News roundup (we use three blades that shave you closer than two blades)

Why do we love Setty so much? This is why. Click through to hear about the cold snap we australs are going through right now and the power cuts all over the region too. Fave Settyline is this one, talking about the big cut in northern Peru over the weekend;

"Winning quote from that story is the electric utility saying they have a contingency plan, but they couldn’t implement it because there was no electricity".

Classic. Go read it all, like now.

Venezuela Analysis (aka V-Anal) reports on the Banco de Venezuela nationalization one year on. As the report notes, BdV is now the biggest bank in the country (it was 3rd when taken over) and has been surging in loan deals too. But as it was Chávez that told the world in a presser, it has to be lies, right? Remember folks, don't let the facts get in the way of etc etc.

Jakob at Maladjusted gets his wonk on and does a great job of walking us through the UN's newest methods to (attempt to) measure poverty. Lots of examples, charts, words and the necessary sneering at the correct points. A great post.

Peter Capusotto is back! Last night South America's best funnyguy (by a mile) hit the screen of Argentina again for his new series and, Argies doing good by the world, the first episode is already largely up on youtube. For those conversant in the ways of the language, the sketches linked here with characters Micky Vainilla, Violencia Rivas, Jesús de Laferrere and "Consumo" are unmissable. Knowledge of rock music culture and Argentina underground useful for full enjoyment potential.

UPDATE: Esp the Mick Vainilla one. Watched it 3 times already.

Child poverty in Latin America

If you haven't read Structurally Maladjusted's excellent post on childhood poverty in Latin America, then do so. The argument is solid, the charts are easy on the eye and wholly clarifiying, the statistical database is verifiable and of the best quality.

The link is right here. It's an excellent job of work and what the interwebnetpipes are all about, so go read.

Peru's poverty miracle

It's a miracle of statistical bullshit, people.

This week, the liars at Peru's INEI official stats office announced to the dropjaw astonishment of every sentient being following these things that Peru's poverty level dropped by 1.4% in 2009 to stand at 34.8% of the population. Now these INEI people have been shown over time to be pretty barefaced and shameless in the way they manipulate statistics, but this one really takes the biscuit and is worse than anything that even Argentina's INDEC could have cooked up.

Put in bullet points, we are supposed to swallow without thinking that 290,000 people rose above the poverty line in one year when in that same year:

• Nominal GDP dropped like a stone from 9% to 1%, the biggest economic deceleration in the Americas and with that still highly debatable 1% growth propped up only by metals export prices that affected a minimum of people directly.

• GDP per capita dropped by 0.3%. Seriously, the country's economy dropped by 0.3% per head, but the INEI wants us to believe 1.4% less poor out there? Beginning to smell the male bovine manure?

• Foreign Direct Investment in Peru dropped by 30% in 2009, showing inflows dried up (as you'd expect due to the 2008/2009 crisis).

• Exports dropped by 14%, as even though all important metals prices couldn't hide the economic slack in other sectors (Peru's labour intensive textile sector was particularly hard hit).

And all this 1.4% poverty drop comes from a Stats office that refuses to publish its methodology in a transparent way, thus denying any third party the chance of checking its results.

The reaction
By way of reaction, local economics experts had their own comments to make. Respected expert on Peruvian socioeconomic affairs Armando Mendoza said, "If we take as our starting point the consensus amongst economists that to reduce the poverty levels a growth rate of 4% must be achieved, it strange to determine how they end up with this result. The INEO should have previously presented the methodology used." Meanwhile, ex-head of the INEI and fervent Twobreakfasts critic Farid Matuk, a man who knows the office backwards and has repeatedly accused the current government of massaging its macro figures, said, "The reference pool of the population between 1997 to 2007 included 20% of the poor that were suddenly exluded in an arbitrary manner in 2008, and they have modified the pool once again in 2009. That arbitrary change in 2008 facilitated the unreal reduction in poverty in that year." Put into real English, the INEI has been making shit up for years.

