Contracts and Mistreatments

Marriage has to be one of the oldest contracts in the world. And one wonders: Why sign a paper if we love each other so much and plan to be together for the rest of our lives? In France, nowadays, where life is so long and temptations widespread, there are five different types of marital contracts. We don’t know which one Sarkozy signed. People buy and sell, fall in love and fall out of love by signing contracts. Children sign contracts at school where they promise to do their homework or else. Contracts prevent and correct mistreatments. If a wife beats her husband, kicks him and humiliates him in public, the husband, scared by all of this unexpected anger, can revise the wording on his marriage contract and ask our civilized society to protect him against this undeserved rage.

Companies and governments sign contracts all the time, in an effort to civilize their interactions. They exchange just and clear promises in exchange for investments, work, and a dedication to productivity. The contract protects both parties from arrogant abuse, adversaries and all those other stupid things humans come up with when they wake up angry, conceited, or feeling alienated. Rulers that let power go to their heads or lose their soul, have to be reminded that there are contracts, that are nothing more than coherent promises that there are not going to be any injustices. Governments have guns, rifles, machineguns and even atomic bombs, so these important papers we call contracts are the only thing unarmed people have to avoid or reduce the abuse. Behind modern companies there are thousands and millions of poor people, rich people, wise people and ignorant people, that trusted contracts to put a little or a lot of money away and save to be able to buy medicines, food, cars, and even be able to pay for the other contracts they sign during their lives. Even the poor woman, who couldn’t contain her anger, has to withdraw part of her savings or those of her husband to pay for the divorce that will end the damaged marriage. You can imagine where we’re going. We will see what happens with the lawsuit put forth by an oil company that feels it has been mistreated by Venezuelans after it signed a bunch of contracts. The cost for everyone will be high. Mistreatments always cost a lot and leave wounds that take a long time to heal. As a good dog that licks its wounds with a long face, we will have to lick the wound left behind by an abuse and indifference towards contracts. If a contract prevents mistreatment then mistreatment breaks contracts.

Love at first sight

Scientific realism assures us that chemistry is no invention when it comes to love. It seems that that immediate attraction that one feels is not only in our imagination; rather it is engrained in the most remote cellular structures of the brain. When we don’t like how our neighbor smells it is because the children that would result from this union would have a turtle’s tail rather than the curly hair of a cherub. That doesn’t mean that we have to marry everyone that smells good, on the contrary. All love at first sight does is create existential problems within the framework of what could be an acceptable genetic evolution. One thing is to pinch your nose to survive the repulsion that may overcome us when smelling the sulfuric traces left behind by some diabolical character, and another is the moment of infatuation when we believe we have found the love of our lives because some rich man put on Vetivér cologne or some poor lady bathed with Camay soap or sprayed on some Pachulí. However, it is surprising the amount of people that fall in the trap of these late-night romances. That is why now that so many romances begin with internet friendships, I am confident the divorce rate will go down around the world. Now suitors have to apply for dates with there resume in hand or on match.com to be more precise. No more love at first sight. On the other hand, politicians and actors continue to seduce us with their feline smiles and even with their heartbreaks. That’s why disenchantment with regimes and movies is so great! Boyfriends and politicians should fill out strict employment forms, to make sure they are qualified for the job. Once a panel of judges names the finalists, voters and fiancés may live together for a while (how about a year?). If they behave and don’t steal the household budget to go get drunk or have an international fling, we still love them and they even smell nice, then we can marry them (in the politicians’ case for no more than 5 to 6 years). How many times do cute girls end up with some vagabonds and countries with others? All because they got carried away by the impulse of a short romance. Voting and marriage have to be more carefully thought through. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Group Therapy in Davos

I have just returned from the World Economic Forum. It was there were 16 years back a group of Venezuelans would wake up February 4, 1992 to the news that there had been a military coup in Venezuela. That year the world’s anxieties, frozen by the alpine winds, were focused on the integration of the former Soviet Union to the rest of the world and the possible “dividend of peace”. Venezuelans’ anxieties were filled with years of low gas prices and economic contraction, which made neither rich nor poor happy. The world’s anxieties in 2008 have to do with a possible recession in the Western Hemisphere that could infect the rest of the world, since so many people bought homes without money and now have to pay back with mortgages. The rich don’t feel so rich anymore and the poor look healthier and happier. The Chinese, Brazilians, and Hindus are well dressed and all smiles in Davos. The Russians feel so comfortable they no longer even use Ushankas. In Venezuela, despite the millions of dollars and euros that have entered the economy in recent years, the existential anguish has accelerated, especially since Nigeria, a country that shared our political and economical anxieties, has shot up like an economic rocket and does not accept, nor has she a reason too, being compared to Venezuela.

Why are we poorer than we were six years ago, if we are richer than ever? Why does Nigeria look and feel better than us? Venezuelans ask themselves. Sigh of relief. It seems Venezuela has finally learned to manage being rich as though it was poor, saying there is no money to purchase milk, chickens, or toilette paper. As Queen Marie Antoinette said before being beheaded: “let them eat cake”. We will eat yogurt, jawbreakers, and well…Kleenex tissue paper has to work for something else. Because of the lack of Venezuelans, the conference on chickens and milk, in which President Uribe was going to speak, was cancelled. The Chinese, Brazilians, Hindis, Russians, Arabs and Africans are all eating and drinking more chicken and milk than ever before. They even have money left over to buy American banks on the cheap. Is it because of this lack of chickens and milk that Venezuela has money left over to buy rifles and helicopters? These investments are productive if they are used to invade countries or far away planets, but they don’t produce much if the invasion gets complicated like in Iraq or the Falkland Islands.

There aren’t very many Venezuelans in Davos this year. I counted three. Maybe it is because we are solving our internal problems without talking to anyone else and we are going to be one of the few countries that is going to grow big time this year, thanks to the blessings of the Virgin of Coromoto, that looks after us even when we misbehave.

The world seems to agree that water and not oil is what’s going to be scarce during this century. I think that is good news, since we in Venezuela know a little bit about water scarcity, even though we have the Guri and the Cordonazos de San Francisco which cause massive mud slides. We are experts. Maybe we can finally brag about real commercial leadership and we can contribute to easing the shared anxiety in this davosian group therapy by exporting the innumerable gallons of water that fill our roofs and hallways. Problem solved: a water tank in each New York skyscraper.

The group in Davos felt a little more relaxed when it concluded that it doesn’t matter how high oil prices are, since there are so many southern countries that manage there economies well that the actions of rotten and rock throwing children, no matter where they are or where they come from, or what kind of a recession they produce due to their incompetence and bad-manners, can be controlled and coped with. All the spiritual leaders said with conviction and audacity: “may God bless them”, and they all went home happy and inspired.