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So the tax rate that you're now talking about of 26% for the third quarter, like, in theory, why shouldn't your tax rate be closer to 21% plus or minus a little bit? And is that a more reasonable forecast for 2019? Your tax rate, I think, was 28% in this quarter. I don't understand why it's so high.
Yes. The 21% is actually the U.S. statutory rate.
It's a combination of jurisdictional mix. And now, for the first time ever with the U.S. tax rate meaningfully favorably better than most foreign operations. The jurisdictional mix will likely, quarter by quarter, be higher because of the third of our business-or-so that is on outside of the United States.
So unlike past years for us and other companies where you would end up with actual tax rate somewhat below the U.S. statutory rate, which was at least in the developed world, the highest in the world. Now you're likely to see a higher tax rate.
And also, we have state taxes, too, included on top of the Federal of 21%.
But the biggest part of it's jurisdictional, and now we tend to average up our tax rate because of our foreign income at higher tax rates than where the U.S. is. So that's the benefit of tax reform that I think we're all enjoying.
What are your highest tax rate jurisdictions?
I can't answer that off the top of my head right now. But I can tell you, it's almost every country in which we do business outside of the United States in the developing world.
OK. Great. Thank you so much.
From Great Lakes Review, we have a follow-up from Jason Rodgers. Please go ahead.
Appreciate you taking a follow-up, I just had a quick one for Rusty. If the diluted share count was 131.7 million in the second quarter and that did not include the 3.3 million share reduction from the convertible, then why should the share count be around 133 million in the third?
Yes. We don't know the third for sure because we could either use the two-class method or the treasury method. It depends on earnings. We've picked the one, Kristine, that's most anti-dilutive, right? So that would depend on what earnings are during the quarter.
So the third quarter is a bit uncertain just due to the nature of the season and we're at a low earnings point. We're not sure which method exactly we'll be on. But we can tell you for sure we've redeemed those shares, and there's 3.3 million shares that used to be in our diluted share count under the treasury method that aren't there.
From Gabelli & Company, we have a follow-up from Rosemarie Morbelli. Please go ahead.
Thank you. This is for Rusty. As long as there is so much volatility regarding the mark to market of the securities of your portfolio, why not is it at all possible to take it out of the adjusted numbers so we look at operations on an apples-to-apples basis, eliminating the volatility of that item?
We will work with our auditors to address that in the third quarter. And certainly, that's what we aspire to. It's a non-operating item, it will be pluses and minuses, and so we need to work on how we would do that and then just make it a permanent adjustment and carve it out of our operating results.
OK. And if we look at the second quarter, what was the impact of that item on a per share basis? I'm assuming that it has -- there is a tax impact on it, and I have no idea what the rate is, I am assuming it's not your corporate rate.
It is $0.05 in the quarter. That's why I mentioned that item alone was the difference between being flat year over year on the EPS line. And the aggravating part of that accounting reg is, again, in the past, you would only recognize a gain or loss if they were realized as you manage your captive insurance companies to -- where you would have to liquidate to meet insurance needs and things like that or offset gains and losses. Now you mark to market, but because they're not realized, they're not tax-deductible.
And so if you have an unrealized $5 million hit, it's not actually tax-deductible until you effectively sell those securities and have an actually realized loss. So it's a really double whammy in terms of your bottom line. So again, we're going to work to figure out the appropriate way to address it and then carve it out of our results in future periods.
So just making sure I get this properly, instead of $0.52, then you would have reported $0.57 from operations adjusted in the second quarter?
I think that's the simplistic way of looking at it. I think that's right.
Yes. I like simple. And looking at the third quarter, in that $0.10 to $0.12, do you have some kind of an impact from that particular item incorporated in those numbers?
Yes, we have about a $5 million negative impact on a year-over-year basis in those items between the gains we realized in the prior year and an anticipated loss this year. But we won't know the actual number until we close the quarter and whether the stock market between now and the end of the quarter is up 1,000 points or down 1,000 points or somewhere in between.
Thank you. We will now turn it back to Frank Sullivan for closing remarks.
Thank you, Brandon. Thank you very much for your participation in our call today. I'd also like to thank the RPM associates around the world who are continuing to generate solid growth in a challenging environment. Most importantly, we appreciate your questions and your commitment as we continue to execute our 2020 MAP to Growth and drive a more valuable, more competitive RPM.
Thank you. Happy new year to all, and we will look forward to talking to many of you in the coming months and updating everybody on our progress on our April investor call. Thanks. Happy new year, and have a great day.
