February 2016 – Hector A. Ruiz

…but it isn’t.

Last month I wrote this article about what I considered the next steps for the now opposition led National Assembly in Venezuela should take in order to subvert the crisis the country is in. So far, none of my ideas have been implemented or even been considered.

Today I came across this very interesting article, that captures in one sentence, the constant affirmation what every Venezuelan knows and constantly preaches: Properly managed, Venezuela should be a very rich country. The thing is, it isn’t, which begs to ask the of question “why”, which brings a very simple answer: “Because it’s run the wrong way.”

Most of Venezuela’s middle class -who is composed by opposition followers- blame previously Chavez and now Nicolas Maduro’s government’s strict and somewhat questionable policies in all aspects of society, including economic, political and legal country affairs. While a case can be made to attest the opposition claims, a broader picture of how Venezuela’s society is functioning must also be considered.

I was having lunch with a friend yesterday in a restaurant located in an upscale mall in Caracas and after finishing our meals, we decided to go for a relaxing walk that eventually took us to the most visited place any Venezuelan goes to on their daily routine: a supermarket. Once inside, we noticed that a shipment of several packages of flour had just made its way into the store. Seeing the opportunity, we grabbed our corresponding allowed two packages of flour (1 kg each) which is the maximum a shopper can purchase during a week. In general, all Venezuelan supermarkets have regulatory controls implemented by the government that only allow shoppers to purchase a maximum number of goods during a seven day period. In the case of flour, one can buy two packages, each one costing two cents of a dollar. Yes, your read right: $0.02. Prices of other regulated products such as milk, sugar, vegetable oil, ketchup, pasta, are also around the single digit dollar cent value. The catch of course is, that unless you catch an extremely lucky break like my friend and I did where you happen to be in the store at the same time the goods arrived, you will be forced to endure hours of long waiting in endless lines as people flood the stores by the thousands to get their hands on their groceries at very cheap prices.

Luck is an extremely important factor when going grocery shopping in Venezuela, because unless you have an insider tip from someone working in the supply-chain distribution, there is no way for you to know when there will be stock of what you need. This is why supermarkets in Venezuela are normally deserted. On this particular day however, after grabbing our two packages of flour, we ended up spending over an hour at the store, because it took us fifty minutes to checkout and pay. Yes, you read it right: two minutes to shop and fifty minutes to checkout. In other words, one could say:

“Run the right way, a Supermarket checkout should take no longer than five minutes.” But in Venezuela, it doesn’t… because the supermarket is run the wrong way, and if you stand in a Venezuelan’s supermarket checkout line for fifty minutes, you will understand part of Venezuela’s ongoing crisis. In other words, you will be able to understand why Venezuela should be a very rich country, but it isn’t. Keep in mind this is just one supermarket. There must be hundreds of supermarkets in the city; thousands in the country… each one run the wrong way.

Moving towards deregulation of these products would be the right course of action to end this madness, which is a decision that must come from the government, but if they can’t (or won’t) drop fixed prices and distribution controls on regulated products, there are many possible options that can be implemented to improve the checkout nightmare:

1. Have one (or more) cashier for non-regulated products: if a costumer is buying an $8 pasta sauce and a set of knives, they shouldn’t go through the same fate than those just buying regulated products.

2. Have one (or more) cashier for senior citizens: it’s inhuman to have a senior citizen standing up for fifty minutes, when all he wants to do is buy food.

3. Have one (or more) cashier with fast dial-up/high speed connectivity with bank lines: paying with credit/debit cards is supposed to be quicker than paying with cash, not slower.

4. Have one (or more) cashier for express or fast checkout/less than five products.

5. Ban cashiers from using their cellphones while at work if they have customers waiting in line (or ban them altogether).

6. Have one (or more) pre-checkout cashier, so a customer can already have their order taken care of and then they would only have to pay when they arrive at the cashier.

I hardly believe any of the major supermarket chains will lose a substantial amount of money, if they would decide to incorporate one or all of these suggestions.

I will wrap up this entry for now, as I have more material to cover for another post and in my book as well, where you will learn how other vital and primary core components of Venezuelan’s economy, are also run… the wrong way.

