Motors Matter More Than Lungs

Straight out of TransMilenio's tailpipes and into our lungs.

Bogotá's Secretariat of the Environment just decided not to require TransMilenio and Sitp buses to use filters to reduce their pollution.

Anybody who traveles Bogotá's streets can see why many of those buses are called 'rolling chimneys.'
Air pollution causes thousands of premature deaths in Bogotá each year, as well as untold suffering for the aged and for people with asthma and other breathing ailments.

But the agency that's supposed to protect Bogotá's environment (and presumably our health) took the side of the bus owners, who claim that filters would damage their engines. That might come as a surprise in the many cities around the world which have required filters for years - and where residents breathe clean air. It's enough to make one suspect that the Bogotá bus owners' real agenda is to save money by sending their unfiltered filth belching into our atmosphere.

A SITP bus does what it knows best:
pump billions of diesel particles into our air.

Instead, the law instructs bus owners to select from a range of anti-pollution options, including valves, conventional filters, magnetic filters, etc. In other words, by giving the owners many alternatives, none will be enforced.

And even if the owners are right about the engine damage, it only means an additional cost - undoubtedly still much cheaper than the immense health and environmental damage caused by Bogotá's toxic air pollution.

Besides the medical and environmental impacts, how many companies have chosen to locate elsewhere because of the gray air? How many tourists have opted to spend their time and money elsewhere to give their lungs a break?

Putting the economic interests of bus owners first is a bad bargain for the city all around.

Bogotá's environmental agency has made it clear: Their motors are woth more than our lungs.

An afterthought: The polluters are shifting their costs onto cyclists and pedestrians in a very concrete way: by forcing them to buy the filters, to cover their own mouths.

Dressed right for Bogotá's air.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The End of AirBnB?

A new law requiring (as I read it) every person who wants to offer a room on AirBnB to register as a tourist agency is an ill-designed attempt to benefit the hotel industry by prohibiting competition.

It's understandable that hotels and hostels, which undoubtedly pay lots of taxes and suffer under reams of regulations, see AirBnB as unfair competition. But the 'sharing economy', which also includes Uber, has become a big part of our culture and economy, enabling an untold number of Colombians to earn extra income while putting a vacant room to use. As a person who runs a tourism business myself and has to pay lots of taxes and comply with often unreasonable - and sometimes impossible - laws, I can assure you that nobody will suffer thru this bureacratic nightmare just to rent an extra bedroom. Instead, if the law is enforced, it will either shut the sharing economy down (as taxis are attempting to do to Uber) or push it into illegality.

The magic of the Internet has made it possible for people with excess resource - such as an empty

Rooms for rent: Should this home's owner
have to register as a tourism agency?

room or apartment - to hook up with others seeking that resource, such as travelers. In the Internet ages, this is not likely to go away, no matter what hoteliers and taxi drivers may wish. By banning AirBnB, Colombia would hurt itself by turning away travelers who don't like staying in hotels. Those people will instead go to Argentina, Mexico or some other jurisdiction which does permit room sharing, and Colombian travel agencies, handicraft makers, restaurants and bus companies will all lose out for the sake of defending the hotels' obsolete monopoly.

This is all particularly true of a nation like Colombia which is just establishing itself as a tourist destination. Eliminating a whole category of lodging won't help its case.

AirBnB-type services creat real concerns, such as a neighborhood losing its character, or becoming unaffordable to its traditional residents, altho these things can happen anyway. Ways to handle these concerns are to limit the number of days per year which a property can be rented out, or prohibiting an individual from renting out multiple properties. And taxes can much more easily be collected from the company than from each individjal property owner.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Santos: Worst President Ever?

Economic growth is slowing, drug production is growing, and the Colombian government is handing the nation over to communist guerrillas.

Colombia is in multiple crisis due to the misgovernance of Pres. Santos - if you believe right-wing Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady.

It does sound pretty bad - unless you look at thing in context.

Pres. Juan Manuel Santos

Yes, Colombia's economic growth has slowed, but that's the fault of weak prices for raw materials, which Colombia can't control, as well as Colombia's lack of economic diversification - a problem the nation had since long before Santos.

