VenEconomy: ... And Everything Will Remain the Same in Venezuela From the Editors of VenEconomy Latin American Herald Tribune August 20, 2014
Venezuela has increased the pace of the decline that began during the last years of the late Hugo Chávez in the hands of his successor, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro has been unable and has not wanted to amend the diverse and profound distortions that have become entrenched in the country during 15 years of “revolution.”
Counting on the complicity of the central bank, the National Executive is vainly trying to conceal the nation’s figures of inflation and scarcity. It hasn’t released consumer price index data for two months and has remained mum on scarcity indicators for five months.
As if it was possible to cover the entire sun with a single finger!
The Maduro government is not counting on the devastating effects of these two great scourges on each Venezuelan day after day. Or on opinion polls reflecting what is happening and being felt in all social strata. One of the most credible of them (Keller & Associates) showed that, by the end of July, Maduro kept losing leadership and popularity, while his approval rating had fallen to 38% from 57%. Also, three out of four citizens are demanding change in the country “due to the public policies of the Government and the bad decisions of the economic cabinet”; and that only a few buy the Government’s tall tales and that many are aware that “authoritarianism, the expropriation of companies, the foreign exchange and pricing controls are responsible for what is happening in the nation.”
Neither is it counting on independent measurements carried out by local bodies and international agencies, which have pointed out the marked deterioration of the economic and social situation in Venezuela. And is not only Bank of America, whose indicators show declines in oil imports (20%), automotive production (86%) and tax collection (4.9%), as a result of the devaluation of the bolivar currency; or the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) forecasting a contraction of 0.5% for 2014, with Venezuela being the only country with negative growth in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Bad news also comes from entities of allied countries: For example, the case of Dagong Global Credit, a China-based rating agency, which forecasts a contraction of the Venezuelan economy by 2.3% in 2014, while it foresees a political-social crisis due to the inefficiency of the Government in the face of the public deficit and the exhaustion of financial resources. Another comes from the Brazilian Institute Getulio Vargas, which points to Venezuela as the only country with a negative economic outlook.
These alerts may be leading Maduro and his people to show intentions of turning things around, and from there the announcement on Monday night (via his Twitter account) that all the Executive Cabinet had offered to resign in order to “make easier” all the unsuccessful changes he has been announcing for months.
This is the second time in 2014 that Maduro accepts (or requests) the resignation of his entire cabinet (the first time was on January 9), and it is quite possible that this cabinet reshuffle may be a move to leave things just as they are now.
The point is that he can move around the men and women who accompany him in power at will, but while he doesn’t change the course towards communism, and doesn’t show signs of transparency, he will not generate credibility in his actions, and hence nothing will ever change in Venezuela.
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