David and Tom just revealed what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy right now... and RPM International wasn't one of them! That's right -- they think these 10 stocks are even better buys.
Published: Jan. 8, 2015 at 07:00 p.m.
Updated: Jan. 8, 2015 at 09:29 p.m.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers went all season long without their hand-picked offensive coordinator. That won't be the case in 2015.
The team on Thursday announced that former Falcons play-caller Dirk Koetter has been hired to lead Lovie Smith's offense. NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport reported that Koetter agreed to a two-year deal with a team option for a third. A source informed of the situation told Rapoport that Koetter was Tampa's top choice.
It's an intriguing hire for the Bucs, who land Koetter after he spent the past two seasons in Atlanta following five years as a play-caller for the Jaguars. The Bucs desperately needed to find a leader on offense after losing former coordinator Jeff Tedford, who took an indefinite leave from the Bucs in September following a coronary angioplasty prior to the season. In his absence, quarterbacks coach Marcus Arroyo served as Tampa's interim play-caller.
Koetter was successful running a Falcons' offense that leaned on Matt Ryan throwing darts to Julio Jones, Roddy White, Harry Douglas and the retired Tony Gonzalez. Despite the lack of a reliable ground game, Koetter's downfield passing attack helped Atlanta finish eighth in offense this season.
Koetter faces immediate challenges in Tampa, where the quarterback position -- with Josh McCown and Mike Glennon -- is full of questions. The great hope lies in young wideout Mike Evans, who enjoyed a marvelous rookie campaign in 2014 and gives the Bucs a tall, reliable target to lean on for years to come.
The Washington Post is treating anti-Semites as credible sources and purposefully omitting hate-filled remarks by Palestinian leaders.
On Jan. 14, 2018, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas gave a two-hour harangue before the Palestine Liberation Organization’s (PLO) Central Council. Not for the first time, the President of the Palestinian Authority—bound by the Oslo accords to recognize the Jewish nation of Israel—denied the Jewish people’s connection to their ancestral homeland. And not for the first time, The Washington Post gave him cover.
According to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), Abbas traced Jewish history in the Middle East to 1653 and the English ruler Oliver Cromwell, who came up with the idea of “transferring the Jews from Europe to the Middle East, this region, because they wanted this region to become an advanced outpost.” In addition to propagating conspiracy theories, Abbas said that Jews had a history of persecution “because of their social function, not because of their religion,” and “blessed” Iraqi leaders who expelled Jews from their country following Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
As the blogger Elder of Ziyon has noted, that “Egyptian philosopher” is a man named Abdelwahab Elmessiri, whose works include the Encyclopedia of Jews, Judaism and Zionism, which, among other things, dismisses the Jewish people’s connection to Israel as irrelevant.
Recent weeks have evidenced similarly poor reporting from The Post.
Sometimes The Post uses more than omissions to provide cover.
A Jan. 5, 2018 Post report claimed that Fatah movement leader and PA President Mahmoud Abbas “has rejected armed conflict with Israel.” Yet, as CAMERA pointed out to The Post, Abbas not only incentivizes anti-Jewish violence via payments and other laurels, he has lauded terrorist attacks.
In a Dec. 13, 2017 report, The Post uncritically quoted Rev. Mitri Raheb, who claimed, “The Bible originated in Palestine.” That “Palestine” has never existed and Raheb is more than a “Lutheran preacher” was omitted. Raheb is, in fact, an anti-Semite and an activist with the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to delegitimize and destroy the Jewish state.
Recent Post reporting has also obfuscated on the antisemitic nature of BDS.
BDS leaders—including the movement’s self-identified co-founder Omar Barghouti, whom The Post quotes—have called for the end of the Jewish state of Israel. And, contra to The Post’s misleading definition, BDS has targeted non-Israelis performing outside of Israel, including the Jewish-American singer Matisyahu when he performed in Spain.
Other recent Post reports have been similarly cavalier with the facts.
As CAMERA has noted (“The Washington Post Whitewashes UNRWA,” Jan. 5, 2018), the paper’s Jan. 3, 2018 dispatch failed to fully detail the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s (UNRWA) of support for Palestinian terrorists—only to make the same omission in a Jan. 17, 2018 article (“A death sentence: Palestinians slam U.S. decision to cut aid as U.N. pleads for new donors”). The latter noted Palestinian complaints over the U.S. cutting UNRWA funds, and, like its predecessor, uncritically quoted UNRWA officials. Both failed to inform readers of UNRWA’s role in perpetuating the Arab-Israeli conflict and the antisemitism behind it.