In fact, just months ago Colombia had one of the world's fastest-growing economies, and one which had grown year after year under both presidents Uribe and Santos.

Santos has also pursued exactly the sort of capitalist free trade policies which the Journal usually praises.

It's also true that Colombia's cocaine production has boomed in recent years, and part of the reason is undoubtedly the government's prohibition against aerial herbicide spraying. That decision, based on supposed health concerns, was certainly questionable. But the more fundamental reason for the drug crop's growth is the booming cocaine market in the U.S. - and that is not Colombia's fault. Prohibitionist policies have never worked, and those failed policies are imposed by Washington, not -Bogotá.

O'Grady is also correct that the government gave the FARC guerrillas a sweetheart deal in the peace talks, and that Santos simply ignored the national referendum which voted narrowly against the pact. But I'd like to see anybody, including Uribe, get the guerrillas to sign a better deal - particularly one which would send them to prison for their numerous crimes.

O'Grady is correct that Colombia has troubles, but they're mostly not the fault of Pres. Santos.

O'Grady doesn't want the U.S. government to continue sending foreign aid to Colombia. However, Colombia's transformation from a near failed state to a stable democracy with a growing economy is one of Washington's biggest foreign policy successes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

A White Elephant Towering Over Bogotá?

Is anybody working up there?
The two-tower BD Bacata
looks quiet these days.

The BD Bacata skyscraper started out in the year 2013 with great promise - or at least promises. Colombia's new tallest building - and the second tallest in South America - would be the world's first crowdfunded high-rise and produce returns for investors at double the bank rate. The two-tower complex - to include a shopping mall, hotel, luxury apartments and offices - wouldn't even worsen traffic jams in the already-congested area.

The promoters' promises sounded too good to be true, and so far they have been. Construction is now years behind schedule, and investors who each poured tens of millions of pesos into the trillion peso project, are complaining. The Bacata's builders say the project will operate this year, and the mall section looks close to completion. However, during the past weeks I haven't seen anybody working on the unfinished towers. The project'¿s backers explain that they ran into legal and other delays, including a huge rock underground.

The mall looks near completiion.

The skyscraper was never a great idea by urban design standards. It's on a busy, chaotic avenue, with only a narrow access to its parking garage. And the building has little public space, and no green space at all nearby.

Now, I wonder whether it'll get finished, and I feel sorry for those who counted on it for a life-long 'guaranteed' income.

A century ago, the Edificio Peraza on Calle 13 across from the Estación de la Sabana was Colombia's tallest building.

Today, however, it appears vacant and decrepit.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Who Said They Can't Coexist?

Who said that Starbucks would drive Juan Valdez out of business? Here in the Centro Internacional, the two cafés operate side-by-side, and both seem to be doing okay. I don't know the prices, but have been told that Starbucks appeals to a higher-income market. These two, however, appeared to have pretty similar clientele: businessy-looking people pecking at laptops or staring at their smartphones.

At least, they're both serving up Colombian beans, even if the farmer likely gets only a drop from each cup.

Coffee, it's worth noting, was a big productivity booster when introduced in Holland centuries ago and replaced beer, which wasn't great for productivity.

According to their websites, there are 106 Juan Valdez cafés in Bogotá and 10 Starbucks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Who Said They Can't Coexist?

Who said that Starbucks would drive Juan Valdez out of town? Here in the Centro Nacional, the two café's operate side-by-side, and both seem to be doing okay. I don't know the prices, but have been told that Starbucks appeals to a higher-income market. These two, however, appeared to have pretty similar clientele: businessy-looking people pecking at laptops or staring at their smartphones.

At least, they're both serving up Colombian beans, even if the farmer likely gets only a drop from each cup.

Coffee, it's worth noting, was a big productivity booster when introduced in Holland centuries ago. Of course, it gives drinkers a lift. But back then it also replaced beer, whose consumption didn't have the best effects on productivity.

According to their websites, there are 106 Juan Valdez cafés in Bogotá and 10 Starbucks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Oil Addiction

Articles in El Tiempo call for more investment in
petroleum production.

