Hocus pocus economics in Venezuela

NICOLÁS MADURO calls it “a really impressive magic formula”. His (big red package) features a new currency that lops five zeroes off the nearly worthless bolívar, a sharp increase in the price of fuel and a rise in the minimum wage of more than 3,000%.Forget magic. The president’s formula, even with some welcome new bits of realism, will almost certainly fail to rescue Venezuelans from their economic agony.