In both 2016 and 2017, The Post failed—amid dozens of reports on the “peace process”—to note that Palestinians leaders have rejected U.S. and Israeli offers for a state in exchange for peace with the Jewish state, in 2000 at Camp David, 2001 at Taba and 2008 after the Annapolis Conference, among other instances. That trend looks likely to continue, with zero mention of these rejected opportunities in 2018—including in recent articles where it was clearly pertinent information (for example, “Pence says U.S. Embassy to make Jerusalem move next year on faster timetable,” Jan. 22, 2018 and “Prospects of peace elusive as Pence wraps up visit to Middle East,” Jan. 23, 2018).
The Washington Post is failing to provide readers with the full story. If, as their masthead proclaims, “democracy dies in darkness,” good reporting dies from one-sided omissions and seemingly purposeful distortions.
choice words added for good measure. My TSI Trading record has been updated.
I was aware of the Net Asset Value issue several days ago, if not longer, but simply too naive to fully grasp the implications. At this point I understand that one way or another, eventually, the market will correct discrepancies in NAV. As TVIX reportedly has a net asset value of something less than $8 per share I decided that anything I could sell for above $8 was a gift.
After studying/researching last evening and this early morning I came to the conclusion that to sell at this point was the best thing to do. My concerns for share price going forward were many. The issuer, Credit Suisse, announced last evening that they were ready to make additional shares available. My interpretation was that they was going to make it easier for short sellers to pound TVIX further with fresh ammo.
Also, I pondered what would happen when all the millions of shares shorted yesterday were covered. Would we get a bounce to sell into? That would seem reasonable except for the fact that absolutely nobody owns a single share of TVIX at a profit. If I were a short seller I would just hold because I would know there are 25X more motivated sellers out there than buyers.
And finally, I am beginning to understand that all these highly leveraged ETF/ETNs eventually fall to $0 in value over time…. long and short….. makes no difference. So if we see the S+P continue its insane rally, and I believe we will, there is no telling what this will be worth when the stock market finally crashes.
At the moment TVIX is selling at $7.53.
The TSI Trader offers technical analysis of the stock market, gold and selected mining stocks using the True Strength Index (TSI). The True Strength Index is a sophisticated ‘low-lag time’ momentum indicator. Projected earnings of mining company stocks are provided weekly by Bill Matlack’s Metals & Mining Analysts’ Ratings & Estimates report published at Kitco and are used to highlight some mining stocks for study.
A Je Suis Charlie iPhone app rolled out to the App Store Sunday, after its creators personally emailed Tim Cook to ask for a prompt App Store approval.
Apple is somewhat notorious among developers for its often lengthy App Store approval process, which typically takes about 10 to 15 days on average. But Apple reportedly helped get the Je Suis Charlie app bumped to the front of the approval line after its developers contacted the CEO of the Silicon Valley tech giant.
According to a report in local outlet Nice-Matin, one of Cook's assistants responded a mere ten minutes after the initial email was sent and the app was live in the App Store soon thereafter.
The app was created by a French startup which, at Apple's suggestion, enlisted the help of the news agency to help lend it credence, Nice-Matin reports.
The Je Suis Charlie app.
The free iPhone app is intended to help users around the world show solidarity with Paris after armed gunmen left 12 dead in the offices of the controversial publication Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday. The hashtag #JeSuisCharlie, a message of support which translates to "I am Charlie," quickly took off on social media in the hours and days following the terrorist attack on the French satirical newspaper last week and has been seen on signs at gatherings around the world.
The app opens with a map of your location and a counter that keeps tabs on how many "Charlies" there are. To add yourself to their number — nearly 89,000 as of this writing — tap the Je Suis Charlie logo, which geotags your current location with the raised fist holding a pencil.
Marta Harnecker is director of the Centro de Investigaciones Memoria Popular Latinoamericana (MEPLA) in Havana, Cuba, an organization for research on the history of popular movements in Latin America. She is the author of Venezuela: Militares Junto al Pueblo (Vadell Hermanos, 2003) and Hugo Chávez Frias: Un Hombre, Un Pueblo (Gakoa, Tercera Prensa, 2002), as well as numerous books and articles about the Latin American left. A translation of her book, Making the Impossible Possible: The Left at the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century, is forthcoming from Zed Books.
This essay was finished on September 26, 2004. I thank those who have read this paper and suggested ideas. I especially thank my comrade, Michael Lebowitz, to whom I owe important ideas, and who helped with the translation.