Colombia is not often seen as a petroleum state like its neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela. Yet, until oil prices tanked, Colombia earned more than half of its foreign exchange income from petroleum exports. And oil provided a big chunk of government royalties - money that Colombia is desperate for to pay the costs of the peace deal to be voted on Nov. 2.

However, oil has brought big environmental costs, and produced relatively few jobs.

Now that petroleum's price dive has demonstrated the danger of relying on commodity exports, Colombia's response is simple: Double down on oil.

EcoPetrol's headquarters building in
Bogotá. The company's mascot
is an iguana.

El Tiempo has run a series of stories emphasizing the need to boost oil production with subsidies and tax breaks, neglecting to mention that these subsidies also benefit some of the nation's wealthiest men and corporations.

Nor is the newspaper or the government bothered by the contradiction between their dire warnings about the effects of oil-driven climate change and promises that Colombia will do its part, and the nation's oily ambitions.

I read recently that Colombia has only 7 years of petroleum reserves at the rate that it's pumping them out. Undoubtedly, they can extend those with more prospecting, but in the end it's probably a losing race.

There's also a vicious cycle (another type of tragedy of the commons) involved in the race to pump

An electric tax. Bogotá has exactly 43 of them on the streets,
according to El Tiempo.
(Photo: Ministry of the Environment)

more oil, which many other producers are also engaged in. The more oil producers pump to compensate for low prices, the lower prices will drop, making production gains valueless.

Colombia should instead direct subsidies toward manufacturing, which employs lots of people and is more sustainable in the long run. (And would produce employment for ex-guerrillas who may not want to become poor farmers.) It should also make real efforts to shift toward more efficient and oil-free energy in transportation and industry.


By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Infrastructure Election

Enrique Peñalosa, mayor-elect of Bogotá.

Enrique Peñalosa got the most votes in Bogotá's mayoral election, but the big winners may be construction companies.

A look over campaign contributions as summarized by El Espectador, using information from the Cuentas Claras website (I couldn't get the site to work myself) shows that construction companies financed much of the campaigning, particularly Peñalosa's.

Ex-Mayor Enrique Peñalosa, who led in nearly all the pre-election polls, had the biggest campaign chest. $1.6 billion pesos. El Espectador's article lists at least six builders who contributed to him, and also notes that Peñalosa's 'legal representative' is a director of two construction companies.

At least one of Peñalosa's contributors suffered a recent controversy. Ladrillera Santafe, which mines and sells building materials, was criticized this year by rural residents of Cundinamarca for plans to open three big clay mines, for brickmaking. The critics charged that the mines would destroy the region's ecotourism potential.

There's lots of money in that construction,
whether necessary or not.

It's not hard to see why builders might want Bogotá's new mayor to owe them a favor, since the city
will likely spend a fortune on construction in the next years, on a metro line (sure to cost at least U.S. $10 billion), new roads and bridges, replacing the El Campin football stadium, remaking the Rio Bogotá and many other projects.

But whether such infrastructure is really necessary is another question. Yes, Bogotá has huge traffic jams. But it's well documented that expanding roadways only generates more traffic. The congestion could be reduced much faster and less expensively by discouraging driving, by taxing gasoline more and with a London-style congestion fee. Yes, a metro line would be nice, but the city can't figure out how to cover its projected budget, which is likely to double projectsion. (Peñalosa favors a less expensive, faster-to-build elevated metro line.)

But whether or not the city needs such projects, with construction companies whispering in the mayor's ear, they're much likelier to be built.

People and companies may contribute to candidates for many reasons, including friendship, ideological affnity and respect, but undoubtedly the biggest reason is personal interest: The contributor believes that the candidate, if elected, will promote the contributor's interests, whether by pouring money into their sector of the economy or favoring their specific company. And I suspect that many believe that, if they help get their man or woman into office, he or she will return the favor by funneling city money their way.

That might be good for the company, but not for the city, if the contributing company charges more, is corrupt or less competent than other companies who did not grease the wheels with campaign contributions. Much government spending is not necessary in the first place. For an example, look at the United States' huge and absurd agricultural subsidies, which persist mostly because a few farm states like Iowa have a disproportionate influence in presidential elections.

