How to Solve the Riddle of Venezuela's Economy

Forget Donald Trump. Long before the White House began trafficking in alternative facts, Venezuela's government had cornered the market in magical thinking. You say gross economic mismanagement is wrecking the economy? Nonsense, volleyed President Nicolas Maduro, the disappearance of goods like food and medicine is the work of unscrupulous profiteers. The continent's largest oil producer can't keep the lights on? Stop using hair driers, Maduro says. Bootleggers are shooting it out for a piece of Venezuela's flourishing black market border trade? "Enough of this terrorism," Maduro said, excoriating Colombian paramilitary forces.

Reliable economic information is as rare as insulin in the Bolivarian Republic. The government doesn't even pretend not to hide the homicide rate, and the poverty rate is anyone's guess. The central bank stopped publishing inflation data in December 2015, and gross domestic product hasn't been updated in more than a year. The finance ministry's last report on federal fiscal accounts was in 2013. Even the reporting on oil output, on which Venezuela depends for 95 percent of its export revenue, dribbles out six months late, and often conflicts with data from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.