IMF View of Venezuela

COTTonLINE has had several opportunities to feature the work of Andres Oppenheimer, who writes knowledgeably about Latin America for the Miami Herald. Here he reports on an interview with the International Monetary Fund's Western Hemisphere division head, Alejandro Werner.

Oppenheimer summarizes the Werner interview thus:

While Werner did not pronounce the word “hyper-inflation,” I came out with the impression that he sees a possibility that Venezuela’s inflation rates may run out of control, and a somewhat lesser chance of that happening in Argentina.

Venezuela’s president Maduro is making a big mistake by focusing his fiery speeches on trying to smear his political opponents — his biggest rival is not the opposition, but the U.S. dollar. Unless he can stop the inflationary spiral, it’s hard to see how he can prevent an economic collapse, and his own political demise.

Oppenheimer describes economic conditions in Venezuela as dreadful, and he sees no improvement on the horizon.