Whether the builders' investments in Peñalosa's campaign pay off may depend on which Peñalosa governs Bogotá. This Peñalosa campaign video is mostly about building and widening roads all over the city, despite roads' negative impacts on noise, pollution and quality of life - and the fact that they quickly fill up as well.

On the other hand, El Tiempo's summary of Peñalosa's plans emphasizes more sustainable projects such as expanding public transit and bike lanes.

Which Peñalosa will govern Bogotá?

Full disclosure: My business, Bogotá Bike Tours, has benefited indirectly from the construction companies' largesse because we've rented bikes to the Peñalosa campaign.





By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

They Can't Have It Both Ways

Celebrate: Gas got cheaper.

El Tiempo continues its campaign for cheap gasoline today with its report that 'Colombia is one of the nations where people 'sweat' more to buy gasoline.'

The numbers compare the price of gasoline to the average income, but forget to mention that that
average wage earner probably does not own a car, and so does not directly buy gasoline, but does suffer the impacts of cheaper fuel in the form of pollution, massive traffic jams and worse services in schools when gasoline is not taxed or even subsidized, as it is in Colombia.

What cheap gas gets you.

El Tiempo gives good coverage to problems like traffic congestion, global warming and, even, sometimes, air pollution. So, how does it choose to ignore the fact that the cheap gasoline it so desires contributes to all of those problems? Perhaps because the wealthy people who run El Tiempo all drive around in private cars and because the paper's owner, Luis Carlos Sarmiento, Colombia's richest man, who owns banking, cargo and construction companies, profits, at least in the short term, from cheap fuel.

In fact, Colombia has quite cheap gasoline compared to other nations in the region. Neighbors Ecuador and Venezuela, whose gas is cheaper, are driving themselves broke by subsidizing fuel.

Those who run El Tiempo should think of their city's and nation's real interests instead of just their own.

Colombian gasoline is quite cheap for the region.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Scapegoating Colombians

Deported Colombians wait with their belongings.
(Reuters)

"They're driving them out of their homes, and stealing their belongings," one of the guys who works with me said angrily, turning away from the TV news.

He had been watching a report about Colombians being driven out of their homes in Venezuelan border regions and deported back to Colombia.

Those Colombians are, according to the Venezuelan government, the cause of Venezuela's problems.

Venezuela has one of the world's highest homicide rates - so high that its government has stopped publishing crime statistics. Its economy is floundering so badly that the economics ministry has quit publishing inflation statistics. Its troubles with shortages and corruption go on and on.

Now, with parliamentary elections just a few months away, the Venezuelan government has decided that the culprits are not Venezuelans, but Colombians (not to mention the evil, imperialistic U.S.)

Venezuela's continuing crisis will likely only get lots worse before things get better. And, Venezuela will badly need the goodwill and assistance of its most important neighbor and important trading partner.

Venezuelan Pres. Maduro may see electoral advantages in scapegoating Colombians, but he's not doing his nation any long-term favors.

Maduro's '21st-Century Socialism', which consists mostly of populist give-aways and economic controls, is based on denial of economic realities. Price controls and a command economy caused shortages and long lines in communist Eastern Europe. Now they're bringing the same results to Venezuela. Why should anybody be surprised?

It is true that, on a small scale, Venezuela's troubles are contributed to by Colombian (and Venezuelan) smugglers, who carry subsidized Venezuelan gasoline and foodstuffs across the border and cocaine the other way.

Guess what happens when something costs pennies on one side of a line and dollars on the other? That product gets shifted from the cheap side to the rich side, no matter what anybody tries to do. It's like water flowing downhill.

Venezuela has always been unsustainably dependent on oil income. But that independence has only increased during the years since Hugo Chavez was elected president, making the recent price plunge extremely devastating. The Venezuelan government has only made the situation worse by making gasoline free, hemorraging many billions of dollars annually with a subsidy which also harms the environment and goes disproportionalely to the wealthy.

