What Caught My Eye Today - Venezuela, Congo, Potpourri

Fred's Note:  Just got back from two weeks of rest and recreation. While sipping on mai tais and enjoying all that the beautiful island of Oahu have to offer, I managed to squeeze in a little light reading, some of which I now share with you. 

Venezuela - First milk, butter, coffee and cornmeal ran short. Now Venezuela is running out of the most basic of necessities — toilet paper. Seriously, if you don't believe me, do an Internet search on "Venezuela toilet paper shortage". Blaming political opponents for the shortfall, as it does for other shortages, the embattled socialist government says it will import 50 million rolls to boost supplies. Clearly this is another feeble attempt by those dreaded American imperialists to undermine the Venezuelan people. Economists say Venezuela's shortages stem from price controls meant to make basic goods available to the poorest parts of society and the government's controls on foreign currency. Many factories operate at half capacity because the currency controls make it hard for them to pay for imported parts and materials. Business leaders say some companies verge on bankruptcy because they cannot extend lines of credit with foreign suppliers. The government this week announced it would import 760,000 tons of food and 50 million rolls of toilet paper. The Commerce Minister blamed the shortage of toilet tissue on "excessive demand" built up as a result of "a media campaign that has been generated to disrupt the country." Yeah, yeah, blame the media, blame the U.S., blame anyone but yourselves.  Dude, you have no toilet paper! How does something like that even happen?  At any rate, I did some checking, and it seems Venezuela is home to almost 30.3 million people.  50 million rolls of toilet paper amounts to less than 2 rolls per person.  Perhaps I am more regular than the average guy, but I burn through about a roll a week.  That 50 million ain't going to bridge the gap for very long.  

Congo - According to Save the Children, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the worst place in the world to give birth. Who'd have guessed...I mean besides everyone? One in 30 Congolese women dies from complications associated with childbirth, and tens of thousands of the have been impregnated through rape by militants or soldiers. The rankings are based on the rates of maternal death and infant death, as well as general health care and the economic status of mothers. Finland ranked as the best nation to give birth, followed by Sweden and Norway. The U.S. ranked 30th and has the industrialized world's highest death rate for newborns.  Congolese women live under the worst circumstances imaginable. My question is this--what excuse does the U.S. have for ranking so poorly among its peer group?

Potpourri -

• Presidential Campaigns - At least 14 former presidential candidates still have more than $100,000 in outstanding campaign debt. The most delinquent candidate is Republican Newt Gingrich, who owes $4.6 million from the last election, followed by perennial also-ran Lyndon LaRouche. President Obama still owes $3.1 million. Two observations. First, for Newt Gingrich and Lyndon LaRouche, where is the motivation to pay this debt back? They lost in spectacular fashion...repeatedly. What else could possible be worse? As for Obama, I'm not sure I'd worry too much about is ability to make good. $3.1 million is probably a royalty check from a post presidential memoir or a speaking engagement at some private corporate retreat.
• Jurisprudence - Since the financial crisis began in 2008, the U.S. has secured just two convictions against senior bankers. More than 800 bankers were jailed as a result of the savings-and-loan crisis in the 1980s. Two?  That's almost worse than none at all. At least if there were no convictions, one could argue that we never attempted to seek an convictions. This suggests that we are either incompetent or just don't care that we were pillaged by the financial industry. Either way, it's a sad commentary.
• Guantanamo - At $900,000 per inmate per year, Guantanamo Bay is the world's most expensive prison. By comparison, super-maximum-security prisons in the U.S. spend about $60,000 to $70,000 to house their inmates, while the average annual cost across all federal prisons is about $30,000. Here's an interesting little factoid. According to the Census Bureau, 52% of the U.S. population earned less than $30,000. What does it say about allocation of limited resources, when the prison population has more spent on it, than more than half the population that has committed no crimes?
• Strategy - At its core, strategy should provide a guide for using available resources to achieve realistic objectives. Strategy is about setting priorities, and not everything can be a top priority.  I was catching up on some back issues of Foreign Affairs (like I said earlier, I did some light reading), and found these two statements rather eye catching.  How many issues could we avoid or, at the very least, mitigate if we spent a little time looking at the big picture?