Tag Archives: Cadivi

Spoiled greens

Posted on March 20, 2013 by

SICAD has just been rolled out as a panacea for foreign currency scarcity in Venezuela. But if descriptions of the bureaucratic mess involved in obtaining dollars at auction are any indication, chances are SICAD won’t even begin to cover demand. Which … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | Tagged , , , | 31 Comments

Some things are priceless; your currency shouldn’t be one of them

Posted on February 5, 2013 by

So these two stories have been making the rounds recently. The first has Caracas as the 9th most expensive city in the world (comically sandwiched between Paris and Geneva). The second has the bolivar – as measured by Big Mac … Continue reading →

Posted in The Economy | Tagged , , , | 33 Comments

A Roadmap Out of Cadivi

Posted on February 23, 2012 by

A shorter version of this post appears in Foreign Policy’s Democracy Labs blog.  Say “macroeconomic adjustment” and Venezuelans immediately cast their minds back to 1989. That year, an IMF-inspired shock therapy program pushed through by President Carlos Andrés Pérez set-off … Continue reading →

Posted in The Economy | Tagged , | 85 Comments

Even the government hates government

Posted on March 12, 2011 by

Whether it’s fixing potholes or keeping our streets safe, pumping our oil safely or distributing its rents fairly, there is simply very little our government gets right. Like a reverse Midas, the government turns anything it touches into Lago de … Continue reading →

Posted in The Economy | Tagged , , | 39 Comments