How bad is Venezuela’s condition?
Every time we think it couldn’t get worse, it does.
Excerpted from Andrew Rosati and Patricia Laya’s article at bloomberg.com:
Venezuela’s currency is worth even less than previously believed, with new trackers of the black-market rate showing deep discounts compared with the long-standing benchmark gauge.
Rates from the widely watched Dolartoday.com, known for arousing President Nicolas Maduro’s ire on state TV, have lagged behind other markers that show prices about 30 percent weaker. While the U.S.-based website posts a rate of 251,000 bolivars per dollar, DolarPro has it at 362,000 and e-wallet AirTM is selling dollars for 313,000 bolivars each.
Any way you count it, the bolivar is worth massively less than just five years ago. The current DolarToday rate has it down 99.99 percent in that time span. Meanwhile inflation in the country has been running at an annual rate of 6,147 percent.
Currency down 99.99%? That sounds like something out of a comic book story. How I wish, for the sake of Venezuela’s population, that it was.
And inflation running at 6,147%? Ditto and then some. At that rate, whatever something costs today – with virtually no one able to afford it now (not that it matters because the stores probably don’t have it anyway) – will double in 6 days.
This, readers, is the great socialist experiment. This is what happens when a prosperous country with massive natural resources like Venezuela gives itself over to mindless socialists whose idea of running a country is running it into the ground, and then furiously digging to get it even lower from there.
But, credit to bloomberg.com for at least publishing a report about it. How many other reports on Venezuela have you seen from mainstream media?
But would it surprise you if the next time this gets significant coverage will be if Sean Penn and Danny Glover do a joint press conference to explain why it’s all Donald Trump’s fault?
Don’t doubt they would do that…and don’t doubt mainstream media would cover it far more than they’re covering the catastrophe Venezuela has degenerated into under Castro protégés hugo chavez and then nicolas maduro.
