Miami Herald Loco Coverage

Miami Herald writer Tyler Bridges has gone out of his mind in neocolonial grief. He is writing about a trade agreement that was dead before it started. He mentions, quite in obvious error that Uruguay supports Miami getting the headquarters for this non-existent entity and a few paragraphs later contradicts this. Obviously Uruguay’s Socialist government, which opposes the FTAA altogether would not support Miami as its HQ. He also mentions support from President Toledo of Peru, who terms out of office in a couple of months. It’s all rather baffling. Of course FTAA talk has went from headlines to disappearing from the Herald before this bizarre story.

So now for a brief discussion on neocolonial trade with Miamista. What traditionally happens in trade between the developing and developed world is that Third World nations give up their resources and provide cheap labor and we provide added value through our marketing and technological expertise, selling the product in our market at greatly increased products. Miami has always taken a contrarian view, (with the obvious exception of cocaine). We look to sell U.S. consumer products to the tiny group of Latin American consumers that can afford it. Why doesn’t it work? The entire economy of Latin America is equivalent to California. The traditional strength of Miami’s relationships has been with Columbia, Venezuela and Central America. The combined GNP of Central America is about $136 billion. Colombia and Venezuela are at about $83 billion each. To put that in perspective Kentucky or South Carolina each have a state product of $136 billion. Utah or Arkansas produce about $83 billion. So what we are focusing is high end trade with Arkansas and Kentucky.

The last place that Venezuelan state owned Citgo, whose U.S. operations are located in Texas, Illinois and New Jersey wants to do business with is Miami. We cannot offer the technological expertise and we have a hostile far right political climate. We should be telling Venezuela and other Mercosur states that regardless of politics we want to do business. Instead we are pursuing the political agenda of the leaders of our mini-state and losing money for it.

Is it too late for Miami to insert itself into the mainstream of Latin American trade? Miami has many advantages, including a bilingual workforce and cultural familiarity with Latin America but that is not enough. Miami must consider refocusing its relationship to Latin American producers rather than consumers and creating a technology/ marketing/ manufacturing base that would concentrate on the U.S., European and Asian markets.

Gulf coast ports, especially New Orleans and Houston handle the majority of cargo with Latin America. Energy and petrochemicals for example, has been lucrative for Gulf ports precisely because of the technological expertise.

Onto other Miami Herald craziness. (AN INSIDE SOURCE AT THE HERALD LET ME KNOW THAT THEY CHANGED THE THE URL IN THE DATABASE BECAUSE THIS ARTICLE HAD BEEN CIRCULATING EMBARASSING POOR ANA! I UPDATED IT)

Ana Veciana Suarez, writer of wistful little home life/morality pieces for the Herald has pled guilty to contempt of court. While awarding former felony suspect Mariano Martinez a few hundred thousand in his malicious prosecution case Ana conveniently omitted that she is the daughter of Tony Montana, I mean Antonio “Perico” Veciana. While I am fearful that she will bust a cap in my monkey ass, it was too funny to let this go by without comment. Ana’s father, the coke don running the East Coast operations of The Corporation was hemmed up at Atlanta Federal a couple of decades ago but he is out on the streets these days, making moves. Ana's refusal to remove herself when no explanation was required proves what some already know. Ana's wistful articles are a front for a tough as nails broad that always sides with the underbelly. If you ever need to know what’s going on with Colombian flake just let chica at the Herald know, she’s got the tight connection.