Category Archives: CADIVI

0% Vickrey

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

So after much confusion, I finally found a reasonable explanation of the SICAD’s Auction mechanism, courtesy of Bank of America. The long and the short of it is that there’s just nothing Vickrey about this auction – it’s a straight Giordani … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI | 9 Comments

Sistema Complementario de Administración Monetaria – SCAM

Posted on March 27, 2013 by

Just when you thought the government’s arcane currency control system couldn’t get any weirder, along comes the Complementary System for Currency Administration (officially SICAD, though I still think my acronym is more a propos.) We’ve already described the way SICAD … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI | 62 Comments

Giordani’s Yerkciv Auction – (Vickrey, but backwards)

Posted on March 20, 2013 by

One of the privileges of blogging is that when you write something that’s just plain wrong,  somebody will come along and set you straight quite quickly. So I’m retracting my last post of the night – sorry about that.

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy | Tagged | 6 Comments

Ecce Vickrey

Posted on March 20, 2013 by

Setting aside the insane, Kafka-on-Burundanga administrative side of the new SICAD system, there’s a second set of questions that are more macroeconomic in nature – i.e., what’s the price of SICAD dollars likely to be, and what’s that likely to … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy | 97 Comments

SICAD: Birth of a Red Tape Behemoth

Posted on March 19, 2013 by

There was huge confusion yesterday following the launch of SICAD (the newfangled “Sistema Complementario de Administración de Divisas”), meant to supply additional dollars to importers shut out of the main currency control mechanism, CADIVI. SICAD will replace the previous, impossibly dysfunctional … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy | Tagged | 71 Comments

The Genius of Devaluation

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

So did you see all the insanity in Cyprus over the last few days? Man! For reasons too complicated to go into here – but which will surely feature in Macroeconomics books for a generation to come – the Cypriot … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy | Tagged , | 185 Comments

How to give Juan Nagel a heart attack in two minutes and 21 seconds…

Posted on February 13, 2013 by

As the hat-tipee put it, “Son tan descarados que no les importa usar la verdad como argumento.” [Hat tip: Moncho.]

Posted in CADIVI | 39 Comments

A move in the right direction

Posted on February 13, 2013 by

For all we talk about policy in this blog, I’m glad I’m not a politician. I’m relieved I don’t have to repeat talking points or, gulp, lie. Very few people are saying what needs to be said: that last Friday’s … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI | 59 Comments

The China connection

Posted on February 12, 2013 by

Over at Foreign Policy’s Transitions blog (apologies, but you need to log in to read the piece), I take a break from my vacation to discuss the link between last week’s devaluation and Elías Jaua’s ill-fated trip to China: In … Continue reading →

Posted in Bonds, CADIVI, China | 44 Comments

Wartime economic dislocations, without a war

Posted on February 12, 2013 by

I couldn’t get the chart itself, but  The blurb under Monday’s Bloomberg Chart of the Day tells its own story: The bolivar is one of only five currencies that have lost more than 90 percent of their value since Chavez … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy | 37 Comments

Devaluation around the corner? Not so fast

Posted on January 16, 2013 by

Over at the Foreign Policy blog (login required now), I cast doubt on the conventional wisdom that the government is going to have to devalue the Bolívar soon, before any election takes place: Most Venezuelan economists simply assume the government … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, Chavez cancer, Nicolas Maduro | 9 Comments

This post practically writes itself

Posted on November 22, 2012 by

Yesterday, many of us did a double take when we read the latest toxic public announcement by Hugo Chávez’s economic czar, Jorge Giordani. Giordani publicly announced that Venezuelans should stop expecting to get things for free. He cited the example … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, Oil, Politics, The Economy, Venezuelan Culture | 11 Comments

There’s a Mercal for Dollars and it’s called Cadivi

Posted on October 2, 2012 by

This little video is just too cool: the center-left data nerd’s case against the undercover backwards wealth redistribution of the Chávez era. Listen, I don’t actually think this works as electoral propaganda: it’s at least 63% too wonky for that. … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI | Tagged | 54 Comments

Permuta Redux

Posted on July 9, 2012 by

From the moment the government cracked down on the old dollar “swap market” (a.k.a., the permuta) back in May 2010, it was perfectly clear that something very much like it – only much more opaque, risky and illegal – would … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, The Economy, Venezuelan Culture | 22 Comments

CADIVI is dying, just like its father

Posted on June 12, 2012 by

Tal Cual is reporting on some welcome news from the front lines of Distorsiolandia. Ricardo Villasmil, Henrique Capriles’ main economic adviser, is quoted as saying that a Capriles administration would legalize Venezuela’s parallel exchange rate, and would gradually move toward … Continue reading →

Posted in CADIVI, Henrique Capriles, The Economy | 44 Comments