Venezuela inflation soars to 4000% in 'death spiral' - Sensationalist Headlines

[quote]Venezuela's money is nearly worthless, and its cash crisis is only getting worse. The country is spiraling further into a humanitarian disaster spurred by the government's economic policies, which have caused the currency, the bolivar, to plunge in value and prices to skyrocket. Food and medicine shortages have been reported across Venezuela. The bolivar has lost 96% of its value this year. As of Tuesday, it took 84,000 bolivars to buy an American dollar. At the beginning of this month, a dollar was worth 41,000 bolivars. And at the start of this year, it only took 3,100 bolivars to buy a dollar, according to DolarToday, a website that tracks the unofficial exchange rate. Millions of Venezuelans look at DolarToday or another site, Paralelo Venezuela, to find out how much money they need to buy groceries -- if there's food on the shelves at all. The government's official exchange rate has been deemed meaningless. Inflation in Venezuela has soared to 4,115% compared with a year ago, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, who is an expert on hyperinflation. The crisis has deepened since the government defaulted on some of its debts. "The economy is really in a complete death spiral," says Hanke. "It's gotten a lot worse there in the last two weeks." Other estimates are lower than Hanke's but exorbitant by any country's standards. The Venezuelan research firm Ecoanalitica estimates that prices spiked about 1,430% in October compared with a year ago. Prices at hotels and restaurants were up 70% in October from the month before. Soaring prices force Venezuelans to wait hours in line at the ATM, the supermarket or both, just to get by. And things could get worse soon. Both the government and its state-run oil company, PDVSA, recently defaulted on some debts. If more defaults follow, investors could organize and seize Venezuela's only valuable asset -- oil -- in the United States. That would choke off the government's main source of cash, which it needs to import food and medicine.[/quote] [url]http://money.cnn.com/2017/11/22/news/economy/venezuela-currency-crash/index.html[/url]

How long can this last?

Of course, the Venezuelan government will blame this on evil capitalists and not on their criminally negligent economic policies.

[QUOTE=Bradyns;52916457]How long can this last?[/QUOTE] As long as they have oil to trade with basic stuff [QUOTE]Both the government and its state-run oil company, PDVSA, recently defaulted on some debts. If more defaults follow, investors could organize and seize Venezuela's only valuable asset -- oil -- in the United States. That would choke off the government's main source of cash, which it needs to import food and medicine.[/QUOTE] After that, only god knows...

It's important to note that the currency was converted to a new scheme that removed three zeroes from its denomination in 2008, changing the name from just "bolivar" to "bolivar fuerte" (VEF). This was done to reduce public perception of inflation, so when they're saying "84,000 bolivares to a dollar", they're actually referring to 84,000,000 bolivares. Before Chavez took power, the exchange rate was 509.35 bolivares to a dollar. [editline]ay[/editline] [t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Implied_vs_Official_Value_VEF.png/1280px-Implied_vs_Official_Value_VEF.png[/t] This only covers until October, btw, the numbers for November are more than twice as high. The "official" value refers to the exchange rate provided by the government's currency exchange scheme, which offers a limited amount of dollars at a fixed price. It is nearly impossible to access this scheme without being part of the government, it once allowed a small amount of dollars (around 500 a year) to be exchanged by private individuals, but not anymore.

holy shit hyperinflation ain’t no joke [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/OzB3D9u.jpg[/IMG]

You also can only withdraw that amount in 100 bolivar bills. There is a 100000 bill, but it looks nearly identical to the 100 bill except for the addition of 'mil' (thousand) after the 'cien' (hundred), and its slightly different coloration, they didn't even bother changing the number. This 100000 bolivar bill is also extraordinarily difficult to find. [img]http://www.ecuavisa.com/sites/default/files/fotos/2017/11/09/000_u51du.jpg[/img]

[QUOTE=Bradyns;52916457]How long can this last?[/QUOTE] As long as they have oil money to pay people to shoot people whom are protesting or until the people paid to shoot other people start developing consciences and refuse en mass.

[QUOTE=Bradyns;52916457]How long can this last?[/QUOTE] Once they lose their oil, government isn't gonna last long until everyone storms the building.

TBH I'm surprised an angry crowd hasn't overpowered Maduro's supporters and hired thugs and torn the man apart, given how desparate the situation has become.

