May 21, 2008    Over the last week end in Caracas, Venezuela one person per hour was killed- violently and with absolutely no prosecution and no judicial court action. This is the real picture of Chavez's Venezuela today: violent, lawless and home to violence of the government and by the government which is not a government at all but is essentially a cartel masquerading as a government. Ecuador is a lot worse.
 
Even Goldman Sachs in NEW YORK writes:
 
"The President of PetroEcuador Fernando Zurita resigned a day after announcing a reduction in the original production target for 2008 (see more below). The local press reported about a heated meeting between the Board of PetroEcuador and President Correa yesterday morning.

Mr. Zurita, a navy officer with little experience in the oil sector, was appointed by President Correa to run the troubled state-owned oil company just six-months ago. Other navy officers were also appointed to key managerial posts in the company.

PetroEcuador continues to be beset by major managerial, operational, financial, and technical challenges. The politicization of the company’s management (lack of experienced oil sector managers) and the recurrent changes at the helm of the company and at the key Oil Ministry have left the country and the company without a sense of strategic direction and incapable of stemming the decline in oil production.

PetroEcuador Lowers 2008 Oil Production Target

PetroEcuador lowered its target for 2008 oil production by 7.5%; to 172K barrels/day from at least 186K barrels/day projected earlier (this excludes the production at the fields taken over from Occidental in May 2006).
According to the president of PetroEcuador, the downward revision reflects delays in drilling plans and the natural decline in production at mature fields. In March oil production by PetroEcuador was down 2.9% from the level reached in December and private sector oil production was down 6.0%, from the levels reached in December 2007. The perennial operational problems at PetroEcuador are being compounded by the aggressive nationalist policies being implemented by the government in the critical oil sector. Private oil companies have delayed investment plans as the government decided to unilaterally impose a 99% government revenue sharing arrangement on oil revenue above a contractually set oil price baseline (the reference price on private sector oil contracts averages about US$24/barrel).

In a related issue, Occidental, which lodged an international arbitration lawsuit against the government after it saw its oil fields seized by the government in 2006, is now seeking US$3.2 billion in compensation rather than the original US$1 billion."
 
In case this soft spoken report leaves you confused, basically it notes that Ecuador is going bankrupt because of Rafael Correa's failed policies called corruption, non management and his "aggressive nationalist policies." Rafael Correa is not an economist- he never was. Correa is a practicing Marxist socialist politician and he is unfit for his current job and needs to resign. Correa should be overseeing Ecuador today swimming in oil money because the price per barrel of crude is almost 3 xx the price of its real value. But Ecuadoreans are watching jobs flee, their home values collapse and their future ruined by this man who totally controls all state assets, the media, the courts and all legislation. Correa, ever the incompetent and manipulative teen ager on a binge using someone else's money, is a disaster economically and politically. We know this because no one- no one at all- is permitted one iota of accountability or transparency or even essential due process in this lawless narcostate under the Correa-Chavez plan. Ecuador under Correa is financially too expensive as Correa and his cabal plunder state assets while cutting dirty deals with Iran and Venezuela which no one can review plus geo politically are ruinous because nothing works. We know that nothing works because Ecuador is the murder capitol of the globe today but Ecuadoreans are so manipulative and in such a state of denial about their own criminal empire called Correa's Ecuador that this too they manipulate even as one more human being down the street is helplessly murdered...and no one cares.

Rafael Correa was deeply involved initially in the state theft of OCCIDENTAL and has retained his iron fist in this crime. This burglary will cost Ecuadoreans over $5 billion before it is finished and the complicity of this crime- and all its manifestations is more costly than the $5 billion: no one wants to work with a nation that steals from honest businesses. PetroEcuador, which has yet to release an honest forensic audit in over ten years, is a cess pool of socialist Marxist corruption. Even the military of Ecuador cannot co manage what massive corruption remains in this open wallet for Correa and Chavez. And this feature alone reveals the true expense of the Correa socialist Marxist plan which Ecuadoreans cannot afford. Oil production is down almost 10% and that is what Correa releases: the real story is worse than this and the complete story of a federal budget that knows nothing of its actual income or expenses because Correa does not want you to know the true picture of state kleptocracy which is his doing alone.

Not even Correa's political hacks can control his angry, childish outbursts any longer. We note that he calls Ecuadorean immigrants oversees as idiots.

We call Correa and Hugo Chavez idiots for ruining nations. Even the ECONOMIST currently states that Venezuela is the second worst place to live and do business- on earth, only slightly better than Cuba and Angola. Were they to review Ecuador, it would be worse than Cuba and Angola. At least Chavez keeps jiggering the global bond market illegally to prop up his depleted overspent rape of Venezuela's money- billions in oil money. But Correa simply lives large in his campaign to install a new Ecuadorean government of Chavez's Bolivarian slaves- serfs to their own socialism where no man has a voice and no woman has any future except her current high rank status as manipulator in chief while living off someone else's money: socialist in chief.

Never mind that Correa's collapsed state plans sustains an Ecuadorean human flight which is now over 30% of all Ecuadoreans as living in exile overseas with no citizenship and no future except their insistence on voting for Correa in the past. They will not be supporting Correa any longer. They have no reason to: there is no way back to Ecuador under Correa: all democracy is denied, all rights suspended and no future/no jobs plus Correa called them idiots.

