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A brief note on Venezuela and the turn to the right in Latin America

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So besides the coup in Brazil (which was all but confirmed by the last revelations, if you had any doubts), and the electoral victory of Macri in Argentina, the crisis in Venezuela is reaching a critical level, and it would not be surprising if the Maduro administration is recalled, even though right now the referendum is not scheduled yet.

The economy in Venezuela has collapsed (GDP has fallen by about 14% or so in the last two years), inflation has accelerated (to three digit levels; 450% or so according to the IMF), there are shortages of essential goods, recurrent energy blackouts, and all of these aggravated by persistent violence. Contrary to what the press suggests, these events are not new or specific to left of center governments. Similar events occurred in the late 1980s, in the infamous Caracazo, when the fall in oil prices caused an external crisis, inflation, and food shortages, which eventually, after the announcement of a neoliberal economic package that included the i…
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Back of the envelope calculation: BNDES lending and the Marshall Plan

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So, a few days ago, someone (my bad, can't remember who did it) posted on FB a piece (in Portuguese and behind a wall; but this post is mostly about the role of historical comparisons really, so you can skip the piece altogether) on the Brazilian National Development Bank (Portuguese acronym is BNDES, btw) and how it lend more than the US government with the Marshall Plan. The guy did a back of the envelope calculation (I did check and bringing the US$ 13 billion to present value, with the GDP deflator would be about 106 billion, roughly what he calculated) and concluded that the BNDES lending, which was higher, was very ineffective. Hm. Where to start?

Sure one can assume that the important thing is just to calculate how much money was lent in current values and one gets a reasonable picture of the impact. However, it should be clear that the US was lending dollars, and access to imports that were vital for the survival of Europe. Harder to put a dollar figure on that. But a bet…
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