The "what happens next" scenario is not particularly clear. While the majority of bondholders for PDVSA's bonds are American vulture funds, the perhaps more crucial problem here is that Rosneff has a collateral for a controlling share of Citgo (which is PDVSA's US operational branch), which would mean that Russia would gain control of Venezuela's refineries on US soil. Most of the oil exported to China and Russia are already done in deals that basically mean that the shipment belongs to those countries the second it leaves port, so they can't be seized by American authorities (This also means that the Venezuelan government has to hand out a set amount of barrels, regardless of the OPEC price). It is unclear how much of Venezuela's production is actually being sold as opposed to simply handed over as part of loan repayments to foreign governments. Russia and China's position in all this is a bit absurd. They stand to gain a lot from a full blown default, but they're also interested in keeping Maduro and his cronies in power. I assume it is that they consider him more manageable than a new government. In any way, Maduro has been very effective at creating an "official" opposition, mostly through incarceration and fear. What remains of the MUD (main opposition party) is basically a bunch of collaborationists, pretending that they want a "democratic transition" while failing to accept the government is not democratic nor willing to play by the rules.

If I 1 week ago went to the supermarket there were people taking it like crazy several package of sugar in 45,000bsf and I could not buy it because I did not have fucking 45,000bsf in my pocket but I return again to the same supermarket on Tuesday and I see the same package of sugar but at a new price 80,000bsf. inflation is finishing us all. There are very angry people who can not stand inflation (Evey allied people of the socialist party) Now he is giving a lot of money to people so they have a "happy Christmas" and obviously everybody is grabbing the free money evey many people that I know are followers of the opposition are grabbing the free money for "some extra money does not hurt". And in case someone asks how the hell people have not overthrown maduro yet? Try to attack someone who has under bribes to the entire armed forces and their shock troops (Colectivos) that to hear the first protest against the government are the first to appear and suppress the protests in both beatings and gunshots and try to take into consideration, that people are angry against the treacherous opposition (except with Maria Corina Machado) that many lost any reason to continue.

[QUOTE=Elcard100;52916718] There are very angry people who can not stand inflation (Evey allied people of the socialist party) Now he is giving a lot of money to people so they have a "happy Christmas" and obviously everybody is grabbing the free money evey many people that I know are followers of the opposition are grabbing the free money for "some extra money does not hurt". [/quote] I can't tell at this point if your government are really that stupid and don't know how inflation works, or if they're trying to burn your country to the ground.

[QUOTE=download;52916728]I can't tell at this point if your government are really that stupid and don't know how inflation works, or if they're trying to burn your country to the ground.[/QUOTE] Both

Not sure how this stuff works out but maybe it's time for the UN to intervene and force their government to resign?

[QUOTE=Zovox;52916772]Not sure how this stuff works out but maybe it's time for the UN to intervene and force their government to resign?[/QUOTE] At least you want to give more justification in favor of the Maduro government, It's a bad idea considering nobody is going to risk committing an intervention unable to justify a reason without being relatively bad internationally with "But the African dictators who commit crimes much worse and North Korea dictator who kill too many people too but those countries do not do an intervention but to Venezuela yes?", because (although it seems joke) there is no solid material to justify an intervention and there are many who reject a foreign invasion here (some approve it, but there are many who are against it even the opposition and the government), For now you have a crazy lunatic but that`s all And take notes that still Latin America has a bad history and remembers the US interventions and China and Russia are not going to lose their strategic point near US even if they are getting mad with Maduro And many countries apply the following rule "That Venezuelans resolve their problem among themselves"

[QUOTE=Zovox;52916772]Not sure how this stuff works out but maybe it's time for the UN to intervene and force their government to resign?[/QUOTE] That aint' gonna fly no matter which UN Council you try and pass it through. You're not gonna get anyone in the government to resign without a lot of bloodshed. It's better to just let this play it's course and let the economy and government collapse.

What are the odds of you and your family fleeing?

[QUOTE=Zovox;52916772]Not sure how this stuff works out but maybe it's time for the UN to intervene and force their government to resign?[/QUOTE] This, of course, assumes the UN has the balls to do so in the first place. [I]They don't.[/I]

When I see inflation at this high of amounts, it makes me really want to buy like $100 worth of physical currency and place it in a chest in my house. Wouldnt mind helping out some Venezuelan in the process either.

[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;52917015]Everyone in Venezuela should be exchanging what they have left to USD and BTC [I]right now[/I][/QUOTE] That's a whole lot easier said than done. I assume the only ones who're really in a position for that are currently on the government's 'regular' payroll anyway.

[QUOTE=27X;52916506]As long as they have oil money to pay people to shoot people whom are protesting or until the people payed to shoot other people start developing consciences and refuse en mass.[/QUOTE] They won't have their oil money for too many more years ever. Their fields are severely neglected, outputs are drastically decayed, and billions of dollars in needed capital improvements have been ignored over the last 15 years in order to give handouts to the population/politicians.

[QUOTE=Sam Za Nemesis;52917015]Everyone in Venezuela should be exchanging what they have left to USD and BTC [I]right now[/I][/QUOTE] [IMG]https://i.imgur.com/jXBtnFz.jpg[/IMG] [url]https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/09/big-in-venezuela/534177/[/url] they already have been can make an average of $500 a month which can feed a family of four