"Like those people who win the lottery and go bankrupt within a year..."
Joanna Hausmann (yes relation) has a rant with a difference this week. As a five minute introduction to Venezuela for the curious-but-clueless, it's hard to do better.
Joanna Hausmann (yes relation) has a rant with a difference this week. As an introduction to Venezuela for the curious-but-clueless with five minutes to spare, it’s hard to do better. The bit about how price controls mean “people can’t afford to work” and how forcing people to sell stuff at below production cost is like “putting the whole country on an unpaid internship”, well that’s just exegetical genius. Awesome!
If you’re not familiar with Ms. Hausmann’s oeuvre, boy have I got a YouTube hole for you! La caraja es la Queen of Spanglish, which is obviously catnip to us. The one about Latin American accents is arrechísima. Cracks me right up.
Back to the serious one, though. Look, I know it feels wrong to fact check a rant like this —and though I can fully grasp the overpowering comedic imperative to keep kicking Luis Salas around— I do have to note that the crazy guy who doesn’t believe in inflation is, of course, no longer a minister (and as long as we’re out competing in the pedantry olympics, he wasn’t “finance minister” in the first place.)
That bit sucks, because when the rest of a piece is this pitch perfect, there’s just no reason to flub a detail like this. It’s not like she was short of targets, y’know? I mean c’mon, Joanna, we’re all still waiting for your Merentes rant.
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