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[Teneb]

While completely true, it is also true of every single education in the world, even including a degree in administration of a continent-sized country's research efforts.

Fair enough. I'm just glad it was him because it was not some of the other picks. Too bad education went to the most reactionary philosopher I've ever seen.

[smjjames]

Bolsonaro's gorvern is bringing me fear, and some of tha names along him are complete idiots (see female minister above), but on the other hand, there are a few names I'm quite optimistic about, like, the Science and Technology minister, Marcos Pontes, c'mon, he's a brazilian ASTRONAUT! He's gotta be smart...

Being an astronaut does not mean he's a good administrator of a continent-sized country's research efforts.

You know what all of that also sounds like? Trump. Welcome to Mr. Bones wild ride.

[GPeter]

Bolsonaro's gorvern is bringing me fear, and some of tha names along him are complete idiots (see female minister above), but on the other hand, there are a few names I'm quite optimistic about, like, the Science and Technology minister, Marcos Pontes, c'mon, he's a brazilian ASTRONAUT! He's gotta be smart...

Being an astronaut does not mean he's a good administrator of a continent-sized country's research efforts.

I'm pretty sure NASA wouldn't accept someone who doesn't know what he's doing... Plus, He's formed (is that right? Is that how you say it in english?) in public management...

[Magistrum]

Not a native English speaker either, but they usually refer to it as possessing the relevant degree.

So it would be something like "He has a Public Management Bachelor".

Anyone can check this for us?

[Reelya]

That Amazon thing is definitely going to be the source of a lot of conflict.

[A Thing]

Not a native English speaker either, but they usually refer to it as possessing the relevant degree.

So it would be something like "He has a Public Management Bachelor".

Anyone can check this for us?

Yeah that sounds right. Either that or "He has a degree in public management."

[Magistrum]

That Amazon thing is definitely going to be the source of a lot of conflict.

Yeah, because of our lackluster preservation policy Norway announced they are cutting 200 million BRL of aid for our deforestation prevention effort.

Please do not abandon us in our moment of need.

Got ninja'd: thanks A thing.

[Teneb]

That Amazon thing is definitely going to be the source of a lot of conflict.

Yeah, because of our lackluster preservation policy Norway announced they are cutting 200 million BRL of aid for our deforestation prevention effort.

Please do not abandon us in our moment of need.

Got ninja'd: thanks A thing.

But we must[/i] expand the economy and civilize the natives!!!!1um

/s


That 200m ain't going to change much when the big landowner senators promise their votes. Hell, the old environment ministry was folded into agriculture. Fascists gonna fasci.

You know what the joke is, though? They're gonna deforest the Amazon, reap maybe five years of harvests, and then... notice nothing is growing anymore because the Amazon soil is utter shit and the jungle only exists because its made of masochist plants that like that shit.

[Reelya]

BTW going off the current value of the Venezuelan currency (from Venezuelan exchange sites), inflation since the changeover is about 1/10th of what IMF was predicting. (sources included)

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-01-03/venezuela-economic-collapse-has-lessons-for-america-s-socialists

The IMF was predicting 1 million percent inflation by the end of 2018, and recently boosted that to a prediction of 1.37 million percent for the end of 2018. They're also predicting 10 million percent inflation by the end of 2019.

However, actual data seems to indicate that the inflation rate is about 1/10th of the IMF prediction since the August currency reforms, and the general trend is downward, not upward. Sure, it's still really bad, but the inflation rate is easing off a little, not increasing at ever-faster rates as the IMF is saying.

https://dolartoday.com/ (4.5 months since the new currency launched at 60 bolivars to the USD, the rate is 840 now. That's definitely not "1.37 million % inflation".

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-venezuela-cafe-con-leche-index/ (Bloomberg's interactive thingy shows that in more recent month, the inflation rate is lower than it was a year ago, rather than the inflation rate becoming 10 times higher every year, which is what the IMF is selling you)

Both these data sources are consistent and they show that the IMF's predicted rate was 10 times higher than what actually happened. A 90% error. Given that their next year's prediction is 10 times more than this year's, and the rate is going down and not up, next year the IMF's prediction will be 99% in error.

So either the Venezuelan government reforms worked, and led to inflation 10 times less than it would have, or the IMF was just full of shit with their predictions to start with.

[Magistrum]

I'll ad a option 2.1: They were full of shit, but it is because things are ridiculously chaotic and trying to predict it would be folly so they just went "lol 10 million".

I believe they just want to stop all investment in the country, period. Not help it advance, just usher the collapse of the current system asap.