Until Venezuela discovers economic reality its troubles will worsen. Sadly, that means that persecution of Colombians may only get worse.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

What's Going On With ISAGEN?

Protesters against ISAGEN's sale in front of the Supreme Court today.

'Energy sovereignety.'
'ISAGEN is not for sale.'

You've probably seen posters and protesters about ISAGEN, which is Colombia's 3rd-largest electricity generator, providing 16% of the country's energy. ISAGEN is a multi-billion-dollar company headquartered in Medellin and owner of 5 hydroelectric generating plants and 1 thermal one.

But if ISAGEN is a keystone to Colombia's economy and infrastructure, it's also a valuable company, 57% owned by the government. And the president sees it as the golden egg whose sale can finance construction of Colombian infrastructure, particularly highways.

But is it a good idea for Colombia to let such a critical piece of its economy pass into the control of foreigners? So far, French, Canadian and Chilean companies have expressed the most interest. Will they find it in their interest to manage the company well, to invest in it? What if the buyer goes bankrupt one day?

ISAGEN's Sogamoso hydroelectric dam. (Photo from ISAGEN's website.)

But ISAGEN workers unions are protesting the sale, fearful that privatization will bring layoffs and other cutbacks, as usually happens. And, as always happens when a big public company is to be privatized, opponents call it a threat to national sovereignety - which it very well may be.

The other day, in response to lawsuits, a judge temporarily suspended the sale, sending ISAGEN's shares tumbling and even causing the peso's value to dip.

Men walk past posters on Carrera 7 protesting the proposed ISAGEN sale.

A protester's sign says: 'ISAGEN is for everyone!'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Coming Out Party

A new Colombia is born? This ad on the front page of the New York Times says so, and there's some truth to it. Colombia's become much less violent and much more stable over the past decade, pushing the its drug and guerrilla conflicts into the background. 

It's sad, tho, that the economy of the New Colombia will still depend on those same old raw materials, if we can judge by the ad's marketing push for Colombia's oil reserves.

Give the Colombian government - or its PR agency - credit for not ignoring the reality of the armed conflict. One of the photos even shows a protester's sign denouncing Colombia's long list of terror organizations: guerrillas, paramilitaries, BACRIM and even the state. That's pretty gutsy, and makes plain that as much as Colombia has improved in security and economically, it's still not Sweden. This is not the first time that the government's own promotion agencies have included references to the nation's troubles: Not long ago, the country's tourism slogan boasted: 'The only risk is wanting to stay.' Also a bit daring is the inclusion of a photo and interview with Tatiana Piñeros Laverde,  a transvestite woman who is director of Bogotá tourism.

Colombia's huge change was made plain to me by an Australian tourist who did the bike tour the other day. She had traveled thru Colombia around 1990, when buses she was on were stopped by mysterious groups of armed men, who took passengers away, and when she was robbed and her companion beaten up by a taxi driver collaborating with police, she told me. Her current visit has been very different.

But, sadly, old images die slowly, especially when they're as dramatic as Colombia's. Vice News, for example, has a collection of sensationalized videos about drugs, sex and killing in Colombia, and I'm sure that they get lots more views than does the government's marketing propaganda.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Tough Times for EcoPetrol

A sick iguana?

The price of its main product has plummeted, its reserves are declining, and it's embroiled in a corruption scandal.

These are tough times for Colombia's national oil company, EcoPetrol.

Any company would be devastated if the value of its principle product suddenly dropped by more than half. But the plummeting world oil price comes at an already difficult time for EcoPetrol, which, along with associated private companies, pumps the great majority of Colombia's oil. And oil until recently generated most of Colombia's export revenue.

Colombia's oil reserves - the petroleum underground which could be profitably drilled - is shrinking because of scarce new discoveries. And the plummeting oil price has caused EcoPetrol to slash its exploration budget, meaning that even less new oil will likely be found.

Colombian oil potential during the 1990s.
Things are no longer so rosy.

At the same time, the emblematic Colombian company is embroiled in a mushrooming bribery scandal. Executives of a United States oil services company, PetroTiger, allegedly paid bribes to an EcoPetrol executive's wife in an attempt to obtain valuable contracts.