With President Hugo Chávez’s victory in the August 15 referendum, the Venezuelan opposition suffered the third great defeat in its struggle to end his government. The unprecedented recall referendum ratified Chávez’s presidency by a margin of two million votes and was declared valid unanimously by the hundreds of international observers who scrutinized it.
The victory belongs not to a man but to the project of creating a country guided by humanism and solidarity in its domestic and international spheres. It is also a victory for a development model embracing endogenous development and the social economy as alternatives to voracious, destructive neoliberalism.
It was a victory, too, for the Bolivarian Constitution of Venezuela, the only constitution that permits such a recall referendum for the president.
But it was mainly a victory of the people, not only the popular organizations and the people of the poor neighborhoods but also members of the middle classes who immediately responded to the president’s call by organizing themselves.
A new stage of the Bolivarian revolutionary process has begun. The opposition has been defeated in this battle, but the war has not yet been won. Before discussing this new stage and the challenges facing the revolution, it is important to put these in a historical context.
Venezuela, the fifth-largest oil producer in the world, has been historically a society of great inequality. While an oligarchy enjoyed an extraordinarily high standard of living, 80 percent lived in poverty. When then-president Carlos Andrés Pérez proposed a package of neoliberal reforms in February 1989, a popular explosion occurred. The poor came down from the hills and attacked supermarkets. The armed forces restored order by firing on the people, killing thousands. Some poor people began to wake up.
It was clear that the neoliberal measures brought deepening poverty. Masses of peasants migrated to the cities, real wages dropped substantially, and the informal sector ballooned.
In just three years 600,000 people migrated to the cities. The campesino labor force, rural peasants and farmers, shrank by 90 percent. The proportion of workers in the informal sector rose from 34.5 percent in 1980 to 53 percent in 1999. The industrial labor sector decreased. After 1989 partial or total privatization of the telecommunication, ports, oil, steel, and airline sectors reduced employment in strategic industries and transferred ownership to foreign capital. Subcontracting and outsourcing added to the problem. Economic inequality and unemployment grew with unemployment levels reaching 15.4 percent. Real wages fell substantially, and social fragmentation worsened considerably. Multiple popular organizations were formed, but they did not achieve a national presence. Only 17 percent of the union movement remained organized, and it no longer represented the popular sectors.
The economic crisis brought with it a political crisis. Corruption reigned as skepticism about politics and politicians grew, and apathy was everywhere. There appeared to be no way out.
In this context Hugo Chávez won 56 percent of the vote in the presidential elections of December 6, 1998. The people, tired of corruption and increasingly skeptical about traditional politics, bet on a candidate who represented something new.
Having abandoned the path of insurrection, Chávez sought power by the institutional route. A quarter-century after Salvador Allende’s defeat in Chile, Chávez became the first Latin American president to attempt deep social and economic transformations by the peaceful road. But this time the peaceful road was taken with two elements that were absent from the Chilean process: Chávez was not disarmed—he had the support of the great majority of the military; and this time the process began with the fundamental premise that it would be necessary to change the rules of the game in the institutional sphere.
As Chávez initiated his government, Venezuela faced complete international isolation. Neoliberalism had been imposed as the only model throughout the world. The socialist bulwark on which previous Latin American revolutionary efforts had counted had disappeared—and their main opponent, the United States, had become the first world military power without any counterbalance.
What was Chávez to do under these circumstances? He spent his first year in government trying to change the international correlation of forces3 (in particular, by strengthening the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries4) and consolidating his support at home. He launched an emergency social welfare plan to assist the most destitute sectors (Project Bolívar 2000) and adopted educational measures favorable to them: restoring free public education and promoting the creation of Bolivarian schools (full-day schools providing students two meals each day). Worried about the ideological preparation of the people he began a weekly radio program, which permitted him to speak directly to the people about the nature of the revolution (eventually this was also broadcast on television).
At the same time, he was creating the institutional conditions that would allow him to advance the necessary socioeconomic transformation.
All the while, the opposition worked to neutralize the new leader and to co-opt him. Although defeated at the polls, the oligarchy still had enormous influence: immense financial and economic power through the management of the state petroleum industry, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA); a crushing majority in the legislative and judicial branches of government and numerous high-level allies in the provincial and city governments; near-monopoly control of the media; the support not only of the business federation, but also of the Confederación de Trabajadores de Venezuela (CTV), the most powerful national labor federation; and the allegiance of some high-ranking generals and some within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church who had close relations with the managerial elites. In addition to all this the oligarchy enjoyed close links to Washington.
