Was reading the news coming out of the Central Bank’s press conference on GDP with some skepticism when I saw a line go by:
The (new) President of the Venezuelan Central Bank (Eudomar Tovar) said ” The (Venezuelan) economy has now shown 58 consecutive quarters of growth”
I thought to myself,: Say what? Whatever happened to 2009, or 2003 or 2000 and began looking for charts in my blog, found a couple but then decided, what the hell, let me look in the indicadores page of the Banco Central de Venezuela, after all, someone may think I altered the data.
But no, here it is the data from the BCV itself:
Funny, I see some 20 quarters of negative growth (First column inn bold) since Chavez became President. Thus, Eudomar, who was supposed to know what he was talking about, instead pulls a 1984-like fast one and tries to lie straight form the start. So much for our hopes that an economist at the helm of the Central Bank could be a positive.
So, file this with:
-Maduro wants to fight corruption.
-GDP grew in the second quarter because banks and insurance grew so much.
-Elections are clean in Venezuela.
Yeah, sure!