PetroTiger's founders have been indicted in a U.S. federal court. One of them, as well as a company lawyer, have plead guilty, but the other founder is fighting the charges.

However, the PetroTiger affair may be only the tip of a corruption iceberg inside EcoPetrol, according to news reports.

EcoPetrol's stock value, which had soared about 5,000 pesos in 2013, has dropped to around 2,000 pesos.

The national oil company's troubles have major implications for Colombia's economy, which will lose several points of GDP, as well as its peace process, which requires huge investments to demobilize guerrilla fighters and compensate victims.

Colombia will muddle thru this economic hit, (altho neighbor Venezuela may not be so lucky). But the episode contains valuable - and obvious - lessons, such as 'Don't put all your eggs in one basket,' and 'Develop a diversified economy not based on exporting raw materials.'

That way, Colombia might save its economy - and its environment as well.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Forget the Peace Dividend?

No budget worries in peacetime? Colombian soldiers in training.

In yet another move to buy the military's support for a likely peace deal with the guerrillas, Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas tells the Wall Street Journal that post-peace treaty Colombia will not cut defense spending.

That makes no strategic sense, of course, since Colombia faces no significant foreign threats (and less than ever, with Venezuela's soldiers patrolling supermarkets). But it does make sense for a government determined to keep military leaders backing the peace negotiations which would make them less relevant. Colombia has already been criticized by human rights advocates for broadening military courts' jurisdiction for crimes committed by soldiers.

No new hi-tech toys, please.

Not cutting back South America's second-largest military budget (after only that of the much-larger Brazil) also makes no sense when Colombia is scrambling to stretch its budget in the face of plummeting world oil prices. Does it really make sense to pay soldiers rather than, say, doctors, schoolteachers or construction workers on Bogotá's much-dreamed-of metro system?

Besides all of that, peace will bring tens of billions of dollars of its own costs, including rural investment and integrating ex-fighters into society.

Last year, Colombia spent 3.4% of its gross domestic product on the military, actually an increase from the previous year. That's apparently not including the huge police force, which often carries out military-like functions. In contrast, Venezuela spent 1.2% of its GDP on its military, Brazil 1.4% and Ecuador 3%. Argentina spent 0.7% and tiny Uruguay 1.9%. None of those nations got invaded, so what's Colombia worried about? (All numbers come from The World Bank.)

The $15 billion which Colombia budgets for defense is about the same that it spends on its educational system, which badly needs a boost.

Of course, Colombia will get other important benefits from any peace deal, including reduced violence, expanded government control of remote parts of the country, a better international image and an estimated 2% increase in economic growth. Pres. Santos has also said that he will end obligatory military service for young men. That would end a patently unjust system, since the wealth pay their way out of service.

But if Colombia intends to maintain its military budget after the armed conflict ends, please God don't let them blow the money on useless hi-tech toys like fighter jets and submarines. In peacetime, Colombian soldiers can play a useful role patrolling against illegal mining and logging, not to mention protecting neighborhoods from the criminal gangs which will continue trafficking Colombian cocaine.

In the same WSJ interview, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said as much. Hopefully, the government will match its words with pesos.



By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

High Times for Colombian Coffee

Coffee farmers offer a thumbs up. (Image: Colombian National Federation of Coffee Farmers)

While petroleum prices tumble, threatening to take Colombia's economy down with them, a more

Colombian coffee farmers are
benefiting from high world prices
and big harvests.

traditional product is enjoying a banner year.

Only a few years ago, Colombian coffee suffered a crisis: A fungus infested the crop, forcing farmers to tear out their bushes and replant them with a resistant variety specially developed by Colombian agronomists.

Today, those new plants have are producing big time - and at just the right moment. This year, the Brazilian and Indonesian crops have been hit by drought, while a fungus has attacked Central American crops.

At the same time, coffee consumption is rising, especially in Asia, removing more coffee from the world market.

The global coffee shortage means that, just as Colombia's production is peaking, so are world prices. Last November, coffee cost 107 cents per pound on world markets, according to the International Coffee Organization; this past November, the same pound sold for 162 cents.

