The Government claims that the “adjustment”, the euphemism it uses for the devaluation was due to the “speculative “attack by the oligarchy” on the Venezuelan currency. (Maduro dixit) This is actually a good line to sell to the “people”, who are unlikely to understand that in the presence of exchange controls like those present in Venezuela, it is a bit difficult to mount any sort of attack on a currency that is fixed in price and illegal to trade otherwise.
Many people ask me whether the value of the unmentionable dollar is right, will go up, will go down, etc. Given that it is illegal to mention what its value is, the discussion is not easy, as I do not want to temp the powers that be. But I can talk about monetary matters, without mentioning “that dollar” to try to give you an indication whether things are out of line or not.
The Venezuelan Central Bank long ago stopped managing the amount of money in circulation, the so called M2. In the end, if you increase M2 without control, there is inflation and you distort the economy if monetary liquidity increases faster than the availability of goods (How fast the money moves around or changes hands is also important). And in the end, that is why the Government has had to devalue repeatedly, because it has increased monetary liquidity at an average pace of 44% per year.
One way to measure this effect, is to compare M2, the total number of Bolivars in circulation, to international reserves. This is the so called implicit exchange rate, which tells you at what value you would have to convert all Bolivars into dollars, if you decided to dollarize the economy.
When Chavez got to power M2 was Bs. 10 billion and there were more than US$ 10 billion in international reserves. Today, M2 stands at Bs. 700 billion. That is, there is seventy times more Bolivars in circulation than there were in February 1999. But Venezuela does not produce 70 times more stuff, nor does it have 70 times more international reserves. That is why there has been so much inflation. Nor have international reserves increases much. In fact, they have barely doubled, despite the biggest oil windfall in the country’s history.
Let’s first look at M2, the raw number of Bolivars in circulation and how they have increased since 2005:
That is money printing at its best, an almost of factor of 15 increase in seven years . To be precise, monetary liquidity has increased by 1400%(By comparison, since the 2008 financial crisis M2in the US has gone up by 23%, which is a lot too). During the same period, Venezuelan international reserves have barely changed, the economy has grown by 32% and the price of the Venezuelan oil basket has increased by 236% (I also placed an arrow on when the Government stopped the swap market in 2010, M2 has increased by a factor of 3.4 since then)
Obviously, something has to give. You create so many Bolivars, you don’t produce more goods, you import more and you are in distortionville: High inflation, devaluation and shortages. Note the comparison between the increase of the price of oil (236%) and that of the economy (32%). This guys have done little in terms of sowing the oil.
Now let’s look at M2/Reserves in the same period. You have more Bolivars, reserves should increase at least in some proportion.
Except they did not. The implicit rate has gone from being less than Bs. 2 per US$ in reserves to being Bs. 25 per US$ in reserves. Note the arrow when the Government stopped the swap market in 2010. At the time M2/reserves was near Bs. 8, around the last value traded in the swap market.
Finally, another way to look at this, is to look at the implicit rate divided by the official rate of exchange as a way of comparison:
The dashed vertical lines are the four devaluations since January 2005. The arrow, is when the swap market was shut down. As you can see, in the 2010 and 2011 devaluations, the ratio of the Implicit/Official was pushing 4 when it was adjusted down. This time, when the Government devalued to Bs. 6.3 per US$, the ratio went down only to this value, an indication that the official rate is still overvalued compared to this indicator of the implicit rate. Thus, at Bs. 6.3 it is still cheap to buy anything imported at that rate.
With respect to the question that people always ask, the second graph should give you a guide. Think about what the rate was when it was legal and what the implicit value was then and think about where it is today. With SITME eliminated, more buyers will have to go to the unmentionable market, so there will be even more pressure now.
What this all shows is that speculation has nothing to do with the devaluations and the shortages. It is simple an idiotic and ignorant policy by Giordani et al., which does not appear will be changed in the short or medium term.
But he is still smiling…
The Devil's Excrement 
March 4, 2013 at 10:55 am
[…] Speculation, Devaluation and Idiotic Policies In Venezuela […]
February 27, 2013 at 11:19 pm
Still no bread here in the pueblo, no meat either. Thank God for chicken.
March 1, 2013 at 6:16 am
Dejanlos comer cake…?
February 27, 2013 at 10:02 pm
There is no possible fix to the Venezuelan economy other than absolutely wiping out all of the authorities in all public powers. That is not sufficient, a completely new and competent government capable of recovering confidence and credibility is also necessary. I am afraid that is not going to happen for quite a while; therefore, there will be many more devaluations, higher inflation, and worse supply shortages.
February 27, 2013 at 8:55 pm
CNN Chile reporting that Guilermo Cochez, former Ambasador to OAS from Panama is saying Hugo is dead.
February 27, 2013 at 10:09 pm
On the other hand, it seems that there have been Chavez sightings around Caracas http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/02/26/chavez-still-out-sight-in-venezuela-spurring-rumors-and-some-claims-sightings/ move over Elvis!
