The former Head to Trading for Cargill, Jeff Kazin, tweeted a rather eye-opening tale of his experience in Venezuela:
My Venezuela experience as head of trading in the region for Cargill. Cargill was/is the leading producer of critical staple ingredients such as flour, pasta, vegetable oil, and rice in VZ. I am not saying I agree with grabbing the dictator, but I did have a front row seat to the damage a kleptocracy did to innocent people. 1. The government took over our "minute rice" facility at gunpoint because we were "gouging" the nation's poor. The government was never able to run the plant. It never ran again. It was returned years later with no equipment inside 2. There are 1000's of generals in the army. They are each given a slice of the economy to loot. The large number of generals made it difficult to organize a coup against the regime. 3. The government opened grocery stores and sold staples below the cost we sold them to the government. In theory they used petro oil money to lower grocery prices. Our regular grocery outlets were forced out of business. When the government demanded we sell them products below cost we simply had to shut down. The populous became ever more dependent on the government handouts. (PS this is the mayor of New York City's proposal. 4. Dollars- We needed dollars to go buy raw materials like wheat from places like the US and Canada. The government would periodically allocate us some dollars that could only be spent for raw materials and freight. Eventually only the local companies that can and would pay bribes got dollar allocations. We had several facilities closed for lack of raw material 5. My employees liked working for Cargill. The office was an armed compound with access to a gym, high speed internet, global communications, and a weekly box of basic staples. Cargill provided a safe and secure environment if only for the working hours. 6. Employees became very close to others inside the apartment building. Going out on the street with a desperate population was not advisable. 7. I needed wood pallets for feed. We tried to export wood pallets to swap for grain. We refused to pay the bribes it would take to export the pallets 8. I once tried to set up a closed loop wheat planting to flour mill supply chain. A. They came and stole all the seed wheat for food. When we tried to ship in seed wheat in containers via US donors there was no way to get it out of the port without it being stolen 9. Livestock- Our feed business completely collapsed. Even if you could raise a pig, you couldn't defend it from being stolen. People with guns were hungry. 10. Employees- In the end my highly skilled team alone with other highly educated people chose to leave. Cargill often found jobs for them in other Latin countries. The regime was more than happy to see the well-educated leave the country. Setting these employees up with high quality stable jobs after fleeing remains one of the best things I ever did in my career. No one remembers millions in trading earnings. This is a short list. In my opinion the first money spent needs to happen now and it needs to be food. The US is already on the clock. The current regime does not care if it starves the population. The orgy of theft will actually accelerate if they believe their days are numbered. VZ should be an outstanding customer of US grown ag products. Rice, bread wheat, veg oil ect. Feed the people first. Jeff Kazin Former head trading Cargill
37 comments:
Certainly, a lot wrong in VZ but remember Gen Powell's Pottery Barn phrase, "You break it; you own it".
US actions are all about the crude, everything else is an excuse.
The socialist opportunists will invariably fail and it is up to the people to correct their society to fulfil their needs. The capitalist opportunists will invariably fail and it is up to the people to correct their society to fulfil their needs. The "people" are those affected, not some outside imperial power.
Mandami taking notes.
Hard to understand your point. But, I believe "Feed the people first" should win the hearts and minds of those people toward inspiring them to take back their country.
this could be any country in LATAM, SEA, Africa, and the ME. This is literally how he majority of backward, third world shitholes operate. We have plenty of our own corruption in the West.However, we typically have something to show for it. “Bridges to nowhere” are very rare.
I work in the medical supplies and equipment industry. I could tell you stories about the medical industries in developing countries. Hospitals that look nicer and newer than the ones in Mississippi. Full of brand new equipment. Staffed by the greediest, most corrupt, most incompetent nepobabies you hve ever seen. Yes, the government is always involved. And people die because of it.
In VZ, greed is good.
“The government opened grocery stores and sold staples below the cost we sold them to the government. In theory they used petro oil money to lower grocery prices.”
But I was told the people of Venezuela didn’t see any benefits from the oil industry.
And golly, Jeff, if Cargill found it so difficult to turn a profit off of Venezuela’s resources and customers what took you so long to leave? There’s plenty of other markets to exploit. Such a wonderfully responsible company like Cargill shouldn’t have trouble finding populations to sicken with meat infected with E. coli, or ways to engage in price fixing, or rivers to illegally pollute with hog manure, or children to traffic to work on your farms.
Cry me a river filled with acidic wastewater, sir.
“The government opened grocery stores and sold staples below the cost we sold them to the government. In theory they used petro oil money to lower grocery prices.”
But I was told the people of Venezuela didn’t see any benefits from the oil industry.
And golly, Jeff, if Cargill found it so difficult to turn a profit off of Venezuela’s resources and customers what took you so long to leave? There’s plenty of other markets to exploit. Such a wonderfully responsible company like Cargill shouldn’t have trouble finding populations to sicken with meat infected with E. coli, or ways to engage in price fixing, or rivers to illegally pollute with hog manure, or children to traffic to work on your farms.
Cry me a river filled with acidic wastewater, sir.
The COJ admin. could take notes from these Latin American grifters.
What Kazin describes, WOULD HAVE been our fate, had Cackles & The Coach been installed by the CCP, as was planned. And it WILL BE our fate, eventually, unless tamper-proof elections are ensured.
@1:11 PM
Two words…
Venezuelan women
Two more words…
Dios mio
12:58 sounds like you've never been to sunflower hospital in the delta. you're describing mississippi.
Pretty much the same thing with the oil. Venezuela had invited foreign capital in the 1990s. They called it, "Apertura Petrolera"--their strategic opening of its oil industry to international oil companies with state-owned PDVSA through joint ventures. The splits were usually 60/40. Foreign companies brought in the better infrastructure with equipment, financing, technology, and expertise. But then Chavez got in there and slashed 40% of the workforce and re-wrote the contracts, changing up the royalties, taxes, equity structure, etc. etc. It was the loss of that technical and institutional knowledge that made it all collapse. Foreign companies had brought in their executives, engineers, geologists, technicians, refinery operators, tanker crews, pipeline controllers, etc. When Chavez kicked them all out, they didn't know how to maintain the systems and infrastructure. Preventive maintenance stopped. Safety systems deteriorated. Equipment failed. They were sitting on a gold mine but didn't know how to properly mine gold.
1:11 PM, like almost every apologist for communism, you refuse to believe those who have seen it first hand.
It's never like what the textbooks say. It's never the dictionary definition of communism . It is a total dystopia , dysfunctional, incompetent, corrupt , utterly heartless, Godless , and nobody will or can do anything to change it.
We are seeing what is going to be the future. In the future each continent will belong to one country. We can be the one to take over this one or can elect people who look into the past and become part of the large country.
@1:11. You're correct, they saw a benefit for about 5 minutes with oil buying down the groceries. This lasts only for a while and the model collapses, every time, just like it did there with there GDP down 70% from 20-24 and hyper-inflation. Jeff outlined some of those reasons and why companies eventually forfeit their investment and let them lie in the bed they made. If NYC is successful in their endeavor, the result will be the same. It'll feel oh so good for a minute, and then the collapse will come unless they abandon those plans which history shows is hard to do until the colllapse.
1:55 This may come as a shock but no economic system is perfect. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, all have produced horror stories of deprivation, theft, brutality, slavery, incompetence, and the like. All of them. Let the people of each country decide what works best for them not what works best for someone else. With our history we are in no position to preach. Even we are not perfect.
I quoted the corporate stooge who did see it first hand. Feeding poor people really does trigger you boomers. .
@2:36 PM you are either incredibly ignorant or intellectually dishonest. Capitalism alone has advanced civilization. Despite Sputnik, the Soviets didn’t invent any refrigerators, microwaves, advanced medical devices, or super computers. They couldn’t even reverse engineer the Motorola 68k or Zilog Z80, or Intel 8088. They couldn’t produce enough food or consumer goods for their population. Freedom + Capitalism is the only human system that works. You might say that our constitutional republic has flaws, and those are primarily due to universal suffrage, but you will find no better “system” on the planet. If you could then you would see a huge migration out of the USA instead of a constant demand to get in.
@thelaw - I am delighted to see a post from you again. I have not seen one in quite some time. You always bring receipts!
2:54 Civilization is not all inventions and consumer goods. No question that the profit incentive nurtures innovation, it also promises a higher standard of living for a percentage of people who are most competitive. That is the attraction of capitalism. But capitalism can also promote exploitation and outright theft although we would rather it did not. Slavery and exploitation of workers have historically been an integral part of successful capitalism although we would like to ignore it. We know that communism and socialism are not perfect but that does not mean that capitalism is perfect. It is not. Many people have suffered greatly under a capitalist system. Many suffer under the other systems. None are perfect. That was the statement of fact. Sorry for your misunderstanding.
When you control the groceries, you control the people. Right Mamdani?
I don't know if intervening in Venezuela was the right thing to do.
But I'm absolutely certain of this: F*ck Maduro, and the stolen horse he rode in on. I will not miss him.
Maybe another one will rise to replace him, but at least the people of Venezula might have a fighting chance for something better.
Orange man bad! Orange man evil!
Orange man bad! Orange man evil!
Orange man bad! Orange man evil!
2:54 nailed it. That guy would never willingly go live somewhere with a communist government.
@1:32 There is a hospital in Sunflower?
2:54PM, All of the free benefits might have more to do with coming in. When you add up all of the bennies Joe gave out I can understand.
@5:50 PM
No misunderstanding here. You simply drank the up the socialist propaganda. I’m sure you got your version of history from The Grapes of Wrath
Nobody had to work on Maggie’s Farm. Nobody had to work in Henry Ford’s automobile factory. What you call exploitation was actually an abundance of labor driving down the value of labor. That’s how the free market works. In a socialist system you have the exact same situation where everyone has a job and free housing but nobody is really producing anything of value. They make b out Bing and earn nothing. Their free housing has no value. There is nothing of value in the market to buy. The quality of necessities is poor. And bribes and corruption are rampant.
On my last hitch in Afghanistan I worked with a kid from Venezuela. Said his family owned a horse ranch there. The Gov showed up one day & confiscated all the horses. He learned later they had been eaten. The family was not allowed to return & the jungle has all but taken the ranch...
What 2:54 said. Name a better system than ours. Then move there
RISK is a board game, should not be foreign
Policy
I’ll agree with Cargill. I managed a private equity fund in South America. We had the board stocked with all the political and manufacturing geniuses. It failed for same reason. The 2 companies in our portfolio we used to discuss the corruption was a sardine company and a rice company. Our companies had all the resources but the country lacked political leadership. We had currency risk removed and just about all other external risks removed but it failed simply because of corruption. Having to live in Mississippi for last 5 years to take care of parents, I have seen the ills of this state. There are pay offs, back room negotiations and these leaders are padding their personal interests and pockets. And the people of Mississippi are poorer and less educated than the rest of America. Only the good ole boys thrive. I used to say white boys but I can’t see the difference anymore. white/black, they all look and smell the same. They are Mississippians.
Trump scares me. At age 30, my boss took me to NYC, showed me trump’s investments and his financial game plan. He taught me how Trump operates. . He showed me what China was doing with technology and natural resources. Everything he said is coming to fruition now. My boss was an investment genius. Now we are scrambling and in reaction mode. Reacting instead of acting is never a good thing.
12:11 I agree to disagree . Ask about Americans that worked there servicing our companies in years back what they saw 1st hand. Don’t believe Jeffries & Democrats. There is much more to the story. Trust Trump & our leaders. Benghazi alone was enough to see the truth was not told. Drugs & criminals coming into many countries do not help enrich lives.
Still, in the end, at the end of the day, after the work is done, the final accounting complete, it’s about the oil. Believe all the bullshit you want about the benevolent US Government just wanting to feed people and do what’s right under God with liberty and justice for all, but it’s about the oil.
You know, corruption gives some of us a good life.
Thank you, Mr. Kazin, for sharing your experiences, observations and insight with us. It was very informative and well written and accurate given my travels South of the Border. You will find many countries away from tourist areas and larger " cities" to very, very poor.At least in Panama, it was a trade canal not neglect oil rigs so that worked. More countries had a dog in that fight.
I do remember that oil companies reached a lucrative (in those days) deal to sell their oil leases back to Venezuela. I don't remember any of our other industries or agricultural influences having the political and financial clout to get adequate compensation. I've no doubt their government was corrupt and brutal. That said, I have misgivings about being " the world's policemen" especially without allies even if the current government and/or population is smaller than some of our states or belong to another country. I along, with others felt and still feel, we needed to tend to our own country before telling others how to run their countries.
We have a poor track record even with allies forcing regime change ...Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and Dessert Storm did not get us better governments over time for the country we " helped" with the exception of the southern part of Korea and an island China wants. I would argue that global economic theory has hurt more than helped in creating more of an economic gap between the rich and poor that is now deeper and increasing worldwide. It was reduce competition for low wage and skilled workers by leveling that main enticement to new industry and old. I remember one theorist thought by now all wages would be equivalent to $5 an hour for unskilled labor. Instead, we taught other countries where to buy equipment and train workers to operate it.
Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, and Dessert Storm
Ahh yes… Dessert Storm… back when I was an elite member of MEAL Team Six
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