Despite the great support for the newly-elected president from the broad popular sectors, the middle class, and the army, it was a very disorganized majority. In Venezuela, unlike Chile or Brazil, no strong leftist parties existed. The newly-created Fifth Republic Movement (MVR) had become the biggest party of the country, but it had attracted many opportunistic elements and was trapped in a constitutional process. The CTV, and generally the popular movements were weak and had been blatantly manipulated by the traditional parties. Under these circumstances Chávez had little choice but to rely extensively on the armed forces, the only national structure with which he could work to achieve his plans.
Internally, the government’s first priority was to change the rules of the institutional game. Beginning with a referendum to convene a Constituent Assembly, the new Bolivarian Constitution was created. This anti-neoliberal constitution, which was overwhelmingly approved by the people, defined a new model of participatory democracy and a new economic model embracing cooperatives and worker self-management. Both models are fundamentally based on humanism and solidarity.
Thanks to these victories, Chavism now dominated the government, and the opposition, deeply divided, had little influence in the National Assembly. With the traditional parties in crisis, the mass media became the true party of the opposition.
The third step was to introduce the revolutionary legislation that would permit the constitution to realize its promise. But the legislative process proved excessively slow (due to the inexperience of Chavist deputies and the interference of the opposition). Finally, on December 10, 2001, the president used the Qualifying Laws, the special legislative powers granted to him under the Constitution, to enact forty-nine laws, among them the Law of the Land, the Fisheries Law, the Law of Hydrocarbons, the Law of Micro Credits, and the Law of Cooperatives. This package of laws demonstrated his determination to move the revolutionary process forward. The oligarchy, its economic interests affected for the first time, now lost hope that it could co-opt him as it traditionally had done with other politicians.
Foreseeing the offensive that the opposition would begin, and always thinking about how to improve the domestic correlation of forces, Chávez launched the Bolivarian Circles. He called upon his supporters to organize themselves into groups of seven to eleven people to educate their neighbors about the Constitution and to take some concrete initiative: respond to the necessities of the neighborhood, form a cooperative, or get a loan from the bank. Without popular participation, he understood, the revolution would run out of fuel.
The opposition did not wait for Chávez to carry out his plans. It undertook the first steps of a great offensive to end his mandate.7 It organized massive demonstrations and attempted a general strike on the day that the forty-nine laws were enacted.
At this moment political conditions were much less favorable to Chávez than they had been earlier. Luis Miquilena (then Minister of the Interior, who had been Chávez’s key political organizer at the beginning of the process) was removed by Chávez after he declared his opposition to enacting the forty-nine laws and assumed the role of a leading opposition figure. The loss of his political general was a severe blow for the president, especially since his departure was imitated by many followers. In this way the government lost its overwhelming majority in the National Assembly and its control of the judiciary. Many high magistrates linked to Miquilena moved openly to an antigovernment position, uniting with those who clearly shared the political positions of the opposition. Many deputies abandoned the Chavista bloc. In this period, the mobilizations against the government increased and the opposition’s self-confidence grew.
The events of April 11, 2002, and the subsequent days are well known and we will not discuss them further. The failure of the military coup, in which more than 80 percent of the generals with operational control remained loyal to Chávez and the Constitution, constituted the first great defeat of the opposition and a true gift for Chávez.
These events exposed the actors, and the people’s political understanding grew as they saw who within the military and among political cadres had revealed themselves. These circumstances made it easier to purify the military, divided the opposition, and led sectors of the middle classes, who had previously opposed the Bolivarian revolutionary process, to contemplate the chaos that could accompany Chávez’s defeat.
Most importantly, the popular organizations grew quickly. Bolivarian Circles multiplied throughout the country, adopting more varied forms. New organizations emerged, such as urban land committees and specific middle-class groups of doctors, teachers, and lawyers. Further, union leaders from various industries, critical of the complicity of the CTV, accelerated their efforts to build an independent labor force to support the revolutionary process. The various left parties that had supported Chávez, but with very critical attitudes, decided to build a common front in support of the government. Lastly, a transformative process that had neither been well understood nor highly valued by the left and progressive forces throughout the world now attracted their sympathies. The violently counter-revolutionary nature of the opposition could not be explained except by the existence of a true revolutionary process. International sentiment against the coup grew.