Were Ecuadoreans honest, they would request politely that Correa resign not just because of his role as a true state sponsor of Terror and his criminal support of the FARC, Iran and Chavez but because he has run this nation in to ground.

Correa's kangaroos, sometimes called the overpaid [bribed] constituent assembly, with a composite IQ of 14, is now formally and illegally and unconstitutionally granting itself full powers and self extended through July, 2008. Still yet, no real media except Chavez and Correa's state owned TELESUR, mostly seen through Castro's PRENSA LATINA, covers these lawless commanders of all government functions. And still not one cost-benefit analysis enters these feeble brains as US AID contractors cheerfully report on the thriving democracy in Montecristi where no free speech, no media, no advise and consent and full fascism of the state and for the state to craft a more perfect narcostate is underway.
 
Like Piedad Cordoba living large off Hugo Chavez's credit cards and delivering nothing meaningful to build societal relationships, Ecuador looks today like Piedad Cordoba's credit cards: living large off someone else's money even as nothing meaningful is accomplished as Ecuadoreans continue to make excuses for their failed state relationship of no rewards, no benefits, no honesty and only the misery of silent, passive-aggressive enabling to cheer onward all addictive behaviors.

The self perpetuating ASSEMBLY in Montecristi, we remind, was elected not to govern and not to grant Correa an open unaccountable wallet over the state resources nor were they elected to approve Correa's state sponsorship with the FARC and Chavez and Iran. No indeed: the assembly was elected for one job and one job only and that was to draft a new constitution. Never mind that the constitution, according to Correa, was drafted long ago and the assembly is nothing but a gaggle of fools sitting around approving all manner of state crimes. We all know that Chavez's EURO RED Viciano Pastor, operating in and out of Caracas, drafted this very communist screed a long time ago. The self perpetuating and illegal communist tribunal sitting lawlessly in Montecristi has no right and no authority to pass any laws however much they granted themselves that illegal right on day one with MANDATE 1 of that assembly to perform all tasks of government, serving as congress, judge and jury as kangaroos for Correa, by design. No media and no debate and no oversight is allowed. In fact, any dissenters are sent to jail, by their hand. This lawlessness is unacceptable and indicates the depraved and immoral sway of Correa whose own actors lied to the public not only during his campaign but lied the first year in office and lie still yet: there is no democracy in Ecuador and the so called Assembly was never intended to do what it campaigned to do. The Assembly was always a take over plan: a self coup for Correa and by Correa to legalize all that should never be legalized. Ecuadoreans have been duped, tricked, lied to, abused and have watched what remains of their democracy sold out like pieces of eight to the rabble of greed also called the Asambleistas in the Shining Path and FARC terrorist-imbued Alfarista shrine which used to be called Montecristi.

And because Ecuadoreans are so consumed with their own manipulative agenda, all passive aggressive non performances are observed today: no one says one word about this criminal cartel. Even Correa himself insists that Alvaro Uribe must never ever state the facts and if he does speak honestly, then he- Rafael Correa- will denounce his  integrity and claim, as he has done, that truth tellers are not welcome in Ecuador. This is how manipulative and childish adolescents behave: they cannot stomach adult behavior and insist that one and all come down to their level. We have said this before: alcoholics and drug addicts act in the exact same way. Correa acts exactly as an alcoholic or an adult child of an alcoholic or addict, which he is. If he is a dry drunk, we do not know. What we do know is that Correa performs exactly like a drunk or drug addict or the child of one. We do know that Correa is the child of a criminal drug runner for the Shining Path/Alfaristas and all his life has been involved in hiding this feature which he does now legalize by caveat in order to legitimize that which should never be legitimized. George Soros and his do drugs crowd find a useful hand in the US Democrat's Carl Meacham in this. So too does the US Senator Chris Dodd's family friend Linda Jewell who aids and abets the legalization of that which should never be legalized in Ecuador by waving her largesse of someone else's money- in this case the U.S. taxpayer- to fund and defend and promote the Correa cartel of legalizing that which should never be legalized, all the while misusing US resources and power to encourage Correa and Chavez in their unending war of attrition against legitimacy and democracy and law and order. Jewell knows that her preferred candidate Barack Hussein Obama will help the Soros and FARC groups, currently sheltered by Correa and Chavez, to end Plan Colombia and insure that all 5 Andean nations are one solid lawless narco bloc of nations- soon.

Yesterday we urged Correa and Hugo Chavez to abandon their presidencies and enter in to Uribe's rehab program for addicts and FARC members. Correa and Chavez need to do this or be known for what they are; state sponsors of terror who have refused to rehabilitate for the good of the people. Ecuador is a lawless narcostate under Correa: he needs to resign just as surely as Hugo Chavez needs to resign. There is no reason for them to stay on the job.  There is also no reason for the community of regional nations to encourage these extortion rackets to stay on the job any longer. We all know that Chavez and Correa are now selling protection rackets:
massive military protection rackets in order to bribe and rule by mafia tactics. This sole feature is cause enough to cancel all affection for these mobsters and end their reign of terror, incompetent though they may be, they are still selling protection rackets instead of legitimate nationhood.
 
-Pedro Camargo for ECrisis