February 28, 2013 at 1:51 am
Why would Elvis move over? Tupac, Chavez and Elvis are all getting along perfectly fine in their hotel suite.
February 27, 2013 at 8:53 pm
http://www.minci.gob.ve/2013/02/fotos-tras-el-caracazo-el-pueblo-se-convirtio-en-poder/
Imagery of today’s rally. In slides 60, 61 and 62 is HCF daughter and hubby. Hard to see them rallying four days later.
The ambassador is trying to smoke them out but not good enough!
February 27, 2013 at 8:45 pm
Anyone else notice that the obsequious Chavez posters that used to hang in every manager’s office are slowly being replaced by Simon Bolivar prints?
February 27, 2013 at 8:19 pm
Risky move by the ambassador. Good to force regimes hand. Wonder how the regime will retaliate. I don’t buy the ambassadors story as it falls way short so the regime would do best ignoring him.
February 27, 2013 at 6:15 pm
HCF brain dead on Dec 30th and was disconnected four days ago
February 27, 2013 at 7:56 pm
The news anchor in that video has the worst accent I’ve ever heard. It’s almost unbearable to my ears. Lol
February 27, 2013 at 8:33 pm
The lady has a Spaniard accent. I understand her very well. It reminds me of the time I watched the Australian movie Gallipoli. I could not understand their gud dai maite.
February 27, 2013 at 8:40 pm
I’ve heard lots of accents from Spain and none of them have been as annoying as this girl is. Sounds like she has a speech impediment in there somewhere.
February 28, 2013 at 4:28 am
Chavez been brain dead ever since he joined the military, a truly useless corrupt upper class.
February 27, 2013 at 5:12 pm
Daniel today outlined the serious problems CADIVI is causing to businesses all over Venezuela by backdating unpaid allocations of import dollars at a rate of Bs.6,3 to the dollar instead of Bs.4,3 that they should have.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-devaluation-is-retroactive-great.html
February 27, 2013 at 3:52 pm
I’ve tracked the implicit Vs. de other rate (in whichever form: permuta, etc) since 2006. Usually the implicit is within 20% of the other rate. Starting in Feb 2011 the two staring divorcing each other at an accelerated rate until their difference peaked in Jul 2012. Since then the difference has collapsed rather precipitously and it is now almost within “normal” range. If M2 keeps increasing at the rate it has for the last year and reserves remain stagnant, implicit will be @30 by July, and $35 by DIc. It is hard to tell what is going to happen, however. If the past offers any guidance, the “other” rate will be within, roughly, 20% of these numbers. However, the “other” rate might very well overshoot the implicit simply because of very a particular supply and demand situation.
February 27, 2013 at 3:18 pm
I have to go off topic, I hope you don’t mind.
I just saw on the BBC web page a photo of the Caracas Police beating student protesters who had chained themselves to posts. It looked VERY serious. I hope those students are OK, and haven’t been taken by these “protectors of the people”.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/21600105
February 27, 2013 at 3:19 pm
Sorry, you have to scroll through the photo’s should be the third one.
February 27, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Yes, very troubling, they were protesting in front of the administrative office of the Supreme Court that the Government should provide better information about Chavez’ condition.
February 27, 2013 at 1:11 pm
I hope I will have the time today, I would like to comments these “economics” Octavio.
Ag
February 27, 2013 at 1:12 pm
These are mostly empirical charts…less economics, more logic and correlations.
February 27, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Excellent explanation.
With SITME closed & no apparent increase in CADIVI dollars we can only expect a steady increase in the unmentionable market.
The problem that my friends have today is a complete lack of a secondary market other that dribs & drabs from the foreign tourism market that has also virtually disappeared.
With what happened here in Margarita earlier this week with Rattan, Sigo & Dibs I fully expect more explosions of frustration from the populace terminating when the final word gets out that his zombieness has indeed died.
February 27, 2013 at 1:20 pm
For those of you unaware of what happened here in Margarita Sunday & Monday read here:
http://www.elsoldemargarita.com.ve/site/224178/fotos-indepabis-estado-no-tiene-pensado-nacionalizar-tiendas
February 27, 2013 at 1:42 pm
you mean, they need to be authorized to offer sales?
February 27, 2013 at 2:10 pm
Apparently there are both Chavistas & opposition on the INDEPABIS board. According to comments they called one of the oppo members but not the red member so that caused a problem.
This country is so crazy these days that you can believe any rumour.
Another rumour was that the owners of Rattan are planning to move to Panama which would explain what they did.
Another explanation was that they had containers of Chinese goods arriving so they wanted to clear the stores out of goods to make room. wink, wink.
I find the first rumour more believable.
February 27, 2013 at 12:38 pm
Economics 101 something they have no clue about in this misgovernment
February 27, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Miguel, thank you for the enlightening post.