The Sanctions of August 5th, 2019
Chavismo surrenders to the Cuban blockade narrative, the opposition tries to sell it as a way to pressure the regime and the population is scared. What’s this new Executive Order, really?
Economy
Caracas Drinks the Dollar Kool-Aid
The spontaneous dollarization, accelerated by blackouts and remittances, is threatening to restrict the legal currency to those who are forced to use it, and to distort the economy even more than it already is.
A Measure of Our Fragility
How bad did Venezuela get? Among the many ways to answer that question, we can consider Fund for Peace’s Fragile State Index 2019, one of the multidisciplinary approaches that can tell the magnitude of our drama.
96 Hours in Line for Fuel
The fuel crisis reaches the Venezuelan south, drivers in Bolivar State spend between 24 to 96 hours waiting to fill up their tanks. New social habits and political tricks converge in the new normality of this oil-producing country without fuel.
Can Blockchain Help Rebuild Venezuela?
The challenges associated with the Venezuelan crisis can be addressed with blockchain technology. It’s not easy to understand, but here we show you four simple use cases.
The Ideological Necessities That Turned into Collective Punishment
The Left continues touting the paper in which Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs claim that 2017’s lending sanctions killed 40,000 people, when in fact, it was ideologically constrained decisions that caused the humanitarian emergency.
How Cotiza Survives
“Rodríguez, María Fernanda” and her people are a microcosmos of poverty in Venezuela, telling us how life got so much worse. Still, defeat is rare in the Caribbean: despair and joy go hand in hand.
The Regime Keeps Shipping Gas to Cuba While Venezuelans Push Their Cars
States like Zulia, Tachira, Merida and Lara got the short end of the stick when it comes to gasoline supply and distribution. Experts warn that Caracas will catch up and will soon have to endure several day long lines for fuel, it’s only a matter of time.
Changes in FX Controls When It Doesn’t Matter
Did the exchange controls end, as some have said, when the regime announced the new scheme of mesas de dinero? Here’s the real score (SPOILERS: You still can’t freely exchange currency).
Pandering to the Imperial Left: The New CEPR Report
The new report by the CEPR, “Economic Sanctions as Collective Punishment: The Case of Venezuela” written by Dr. Jeffrey Sachs and Mark Weisbrot, is generating sympathy for the chavista cause in the liberal media at a critical moment, but it’s already being challenged by the heavyweights.
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