Matuk then went on to point out the irony of a country that on the one hand, uses new and secret changes to its methodology to bring down its poverty level in monetary terms from 44% to under 35% in just four years, but meanwhile another statistical set published by the same INEI office that has kept its original method and database is that of alimentary poverty (quite literally the number of people that don't get enough calories to eat according to world-recognized standards) has seen a rise from 30% to 32% in the same period of time. Hey, at this rate it won't be long before there are people who are officially not poor but officially hungry.

The INEI is run by liars and scoundrels, but this won't stop the latest batch of BS from passing out of the Goebbelesque offices of government propaganda and into the world of the accepted. You can bet your hide that all sorts of international bodies will be citing this 34.8% rubbish as part of their elogy-laden speeches and papers about Peru. It's nonsense and the Twobreakfasts government's contempt for the wellbeing of its own people has never been writ more large this this week.

Viva investment grade. Viva, viva, viva.

Chart of the day is...

.....the number of people who suffer "calorific deficit" in Peru, 2006 and 2009.


From this Farid Matuk article.

Calorific Deficit is a long-used statistical tool in Peru which measures how many people receive the recommended amount of calories per day. In simple terms, it measures how many people go hungry. Because its results are not easily corrupted, the Peru stats office liars have now decided to make this tool "reference purposes only" and not include its results in official national statistics. The INEI prefers its new crooked method that shows poverty dropping year on year.

Viva investment grade. Viva, viva, viva.

The liar Twobreakfasts and his faked fight against poverty in Peru

The "Concerted Committe for the Fight Against Poverty" (Mesa de Concertación para la Lucha contra la Pobreza, or MCLCP) is a Peru officially sponsored government board that was created in 2001 to help the poorest in the country. It has just had its budget cut by 56% by Twobreakfasts and company.

Its 26 regional committees, 146 provincial committees and 400 local district committees in rural areas, along with seven committees in urban areas, no longer have enough money to do their work and provide the poorest of the poor with much needed help.


Viva investment grade. Viva Otto finding the lard-ass in the street one day and "having a discussion" with the guy.

Peru and Moody's: All you need to know

Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Peru’s foreign debt rating was put on review for an increase to investment grade by Moody’s Investors Service (continues)

September 29 (AP): "....But Moody's faces additional scrutiny because one of its former analysts has accused the company of pressuring its analysts to inflate bond ratings, and its biggest shareholder, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, has unloaded nearly 9 million shares since July (continues)...."

September 23 (Reuters) - A former analyst with Moody's Corp (NYSE:MCO - News) has accused the credit ratings agency of issuing inflated ratings, and has taken his concerns to U.S. congressional investigators, the Wall Street Journal reported (continues)

May 29 2008 (Rebuild org): "The Moody's Corporation, a securities rating firm, is under suspicion of giving false ratings to some of the securities that it had been evaluating. Currently, the corporation is looking into whether those inaccurate, high ratings were the result of computer mistakes (continues)"

LIMA, March 24 2009 (Reuters) - More Peruvians went hungry last year despite blazing economic growth, a sign that President Alan Garcia is stumbling in efforts to direct benefits of an impressive expansion to the poor. The percentage of people in Peru with inadequate nutrition rose by more than 11 percent in 2008, faster than the economy's 9.8 percent surge, according to the national statistics agency. Now, 32 percent of Peruvians do not get enough to eat (continues)

LIMA, Oct 8 2008 (Reuters) - UPDATE 1 - Thousands march against García, corruption in Peru (continues)

Hundreds of other links available.

Pisco sours served, the end.

Candidate for headline of the week

Agence France Presse regales us with a beauty:

"Giant Squid Concentrate Against Infant Malnutrition in Peru".

And in fact it's a pretty neat story about how Peruvian university boffins have separated a protein concentrate from the local "pota" giant squid that's high in all the good stuff, low in all the bad stuff and would be a great food supplement to sneak into kiddies diets. Which is nice timing when one considers that according to this report today, Peruvian malnutrition levels rose in 2008....the same year that Peru "grew" by 9.8%. Then again, that growth is according to a man who has likely never had a malnourished day in his life.