Last week, Led Zepellin surving members Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones were deposed for the suit filed by lawyer Francis Malofiy, who represents American rock band Spirit, who in the late 60s wrote an instrumental piece called “Taurus”, a song not many people are familiarized with. However I can confidentely say that you have probably heard Led Zepellin’s most famous song Stairway to Heaven, even several times, maybe as many times as Malofiy has listened to it.

Malofiy filed a suit against Page, Plant and Jones, under the premise that Stairway to Heaven shares a striking resemblance to Taurus, and that therefore Led Zepellin stole the main theme of Taurus and used it in Stairway to Heaven without “giving proper credit” to Spirit. Malofiy is seeking at least 50% of all of Stairway to Heaven’s royalties, which roughly amounts to half a billion dollars. Before getting into the specifics of the case, let’s take a look of the core problem.

This is Taurus:

…and well, in case you have been living in a cave in Afghanistan since 1962, or in say… an asteroid, and you have never listened to Stairway to Heaven in your life, well, enjoy:

Now let’s address the “giving proper credit” issue.

As I wrote last year, theoretical music is both easy and incredible hard at the same time. There is only a finite amount of notes and the odds of two pieces sharing a few notes in their basic structure is quite fair, meaning that it can happen every now and then.

The issue Malofiy is bringing is not that Stairway to Heaven sounds exactly or even similar to Taurus; it’s that Taurus may have served as the main inspiration to write Stairway to Heaven, and the fact there was no acknowledgement of this by Zepellin. Let’s consider the following example:

Seven years ago, Madonna requested ABBA’s permission to use the main theme of one Gimme, gimme, gimme, which you can listen to below:

…so that she could use its theme in one of the songs in her upcoming new album. The song was eventually launched as a single which became a huge hit:

It is safe to say that they both sound alike, right? Well, of course they do. One served as the inspiration for the other.

The difference is that Madonna gave credits to ABBA as writers, as you can see here. So nothing’s wrong in that case, because ABBA receives royalties and cultural acknowledgement that they were co-writers of Hung up.

In the case with Spirit and Led Zepellin, a point can be made by Plant, Page and Jones, who declared earlier this past week that “their memories on the 60s and 70s were vague“, which kind of makes sense considering the amount of heroin and alcohol they were doing back then. Therefore, a case can be made by arguing that Stairway to Heaven and Taurus sound similarly simply because it is coincidence.

In my opinion, while both songs are not as similar as Hung up and Gimme, gimme, gimme, there is no question that Stairway to Heaven‘s intro sounds very similar to Taurus. Being completely technical, both songs begin with an A minor bass line that progresses descending a semitone per beat all the way to D. The key factor to highlight is that the bass line in both acts as the main theme. Does this mean Led Zepellin indeed stole Spirit’s Taurus to write Stairway to Heaven?

Plant, Page an Jones can certainly plead ignorance and swear happened to be a coincidence, like Nerf Heder did with D.O.F. Additionally, every respectable musician knows that an A minor descending bass line as a main theme is a very common musical structure in rock and pop music. However, that is not the only aspect where Stairway to Heaven and Taurus are similar. The phrasing -meaning, the way the guitar strings are played through the descending progression- is even more similar than the progression itself. The tempo in which the phrasing is played is -I would say- exactly the same. And then, there’s the knockout punch.

Nerf Heder can get away with claiming ignorance and swear that had no idea D.O.F. existed. After all, what are the chances of a teen pop punk band from Santa Barbara, California, knowing about a pop German band from the the 1980s? It’s a 50-50 shot at best in my opinion. But, can Plant, Page and Jones claim they had no idea of Spirit? Not at all.

Led Zepellin as a whole, not only knew about the existence of Spirit: they actually toured with them. And yes, Spirit played Taurus during these tours with Led Zepellin. This is a huge decisive element that does not play in their favor. Then there is also the kicker that Led Zepellin has already been found guilty of plagiarizing Dazed and Confused from Jake Holmes.

…and turn it into Dazed and Confused

All of this makes me conclude that in my opinion, Led Zepellin is guilty of at least subconsciously plagiarizing Spirit from Taurus, and use it as an inspiration to write Stairway to Heaven, in a similar judgement that was given to George Harrison.

What do you think?

Hector A. Ruiz

MBA, Project Manager, Tennis Player, Musician, and Author of "How to Destroy a Country"

Month: February 2016

Venezuela should be a very rich country…

Stairway to Plagiarism

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