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I'm very sorry to sound harsh, but you have a fundamental misunderstanding on how economy works. It's not the government who choses an exchange rate (or for that matter, the value of anything), it's the market. If you choose to believe that Cadivi was a 'great' thing, you are simply living in a fantasy fueled by high oil prices and cheap dollars that make you think that this was 'great'.

The thing with free rides is that, no matter how high or 'great' they sound on paper, they eventually end, and you see the real problems.

> "Importers could buy stuff with their black market dollars and then replenish their stash when Cadivi finally payed them."

Sounds just great. A 'great' working economy, working around arbitrage and fantasies. I don't need to have 'political biases' to see that Chavez, whose agenda crippled the entire private sector and killed every other possibility of economic growth that didn't depend on oil, would be in exactly the same position as Maduro.

[aclsid]

Don't get me wrong, I too believe the exchange control is really bad. I certainly did not enjoy assembling the stupid folders and God knows how many trips to the bank. My main point was that what Maduro is doing almost makes the other system seem like a good thing.

But yes, we both agree that the person that started this whole craziness was Chavez. But I still disagree with you regarding what Chavez, or any other politician for that matter would have done in his shoes. I believe Maduro's main flaw is this attitude of not doing anything while the whole structure is crumbling. In my life, I have never seen any other politician like him unless we are talking about some of these government secretaries that end up being governors or mayors when the actual elected person starts slacking for whatever reason.