When it comes to South American financial news, the only things that English language newswires are allowed to report about Colombia and Peru (Amerika's friends) are good. When it comes to Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela (those nasty commiepeople) the reverse is true.
Take, for example, the story of Ecuador's international currency reserves. Here's the chart year to date and we can see how reserves dropped in the first part of the year, reaching their low point at the end of May.
Take, for example, the story of Ecuador's international currency reserves. Here's the chart year to date and we can see how reserves dropped in the first part of the year, reaching their low point at the end of May.
Bizarrely, the newswires were full of stories about those reserves when the drop was on. Here are just a few examples (of many, believe me) culled from the wires between March and May:
March 16: "...Ecuador’s foreign reserves fell to their lowest since June 2007..."
March 19: "... The country’s foreign reserves declined 5 percent to $3.31 billion in the week ended March 13, the lowest since June 2007..."
March 26: "...leftist President Raffael Correa could be forced to drop the dollar, throwing the country's monetary system into chaos ..."
April 27: "....Correa dismissed concerns about the economy, even though Ecuador's foreign exchange reserves dropped by half over the last six months...."
May 11: "... A 30 percent tumble in the central bank’s foreign reserves since the December default is draining the money supply..."
But then weirdly, bizarrely, strangely, when May left the scene and those international currency reserves began to rebound (due almost entirely to the better prices for crude oil), the newswires decided that the subject wasn't interesting any longer. By way of proof, check out this link to Bloomberg that notes how the keywords 'Ecuador', 'currency' 'reserves' returned a whole swathe of reports in 2009....but not a word since May. Not a single word.
Funny that, innit?
And you wonder why I call bullshit on the mediocre media that covers LatAm? The only truth you get is the version the newswire controllers want you to get. True for every single country down here. Truly pathetic coverage of Latin America, brought to you by Cheese-O-Mint™, for all your cheese/mint needs. Ask for it by name at your favourite store.