Minister of Finance and Credit Mauricio Cardenas addresses
the recent National Coffee Farmers Congress.

Good times, however, have not prevented Colombian coffee farmers from fighting amongst themselves. At the recent national Congress of Coffee Producers, some regional associations called for the ouster of the head of the National Federation of Coffee Growers. Also at the congress, growers and exporters debated over whether the federation should continue its role as buyer of last resort across the country. Now, the federation offers to buy farmers' harvests, creating a floor for bean prices. Private buyers and exporters, naturally, would prefer to not have to compete with the troublesome Federation and be able to offer whatever price they like to the often-vulnerable small farmers.

"Eliminating the price guarantee would for the exporters be like touching heaven," a coffee farmer leader said during the congress.

Despite its good times, Colombia's coffee industry is also experiencing some troubling trends. One is the exodus of young people from rural areas to the cities. At the same time, paradoxically, coffee farms have become smaller and smaller as a family's land gets divided among several children.

Thru the 1950s and later coffee was a mainstay of Colombia's economy. Today, coffee continues to form an important part of Colombia's economy, but other exports, especially oil and coal, generate far more export income.

Coffee is farmed throughout Colombia's mountains.
(Image: Colombian National Federation of Coffee Farmers)

But, despite coffee's much smaller place in Colombia's economy today, it has much more importance than hydrocarbons in at least one sense: employment. While raw materials exports produce lots of royalties, they generate few jobs, damage the environment and often feed corruption.

Coffee farming, in contrast, employs more than a half a million Colombian families, according to the Federation of Coffee Growers. If those families average five members each, we're talking some 2.5 million people, or 5% of the Colombian people.

By putting money directly into the pockets of working families, coffee continues contributing greatly to Colombia's national well-being, another reason why high world coffee prices are a good thing.

Drink up, coffee snobs.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cartels: Then and Now

That was then: In 1993 Colombian hit men pose with the corpse of Pablo Escobar, leader of the Medellin Cartel.

Not long ago, there were the Cali and Medellin cartels, which brought a drug-fueled scourge of murder and bombings to Colombia. Then came the Norte de Valle and Oficina de Envigado cartels.

Face of the new criminal cartel?
Toilet paper for sale.

And now, the diaper and toilet paper cartels?

According to government regulatory agencies, companies in these industries have conspired to manipulate and raise prices, cheating consumers.

A few companies dominate
Colombia's toilet paper industry.

Investigators say they've found e-mails and other evidence to back their accusations. Allegedly, the companies met secretly overseas to set prices and quality. But, whatever the truth, just the fact that Colombia now has the time and resources to worry about the behavior of the diaper and toilet paper industries is a sign of how far the company has come from the time that it was near being a failed state.

A generation ago, Colombians worried that the Medellin Cartel would overthrow the government. Today, they worry that the diaper and toilet paper cartels will strain household budgets.

Capitalist greed is bad. But it's a relief compared to what Colombia's been thru.

Stealing from babies? Diapers may be the face of a dark conspiracy.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The 'Great' Disastrous News

Today's El Tiempo: 'Three months with car sales taking off.'

The great news announced today's El Tiempo is terrible news for Bogotpa and Colombia - if only this split-brain society would recognize it.

'The good performance of vehicle sales is due basically to private cars and utility vehicles,' El Tiempo reports. Those categories grew by 12 and 13 percent over 2013, which had been a big year for car sales.

...which is exactly what Bogotá needs.

Car importers and (the shrinking number of) assembly plants are rejoicing. But Bogotanos and city officials can see that there's no place to fit those additional cars. Bogotá's Pico y Placa law is supposed to restrict car use by prohibiting cars from driving in the city three days per week according to their license plate numbers - but spurs those who can afford to to buy a second car with a different plate number.

Waiting, waiting...

It's also bad news economically - and not just because increasing traffic congesting means losing millions of hours of productive time. Colombia still - insanely - subsidizes gasoline and diesel, meaning that the more fuel is sold, the more money is lost. And that loss is particularly true now with low world oil prices, which have already blown a hole in Colombia's national budget.