The overwhelming victory, whose main heroes were the people joined with the armed forces, did not give way to a counteroffensive by the government as many predicted. Chávez considered it necessary first to take stock of his strengths. Although the coup had been defeated and the Constitution had been reestablished, it was not clear at the time how much support there was for continuing to advance the revolutionary process. Therefore the first task was to consolidate his forces to defend against a second coup attempt. In particular, he dedicated himself to purifying the military. Further, as conciliatory gestures toward the opposition he named ministers in the economic sphere who were more acceptable to the business community and he restored the previous opposition directors of PDVSA. In addition, he accepted the revision of some of the Qualifying Laws and the establishment of a roundtable for dialogue with the opponents of the Bolivarian process.
The opposition took Chávez’s actions as a sign of the government’s weakness. It began to regroup its forces, and when the courts freed the perpetrators of the military coup it proceeded to engage in various destabilizing actions and settled on the strategy of an economic coup. They called for a national general strike on December 2, 2002. Their objective was to paralyze the country, forcing Chávez to resign. They focused on stopping the production and distribution of petroleum.6 And, where they could not achieve this, they resorted to sabotage. They expected Chávez would be gone before Christmas.
However, with the firm leadership of President Chávez and the exemplary behavior of not only the oil workers but also the rest of the workers and the people who overcame the hardships of those days, the opposition suffered its second great defeat. The country had not stopped. Chávez had not given in. And now the petroleum industry really came under the control of the Venezuelan state. This was the second gift of the opposition. Through their subversion and sabotage approximately eighteen thousand upper- and middle-level managers (who had in fact controlled the company) provided the legal conditions necessary for their dismissal.
Most important, each new attack of the opposition made the people more politically conscious and prepared to take initiatives. The attacks multiplied organizations like the Bolivarian Circles, urban land committees, and assemblies of citizens. They also gave rise to new forms of popular organization: motorcycle couriers; groups that reopened the schools the opposition had closed; agrarian and fishing groups organizing for their rights; consumer groups organizing to boycott the opposition’s mass media; groups that protected the gas stations; groups that escorted trucks and defended the petroleum facilities from possible sabotage by the opposition and that ensured the appropriate distribution of gas; groups that surrounded Miraflores Palacio and mobilized in its defense against any threat of the anti-Chavistas; and circles that worked to help the neediest through the difficult times created by the economic coup. The Positive Middle Class movement in support of the government was born in these circumstances.
The president continued to enjoy wide popular support and the active support of the armed forces who recovered ships and protected the centers of production and distribution of food and fuel. As a result, by February 7, 2003, slightly more than two months after the beginning of the oil strike, the president was able to announce that the attempt at destabilization had failed.
Nevertheless we cannot forget the incalculable economic damage caused by the opposition’s actions. Even today the Venezuelan economy has not completely recovered.
The Carter Center, the Group of Friends (countries including the United States), and the Organization of American States all pressed for a dialogue between representatives of the government and the opposition. On May 29 there was an agreement to look for a peaceful resolution to the crisis.
Both sides agreed on the means to resolve the crisis, which was to employ the legal instrument spelled out in the constitution: the recall referendum. The opposition was confident it could win through a referendum given the many polls that indicated that Chávez’s popularity was declining among the middle classes, the political cadres who had supported him initially, and the popular sectors whose lives had not changed despite the promises of the revolution.
However, with the failure of the economic coup and the beginning of economic recovery (especially the recovery of oil production) the government began to gain strength. In April 2003 Chávez announced that he had resumed the offensive. From that moment he began to create several campaigns (called missions) to support people in the most neglected social sectors. These programs aimed to open clinics in the popular neighborhoods8; launch literacy campaigns9, expand middle and higher education, create the Bolivarian University for those students who had been excluded from higher education10; and offer nutritious products at prices that were much lower than those available commercially11—each program was warmly welcomed by the population and won new followers to the process.
The referendum process began with the gathering of signatures at the end of November. To trigger a recall referendum under the constitution requires the signatures of 20 percent of those who had voted in the election of the officeholder. This process was carried out in two stages: first, for deputies of the opposition that the Chavistas wished to recall (many of whom had been elected as Chávez’s supporters) and, second, for Chavist deputies and the president. So many irregularities occurred in the second process that the president denounced the existence of a mega fraud. This began a difficult process of examining the sheets and the signatures collected.
Finally the National Electoral Council (CNE) concluded that, in addition to those signatures entirely rejected, more than 800,000 doubtful signatures of the opposition needed to be verified and that they should undergo a repair process during May 2830.

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