Last week, Hugo Chávez announced he had bought 1 billion dollars worth of Argentinean bonds, a new lot of the so called Boden 15. In my first analysis of the transaction I wanted to focus on the open hypocrisy of Hugo Chávez, who supposedly lends Venezuelan money to his friend, the Argentinean president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, because he has great confidence in the Argentinean economy, while at the same time he proceeds to dump the bonds as soon as possible, selling them to Venezuelan banks, that only buy them because it's a nice way to obtain US dollars at a lower exchange rate than the parallel (dollar they are forbidden to get freely due to the exchange control in place since 2003).

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The Venezuelan Government Hugo Chávez announced last Tuesday he had bought 1 billion US dollars in Argentinean bonds (Boden 15) in another big favor he's conceding his good friend and troubled Argentinean president Cristina Fernández de Krichner. Chávez, who always pretends to be an altruist and to act in the interest of everybody else but him and Venezuelans, this time decided he would be no more altruist and is charging a very high 15% interest for the 1 billion loan.

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Under Venezuela's five year old exchange control regime there is a Commission for the Administration of Foreign Currency, (known as CADIVI for its Spanish acronym), whose bureaucrats decide who can and who can't buy foreign currency at the official exchange rate.

CADIVI yesterday announced it has temporarily suspended almost 48 thousand people from its electronic system, which means this people can no longer buy foreign currencies at the official exchange rates and will be forced to go to the parallel exchange market.

What crime did these 48,000 people committed?

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