Because two-thirds of new cars sold here are imported - and the rest assembled here out of parts manufactured overseas - car sales are also bad news for the nation's trade balance.

Not to mention more air pollution and used tires piled up on sidewalks and in public parks.

Colombia once had high import duties, which discouraged car purchases. Today, neoliberal governments and the free trade agreements Colombia has signed would make that unrealistic. Bogotá's mayor has talked about the only real solution, a congestion charge, but hasn't moved ahead with it.

Meanwhile, the number of private cars in Bogotá is expected to double by the year 2020.

With no action, look forward to city-wide gridlock.

Room for a million more? The daily jam in Bogotá.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Colombia's Oil Crisis

Just a few weeks ago, when Bogotá announced the astronomical cost of its planned subway, experts said the city couldn't pay for it without cutting back on other major projects or lots of money from the national government.

Since then, the nation's financial prospects have gone south.

While Colombia is not often thot of as an oil exporter, it is. In October, in fact, Colombian petroleum production averaged 1 million barrels per day - almost one-third the production of neighbor Venezuela and more than double the production of Ecuador, both OPEC members.

As a result, the global drop in oil and gasoline prices which has drivers celebrating is bad news for the environment, urban liveability - and for Bogotá's prospects for building a subway.

To be clear, Bogotá's subway plan is exactly the worst possible way to build mass transit. Burying its train system undergound will mean slower construction and higher cost. Bogotá would get much more transit for its money by building either a surface level or an elevated train track, while meanwhile expanding the TransMilenio system and creating more bus-only lanes.

But city leaders appear fixated on the most expensive, underground alternative - which makes one wonder whether some hidden agenda's at work.

However, swooning world oil prices could make the subway, which would require central government financing, an impossibility.

Colombia is not a major world oil producer, but it nevertheless gets between 40% and 50% of its export revenue comes from oil (and more from gas and coal), far more than Colombia's iconic export, coffee. Ecopetrol, the state oil company, has long been a national cash cow.

The global oil price decline, which is likely to last for reasons detailed below, means a several-point drop in Colombia's GDP, For reasons detailed below, oil prices are likely to stay low for a good while, forcing Colombia to either find new sources of income, or cut its budget.

Less revenue will mean less money for schools, police, parks, health care and big infrastructure projects such as Bogotá's planned metro. And there's little Colombia can do about it. If Colombia attempts to export more oil, as other petroleum producers are doing, it will only push world prices down further.

What Colombia could do is diversify its economy, and replace raw materials with manufactured goods, which put lots more money into workers' hands and are less subject to price fluctuations. I am perpetually amazed that Colombia, with its cheap labor and resources, still imports things like clothing from China.

Unlike previous oil price drops, this one shows no sign of reversing anytime soon. China's economic growth is slowing and Europe seems stuck in recession. Meanwhile, Iraq and Libya are returning to oil production, and the planet's swing producer, Saudi Arabia, gives no sign of closing the tap. The Saudis are probably using oil as a weapon, since their arch-enemy Iran's oil is more expensive to pump out of the ground and refine. Lower world prices will also make marginal wells in places like Canada unprofitable, reducing production in the long run. (And Venezuela will get hit even harder.)

Venezuelan Pres. Nicolas Maduro rants against "savage" fracking techniques, because they threaten his nation's insane, populist spending, including giving away free gasoline. I wonder whether he means 'savage' in contrast to gentle, civilized traditional oil production methods involving deforesting rainforest, setting off explosives underground, drilling holes deep into the earth and then burning that petroleum in the atmosphere?

At the same time that Middle Eastern countries are racing to pump their oil, the U.S. is moving whole hog into fracking, creating an production boom there. The fracking boom looks only likely to expand to places like England and Colombia, and inevitably China and Russia. That may mean 'Game Over' for Planet Earth's climate, but before that happens it'll devastate lots of oil producers' budgets, and put lots of infrastructure projects on hold

To escape this trap, Colombia needs to diversify its economy from raw materials.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours