Venezuela needs new athletes who do not lose time discussing issues being so irrelevant for the country as: exchange fluctuation bands, the exchange rate's anchoring; the Central Bank's autonomy, the budget gap, the oil industry's opening, IMF agreements, a new job severance benefits system, the balancing of monetary and exchange policy, the creation of a national contingency fund, etc…All these discussions between our public men are Byzantine, superficial and, what is worst, they reinforce the true cause of the economic impoverishment being experienced by our country. If our main premise were the phrase "their discussions will let you recognize them", our current Venezuelan public opinion athletes would distinguish themselves as the world's most devoid of understanding and social sensibility. Most of our economic heroes debate issues being relevant only for the world's capitalist economies, just as if they were applicable to a socialist economy such as that of Venezuela. All these discussions by our economic heroes are as unfruitful as shown by our country's very bad economic record.

In a socialist country where Government owns the main producing enterprises and where public officers are in charge of providing education and health to most of the people, there will always be fiscal deficits —Government expenditure will always be larger than its income— there will always be unemployment and lack of productivity, trade opening will always beget unemployment, the Central Bank will never be autonomous and inflation will always be uncontrollable. What is more, in a socialist economy such as ours, it is totally worthless to study economics and even more to debate it. It is more advisable to follow training courses of the "how to make friends" kind in order to gain a promising personal future —not for the individual's wealth creation and professional ability, but rather for having become friends of those who had key jobs in Government agencies and institutions from where people are sacked.

The 2000 Olympiad's athletes
Let us not lose additional time discussing issues that are not relevant for Venezuela.

Venezuela's sole important challenge is how to bring change to a Government or public officers' economy to a citizen's or capitalist economy. This task, as a matter of fact, is quite difficult and it requires highly recognized athletes such as Bolívar, Lincoln, etc.… Many hurdles are in the way of these athletes:

1. A civil society group with significant power is used to live with Government protected subsidies and monopolies. Among these important civilians who support a welfare State, one finds: bankers, businessmen, teachers, medical doctors, judges, contractors, intellectuals, etc… This economic and cultural behavior has remained unchanged from the time of the colony, in the years 1500, and it makes success most difficult for the economic change programs required to start with a new society where citizens depend on their creativity and effort;
2. the wrongly called market reforms, the IMF branded programs, have done nothing less until now but to propitiate the budget gap solution by emptying the people's pockets by means of taxes, devaluations, higher public services fees and external indebtedness. And these market disguised reforms with a statist structure have only been able to impoverish even more the people when taking their resources away from them in order to cover never adjusted losses of Governments corporations and institutions;
3. privatizations in these market-disguised reforms have meant nothing else but legalizing the situation of the political groups' privileged members or direct exchanges between multinationals and public officers; they necessarily end up in increasing unemployment and lowering the expectations of a better distribution of the country's wealth;
4. any group of citizens organizing themselves to fight against the poverty-creating State has to challenge —with most limited personal resources— all the Government apparatus that is being financed with the amazing figure of US $30 billion a year, including taxes on the people.

Faced with so many hurdles placed in society's way by the creators of Venezuelan statism, we should not be surprised that all those citizens who have tried, until now, to reform the country, have given up in their fight against the current oppressive system and that reforms keep being postponed. The country is living a most delicate situation. In some interesting aspects there is a similarity with the United States's situation during the critical struggle between abolitionist and pro-slavery factions that could have destroyed the Union if it had not been for the fact that Abraham Lincoln was able to manage it so masterly.

The David of the next economic transformation Olympiad in Venezuela.
If something raises more hope with regard to the country and its transformation it is not the fact that some of its citizens —David— may by themselves downsize the Oppressing Government —Goliath. Actually, Government is falling by itself— i.e. wrecked jails, private security everywhere, borders open to pillage, collapsed hospitals and schools, inflation and poverty for many, in the midst of wealth for a few. However, this natural breaking down of the Venezuelan socialist State has not been well led until now by the next election's possible presidential candidates. Rather than being a socialist-state crisis as it was in the Czech Republic, it looks as if the chaos resulting from the lack of substitute leaders resembles more that of post-communist Russia. Lack of leadership in Venezuela is following hazardous roads:

1. aggression against those who oppose the oppressor state by accusing them of being conspirators and prophets of disaster —President Caldera's approach;
2. invitation to anarchy and social eruption caused by frustration —Chávez's line;
3. people being happy with 1998 presidential candidates who offer nothing to challenge the great national transformation;
4. traditional political parties trying to recover banners resuscitating their dead electors.

The new leaders are bound to explain that Venezuela will always be poor if resources do not go from Government to its citizens, without leaks and losses of resources in the transfer serving only to benefit just a few. The people must be explained that PDVSA is already privatized, but badly because it is in the hands of political parties; that public officers may not be the economy's engine; that enough with Presidents greeting foreign investors; that citizens are the new businessmen who must negotiate strategic associations and the oil industry's opening directly with the transnational corporations. The entire cast of economists offered to us by traditional politicians must change, with new people with more clear views, exposing the new message and opening the way.

Cases such as those of Chile, Peru, Bolivia, the Czech Republic —although they may be overcome in their success— show the kind of people required by Venezuela to go forward.