The Lexical Innovations of the Revolution

/ September 26, 2013

UntitledLet us all thank Jorge Giordani that this phrase is now in a Bloomberg headline.

From the piece itself…

One dollar buys 41.2 bolivars on the black market, compared with 6.3 bolivars at the official rate…

41.20! que bolas…

Update: But as a commenter points out, the best of this too-fun-for-a-proper-business-wire story is this borderline dadaist graf:

An official at Venezuela’s Finance Ministry, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t allowed to speak publicly, declined to comment on how the government would pay for Colombian imports. He wouldn’t confirm the report in El Nacional about Chinese aid, which the newspaper obtained from a source it didn’t identify.

Lo que es estar pero re-jodido, ¿no?

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42 thoughts on “The Lexical Innovations of the Revolution”

  2. Gotta love this paragraph:
    “An official at Venezuela’s Finance Ministry, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t allowed to speak publicly, declined to comment on how the government would pay for Colombian imports. He wouldn’t confirm the report in El Nacional about Chinese aid, which the newspaper obtained from a source it didn’t identify. “

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  3. A reporter friend of mine was telling me how government press officers aren’t even allowed to say “no comment” on the record anymore…I sort of thought he was kidding, but no, this shithead actually demanded anonymity to decline to comment!

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    • I think that under the paranoia and secrecy of Chavismo the fact that a foreign journalist had access and spoke to a government official and that he deigned to answer back (even to say no comments) could get you in trouble. I guess the standard procedure must be that you shall punch him, call security, take away his belongings and call the SEBIN.

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    • Yeah…
      The coherence of history. Associating the immorality of those who voted by a putschist in 1998 and now don’t have what to eat…
      But on the other hand it reflects the paralysis of the Venezuelan middle class, not being able to solve that conundrum called Venezuelanness and its cognitional dissociation. What does it look more ludicrous? Maduro’s paranoia or an opposition waiting in line to see what Reinaldo Dos Santos says on twitter?
      We are completely fucked. Not because of economic problems, but because, as society, entropy has rooted deep.
      Lastly, your comment is spot-on, but admittedly, masochist.

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  5. I talked about this in another comment thread, but there’s another level of lunacy to the deal. I heard this yesterday on Colombian radio, a big problem is actually transporting the food into Venezuela. The thing is you can’t just pay the Colombians more to have them drive the food into Caracas etc. (and they’d be happy to fill up in Venezuela!) because all items that are not sensitive (refrigeration) must do a “transbordo” at the border. They reported that this rule is in place since 1999, I have no idea who came up with it. But there’s a shortage of trucks in el Táchira, made worse because 30% of the trucks are out of order due to lack of spare parts!

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    • Venezuelan oppo spies should be in Colombia right now taking pictures of Colombian Harina PAN, toilet paper, meat, milk, coffee, everything.

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    • The transbordo rule was created by Chavez out of the blue probably to ingratiate himself with the trucking industry. Being Colombian, that was the first time that I saw that Chavez would spell future trouble for the relationships between both countries being that was a completely unilateral abd one sided rule.
      Later I spoke with some friends in the trucking industry and they told me that this did not change much in reality as goods have always been transfered to Venezuelan trucks on the border.
      The rule was only a propaganda move with no real effect. Of course in the end, those seemingly neutral moves turn out to be detrimental as it takes flexibility out of the system just like we see now…

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  6. The quote literally says nothing and yet in subtext says everything , dont know how journalist can produce meaning from what is some ones silence and yet they’ve clearly done so in this case . If an official refuses to be identified and refuses to confirm or deny a particular news item already in the press its because fear makes such kind of absurd posture the best confirmation of the truth of the news which he refuses to comment . Im reminded of the filmed interview of the argentine finance minister who when asked about the inflation numbers responded in such confused fashion that he firmly confirmed that the story of those being falsified by the govt .!!

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    • Given that it is a disgrace that Forbes allowed such a Boli-puff-piece to be published, “Op-Wed” is just as well. :

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  10. I don’t get how the title has any relationship with the content of this article. There were no misuse of words or false definitions. I guess that you are referring to the previous claims of stability or solidity of the currency, but if that is the case, you should have explicitly stated in the article where the incongruence is instead of making the reader guess to its meaning.

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