Venezuela: Running Out of Cash

"Think about it. He tattooed his confession on his chest. You have a degree of fate with this," Parker said. "The detective who spotted it had been a Pico sergeant who went on to become a homicide sergeant. I never worked Pico station. I never would have recognized that Pico liquor store."

Investigators don't believe Garcia's elaborate tattoo was a rash decision. Photos from several bookings over the years show the mural on his chest evolving as he added details to the tattooed murder scene — until one day Lloyd saw them as a whole and something clicked....,,,,,,,,,......

"Among normal adults, sleep difficulties and insomnia have predicted onset of alcohol use one year later, and increased risk of any illicit drug use disorder and nicotine dependence 3.5 years later," said Wong. "Among adult alcoholics who received treatment for alcohol dependence, those with insomnia at baseline were more likely to relapse to alcohol use. The association between poor sleep and substance use has also been found in younger age groups. Overtiredness in childhood has predicted lower response inhibition in adolescence, which in turn predicted number of illicit drugs used in young adulthood. Overtiredness in childhood has also directly predicted the presence of binge drinking, blackouts, driving after drinking alcohol, and number of lifetime alcohol problems in young adulthood. The purpose of this study was to examine whether sleep difficulties and hours of sleep prospectively predicted several serious substance-related problems that included binge drinking, driving under the influence of alcohol, and risky sexual behavior."

Wong and her co-authors analyzed data collected via interviews and questionnaires from 6,504 adolescents (52% girls, 48% boys) participating in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Data were collected for three waves -- 1994-1995, 1996, and 2001-2002 -- and study authors used sleep difficulties from a previous wave to predict substance-related problems at a subsequent wave, while controlling for substance-related problems at the previous wave.

"Sleep difficulties at the first wave significantly predicted alcohol-related interpersonal problems, binge drinking, gotten drunk or very high on alcohol, driving under the influence of alcohol, getting into a sexual situation one later regretted due to drinking, and ever using any illicit drugs and drugs-related problems at the second wave," said Wong. "Substance-related problems such as binge drinking, driving under the influence of alcohol, and risky sexual behavior are more important than others due to their association with reckless driving, automobile accidents, physical injuries and even death, as well as risk for sexually transmitted disease and unplanned pregnancy."

Not surprisingly, Venezuela is looking less and less attractive to creditors. In January, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the country’s credit rating from Caa1 to Caa3 — a “junk” rating with only two more notches below it, Ca and C, the latter of which is rarely assigned until an issuer is actually in default. The Financialist caught up with Mauro Leos, senior credit officer at Moody’s, and Andre Jakurski, founder of JGP Asset Management, at the Credit Suisse Latin America Investment Conference in São Paulo, to hear their thoughts on Venezuela’s position.   The country’s problems, Jakurski says, are compounded by the fact that heavy government controls and expropriations of private company assets have chased out many companies that could have been helping the local economy. Such heavy-handedness left the country almost entirely exposed to the price of a single commodity, and that has now gone against it. “They either retrench and establish very tight fiscal and monetary policy, or they’re going to go broke and will default,” Jakurski says. “In which case, the population will be in even more dire straits than it is today.”   Venezuela also committed the cardinal sin of fiscal impropriety: unlike more prudent countries such as Chile, it didn’t use the good times to stockpile at least a little bit of cash. Instead, the governments of late president Hugo Chavez and current president Nicolas Maduro have spent lavishly on social programs and deals to subsidize allies such as Cuba as part of Venezuela’s brand of so-called 21st century socialism. In the past six years, the country’s foreign reserves have fallen by half, from $42.2 billion in 2008 to $22.1 billion in 2014. “The significant pressures that we see are coming from the lack of dollars, and that is why we have assigned such a low rating,” Leos says of Moody’s recent downgrade. “And it’s one that implies a high probability of default.”   Life isn’t going to get any easier for Venezuelans already dealing with food shortages and an inflation rate of some 60 percent. “Not only are prices high, but there’s a scarcity of basic goods, too,” says Leos. “We’re talking about things like milk, rice and toilet paper. You cannot find anything in Venezuela. People are starting to get increasingly upset.” It’s not a place any sitting government likes to be in: when rapid economic deterioration starts to have real – and painful – social implications. “It’s hard to see the way out of this for Venezuela,” says Leos. “Or at least for this administration.” - See more at: https://www.thefinancialist.com/venezuela-running-out-of-cash/?utm_source=taboola&utm_term=eslmedia-theindependent&utm_campaign=Global#sthash.6EaK9cog.dpuf