News from 'Investment Grade' Peru, part 829

Jacqueline Fowks at her impressive Spanish language blog 'noticias desde lenovo' brings us another tale of Peru. Remember this is the country feted by all and sundry, especially the all-seeing-all-knowing band of idiots known as economists that have been proven 100% wrong with all their models recently.

This is the country that has supposedly grown like a rocket. This is the country whose FinMin bullshit liar Luis Carranza said in November 2007 that the effects of trickledown economics were being felt by all Peruvians. All of them. Understand the word "all"? Now read on, and find out what things are like in Andahuaylas, Peru:

"...the mothers of children under two years old receive diverse aid, amongst them food complements that are not only destined for the undernourished child but also to the other children (in the family) as they do not have enough to eat, either.

The mothers comply with the program instructions up to a certain point in time, because if the children reach the age of two and have moved away from being malnutrition cases they are taken off the program. So two months before the age of two the mother begins to undernourish the child so that it stays on the list of those that receive food complements."

Remember that this is the very same region recently mentioned where women get pregnant in order to receive 100 soles per month from the government.

Viva investment grade. Viva viva viva.

News from "investment grade" Peru (part 193)

Read this report written by an Australian volunteer in Peru. Every so often this kind of first-hand diary-report kind of article gets written by people visiting and working in Peru but this one is better than most.

Anyone who has visited the more remote parts of the Andes Cordillera will know that Courtney Trenwith is the real deal. Her report may be a bit overstuffed with pathos for some tastes, but she's far closer to the truth than the cretins unreservedly praising Peru by looking at its economic numbers from a hotel conference room in Miraflores.

Viva investment grade. Viva viva viva.

Chart of the day is............

...a table showing the ownership of property and consumer goods among poor households in the USA, official US government figures.

Taken from the Heritage dot org website "Understanding Poverty in America". I just thought it was interesting on Thanksgiving Day.

C'mon Aussie C'mon

Kevin Rudd: Decent guy, I say

A well-deserved shout out, applause and w00t coming up for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd right here and right now.

During the Peru APEC conference last week, Rudd slipped out the side door and went to visit three Sisters Of Mercy nuns that are helping to alleviate poverty in one of the many Lima shanty towns. You can read about his visit right here, or you can watch a one-minute news slot that played on Aussie TV by clicking this link.

While he was there, Rudd pledged $45,000 to buy a new X-ray machine for the local health centre. The Australian journalist who wrote the linked note sums it up very well.

Put $45,000 towards health or education in Australia and it would barely rate a mention. Yet here, a cheer went up when prime minister Kevin Rudd pledged to give the residents of this slum the sum for a simple X-ray machine.

As for Rudd, he had this to say for himself:

“At a time of a global financial crisis, it is easy for people to forget the poor, (But) none of us ever should forget the poor because we are all one human family. And wherever people are poor, those of us who are not poor have a responsibility. And that responsibility we see worked out in the lives of these wonderful Mercy Sisters here in Lima in Peru.”

Otto says: It may be part politics, but all the same good on you Kevin. Great to see a world leader that isn't just paying lip-service to social needs and doesn't simply expect the free market to provide. Warm applause from chez Otto, but red hot applause and deepest thanks to the nuns such as those visited by Rudd last week. It's good to be reminded that real people really care about other real people. Rudd has done us a double favour by bringing attention to the selfless givers of this world.

Finally, a big thank you to reader Alex who posted those links on this previous post. You paid it forward in style, mate.

aaaaaaah...progress!

Reuters reports that Peru's biggest brewer is investing U$52m to increase production by 17%.

RPP reports that type 2 diabetes is on the increase in Peru, mainly due to increased obesity rates amongst young people.

Meanwhile, 40% of Peru's population lives on less than U$2 per day. Gotta love that trickledown economics thing, no?