas del Caribe como Curazao y Aruba, donde los venezolanos había comenzado a “raspar” sus tarjetas de crédito.
Pero las dimensiones del negocio son ahora mucho mayores y los venezolanos creen que las autoridades reducirán también el cupo de divisas para viajar a Ecuador o Perú.
Además, la ventana de oportunidad podría cerrarse en cualquier momento, si -como esperan muchos venezolanos- el Gobierno introduce un nuevo mecanismo de entrega de divisas para combatir el alza de la cotización en el mercado negro.
Mientras pueden, los venezolanos siguen viajando y “raspando” sus tarjetas como nunca antes.
“Puedes poner todos los controles que quieras, pero es complicado y no va a servir de nada si no atacan el problema de fondo: reducir o al menos hacer manejable la brecha entre el (dólar) oficial y el paralelo”, dijo el economista Asdrúbal Oliveros, de la firma local Econoanalítica.
(Reporte adicional de Girish Gupta y Eyanir Chinea en Caracas y Marco Aquino en Lima; Escrito por Diego Oré; Editado por Esteban Israel y Juana Inés Casas)