Venezuela’s bolivar is worth less than the paper it is printed on. Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has a solution. He has issued a new bolivar, called the “strong bolivar.” How can you fail with plan as clever as that?
From NPR:
Beginning Monday, authorities are rolling out a replacement for the apparently unironically named “strong” bolivar, swapping it out for a “sovereign” bolivar that will be pegged to the government’s proposed cryptocurrency, the petro. In the process they are devaluing Venezuela’s physical currency more than 95 percent and radically weakening its exchange rate — going from about 250,000 to 6 million bolivars per U.S. dollar.
The new banknotes are also shedding five zeroes in a bid to make matters more manageable for consumers, who presumably cannot carry backpacks bigger than themselves every time they need to do the week’s grocery shopping.
Venezuela's annual inflation rate measured for this afternoon on August 19, 2018, is 61,463%, another all-time high. pic.twitter.com/4ObB6vQhqZ
— Prof. Steve Hanke (@steve_hanke) August 19, 2018
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