Francisco Rodríguez

So in the year 2000, I was appointed head of the Venezuelan Congressional Budget Office by the Venezuelan National Assembly.

And I was appointed with the support of both the government and the opposition.

So I was there for four years.

My relations with the government actually soured quite soon.

And the reason is that the government believed that

because they had the majority and because they had appointed me with that majority, even though they had also needed the votes of the opposition, that my office was going to be subordinate to the government majority.

So when I started

Essentially doing my job with independence, it's something that ran me into trouble with several lawmakers.

And one of them did not like the fact that I was questioning his law project and in fact asked the leadership of the government party to remove me.

Ultimately, they did it.

And the legislator who I'm referring to, who put a lot of effort into firing me, was actually Nicolás Maduro.

So it wasn't a good start to our relationships.

And the fact I didn't, you know, from that moment on, I never met him personally at any other moment.

Sure.

So I came to studying the Venezuelan economy as an economist.

And as an economist, something that I was struck by was this huge collapse, the largest ever economic collapse seen outside of wartime.

71% contraction of GDP.

So how do we make sense of that?

A lot of people have talked about failed policies of socialism, state intervention, nationalizations, and all of those played a role.

But frankly, Venezuela is not the first country to ever try those.