Edit: You know what Teneb? They would then find a way to fertilize the ground using exclusively the world's most horrifying phosphorus mine.

[Reelya]

I'll ad a option 2.1: They were full of shit, but it is because things are ridiculously chaotic and trying to predict it would be folly so they just went "lol 10 million".

They seem to be relying on people not understanding inflation rates with their 10 million number, too.

For example, if the inflation rate is 1000%, then prices are 10 times higher, so you could say "at this rate, next year there will be 10000% inflation!" ... but that's not how it works. But there's no other way that I can put the IMF's 10 million number into context.

They don't seem to be taking any actual figures into account. We have the exchange rate for example (dolartoday.com), we can see how many USDs you get for a Venezuelan Bolivar, and we can look at Bloomberg's data on the change in the price of a cup of coffee in Caracas and see that that aligns perfectly with dolartoday.com's rate.

Empirical evidence like the price of a cup of coffee is in fact good data. If the real inflation rate was IMF-high they'd have to charge a lot more for that cup of coffee. It could be fun to predict what the cup of coffee should cost by the end of next year according to the IMF. It's 450 bolivars now. If the inflation for 2019 really was 10 million percent, then the cup of coffee should cost 45 million Bolivars by the end of 2019. That's the IMF prediction as of now.

However, just found a recent article, and Stephen Henke from Cato actually calculated the real inflation rate at the end of the year as 80,000%.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/

80000% for 2018, not the IMF's 1.37 million%. Which leaves the IMF's error rate at ~95% off. Also note that the overall rate since August was 170,000%, which is twice as high as Henke's ending figure for the year, which suggests the rate itself is declining, not increasing. It's reasonable to assume a trend where the rate halves every 6 months, to 20,000% for 2019. That would leave the IMF's error rate for 2019 as 99.98% incorrect.

For future reference, the IMF's 2019 10-million% prediction would mean the cup of coffee costs 45 million bolivars by this time next year. My 20,000% prediction would put the cup of coffee at about 90,000 Bolivars. Sure, that's a huge increase, but you can see why the IMF figure is in another ballpark.

Assuming the rate neither goes up or down from Henke's 2018 figure would put the coffee at 360,000 Bolivars. I'll come back and assess the coffee situation in about 6 months or so.

[Magistrum]

That was a very insightful observation Reelya, thank you, honestly.

This must be a incredible time to be a coffe cup speculator, maybe I should buy a cup of coffe now and liquidate it when the price raises.

I'm very interested in the true difference in purchasing power over this period, let's jot this down and check back then.

Anyone wanna place their bets on how much for that sweet caffeine?

I'll take 270.000,00 to 280.000,00 VEF the cup, also throw in 1.000.000,00 VEF the accompanying empanada, give or take 10.000,00.

[Dorsidwarf]

As much as I don’t want to believe that the IMF is trying deliberately to destabilise the Venezuelan economy with farcical predictions made of whole cloth, it’s really becoming hard to view otherwise.

[Reelya]

Back about 2008  there was an IMF report about inflation figures for all of South America. I could probably wrassle up the PDF if I tried. it was off the IMF website so an official document.

The upshot is that every nation's forecasts were calculated to three decimal places. Except for Venezuela, which was nice amounts to the nearest 0.5, and supposedly going to increase by the same exact integer amount every year starting in 2009. On a report where every figure was to three decimal place. And it turned out it actually fell from 2008-2013 which was the exact opposite of the 2008 IMF forecasts.

From back then, it's been pretty clear that the IMF does "special" accounting just for Venezuela that doesn't involve doing actual math. They don't even bother faking the figures to more than 1 or 2 significant figures.

Every year from 2008 onwards, inflation was supposed to increase by exactly 3.000% (it didn't), so it seems like they just discovered you could click the "=" key on their calculator repeatedly to repeat the +3 additions.

This time it seems that they've made the radical discovery that the repeat trick works for the * key, too, and plugged * 10 = = =" into the calculator for their current "100,000 last year, 1 million this year, 10 million next year" prediction.

This is why, while there are big problems, everyone should take corporate media figures quoting the inflation rate with a grain of salt. IMF has a long history of faking this stuff, going back well before there was any hyperinflation going on. Steven Henke from the Cato institute who writes in Forbes is the go-to guy if you want more reliable figures. Even the Bloomberg ad-hoc metric of the price of a cappuccino in Caracas is more accurate than the IMF predictions.

[LordBaal]

It seems my country is 3 days from exploding politically and economically. At least to finish exploding.