Venezuela's encripted devaluation
An obscure document was published yesterday by Venezuela’s Central Bank (BCV), allowing PDVSA to sell the dollars it makes via oil exports to the BCV for deposit into...
Economy
Shortage of excuses
It is rather irresponsible to make harsh statements without hard data to sustain them (thank you, Central Bank!), but we are going to go out on a limb and...
Les fraudeurs
Yesterday we learned – via the increasingly indispensable Marianna Párraga – that PDVSA is selling the refinery it owns in the US Virgin Islands. This comes on the heels of the almost certain...
A matter of keeping your priorities straight
After tons of criticisms and complaints, CENCOEX – the replacement to currency distributor CADIVI – has finally received praise for doing things right on time. Was it for food supplies? For...
Adiós, Miami: a Caracas Chronicles film review
(This is a guest post by a longtime reader, who has fittingly chosen the pseudonym Old Parr) Adiós, Caracas A couple of days ago, as Juan Cristóbal Nagel...
Venezuela's ongoing collapse
Venezuela is mired in a deep crisis, but you already know that. Each new day brings with it another batch of bad economic news. When it isn’t high inflation that...
The Bank That Sells $10 Bills for $1
Over on the FT’s Beyond Brics blog, Francisco Rodríguez explains why saying that since Venezuela can’t keep goods markets supplied, it should default on foreign debt is like telling someone...
Inflation-gate
After a never-before-seen, jaw-dropping, soul-crushing three-month delay, the Venezuelan Central Bank (BCV for its acronym in Spanish) published inflation rates for June, July, and August. But with the jumbled way in...
The Citgo fire sale
Reuters is reporting that PDVSA wants to sell Citgo for $10 billion dollars – the equivalent of 8 months’ worth of the cost of the gasoline subsidy. “Investment bank Lazard...
Spinning the revolution
I had to do a double-take upon learning that PDVSA had hired Bell Pottinger, the PR firm run by Margaret Thatcher’s former communications director to “clean its image.” Of course, no...
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