Oil and bullets
Two interesting stories, from the indispensable foreign press. First, Bloomberg’s Anatoly Kurmanaev explores the lack of progress in reining in guns and munition, and how it shows the...
Economy
Quico and Dorothy embarrass the government
Yesterday, to commemorate “Chávez Day,” the government spent countless dollars on ads in several of the world’s newspapers. The version that came out in Canada’s The Globe and Mail...
Worth Less
A year ago, the 100 bolivar banknote you see here on your left – Venezuela’s highest denominated, mind you – would buy you 92.6 U.S. cents on the parallel...
Who can stop the plunge? (Updated)
Here is the Economist Intelligence Unit in 2015: Caracas is one of the cheapest cities in the world. Here is the same source just two years ago, in...
"Nothing here except what people don't want"
I loved Efecto Cocuyo’s via crucis through several government-owned Farmapatria drug stores. “In the Ipasme location, we read the list to the sales person and he did not...
What is a dollar worth? Depends on who you know
Venezuela today has four different prices for the dollar – three of them official, one of them not. For basic imports (chavista code for “available only to Godgiven and...
An announcement about nothing
The Expectation-Disappointment cycle around Venezuela exchange-mechanism announcements is so well established by now, we barely get our hopes up any more. Today was no different. There was little...
Día Día speaks
(Día Día Practimercados is a small grocery store chain that caters to Venezuelans living in the country’s slums. Last week, they were taken over by the government. The...
The Guy Who Refinanced His House to Buy PDVSA 2037 Bonds
The horror…the horror…the HAT! Ross was so taken with the returns he enjoyed in 2011 that he had three green baseball caps custom-made with P-D-V-$-A on the front...
Earth to Jaua: we're broke
It’s funny how Minister Elías Jaua hasn’t fully realized how broke we are. Last week, the Minister, along with Infrastructure Minister Haiman El-Troudi, gave a bloated press conference...
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