IKN

Goodbye overrated lardass, hello overrated lardass.
Valdivieso (left) quits and Carranza (right) is back

So farewell Luis Miguel Valdivieso, best remembered as the fat guy who took over from the other fat guy as Peru’s FinMin and talked nonsense about Peru’s economy for six months or so. I still have fond memories of his Bistromatics attack on August 21st last year when he claimed Peru’s inflation rate (then at 5.7%) would finish the year at 5.8%. The final score was 7.24%, which isn’t bad for an ex-IMF lackey who’d never faced reality before but an eight-year old with the inflation chart and a straight-edged ruler could have done better. Word is that Valdivieso is quitting due to illness; he’s sick to death of taking orders from his rat-faced new boss Yehude Simon.

The great news is that the fat guy he replaced is coming back to replace him. Luis Carranza, the luckiest economist on the planet who inherited a booming economy, ran it on autopilot for two years and then picked the right time almost to the month to quit and run away is taking the FinMin job back again. Otto finds this very strange, as Carranza’s ostensible reason for quitting at the time was that his own funds were low and they just didn’t pay him enough at the Ministry. Therefore his reappearance seems to suggest one of three things:

1) He couldn’t find a cushy job in the private sector and he couldn’t get enough of those paid evening speaker jobs to make ends meet. This is likely because it isn’t just Otto who recognizes his mediocrity.

2) Like the rest of us he’s noticed the rampant corruption and slush money swirling in and around the Twobreakfasts administration and wants his piece of the action. Wadya expect from the APRA boyz anyway? Justice?

3) He was talking total bollocks. Also highly likely, as he made a specialty of it in his first term of office.

Combinations of the above are acceptable, of course. So now that Peru is in the doo-doo and still won’t admit it, we’re about to see just how good Carranza really is. Otto has a friend who has constantly stuck up for Carranza and his record over the years. To that person I say “Betcha ten bucks yer man makes a hash of it all and shows just how mediocre he’s always been”. One thing Carranza was famous for during his last tenure was totally ignoring and despising his counterpart at the Central Bank, Velarde. Let’s see if they get all touchy-feely this time around because it’s going to be tough to run an anti-crisis plan if Carranza starts his primadonna antics again.