Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Venezuelan telephone game*

1. Eight days ago, Otto hears about how Venezuela is thinking about buying back debt.

2. Otto posts on the subject (title "Venezuela to buy back sovereign debt") one week ago. Adds charts, background information etc and explains the sound logic and why it's a good idea.

3. Bloomberg misses the significance of this buyback completely and blames same-day currency movements clearly related to the plan on ridiculous supposition.

4. Otto points out the error (and gets unwarranted and boring flak from certain people sitting at certain desks in a certain S.Am city).

5. El Universal today runs story on how Venezuela is thinking about buying back debt.

6. Bloomberg runs the story in English, and finally informs those who don't read this blog about what's really going on.

Moral of the story: To find out what's going on down here, read more blogs and less mainstream media. Abiding with tell you the same. So will borev. So will Bina. So will Mickey Fulp. So will The Mex Files. And so will Sapitos......................


*Also known as "Chinese Whispers" in other places