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Venezuela Doesn't Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money

mbig

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Oh baby. It's one thing to be chronically short of toilet paper, but I never heard of too broke to pay for money.
A New low for the post-Chavez disaster.

Venezuela Doesn't Have Enough Money to Pay for Its Money - Bloomberg
Andrew Rosati
April 27, 2016

Venezuela’s epic shortages are nothing new at this point. No diapers or car parts or aspirin -- it’s all been well documented. But now the country is at risk of running out of money itself.

In a tale that highlights the chaos of unbridled inflation, Venezuela is scrambling to print new bills fast enough to keep up with the torrid pace of price increases. Most of the cash, like nearly everything else in the oil-exporting country, is imported. And with hard currency reserves sinking to critically low levels, the central bank is doling out payments so slowly to foreign providers that they are foregoing further business. Venezuela, in other words, is now so broke that it may not have enough money to pay for its money.
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The story began last year when the government of President Nicolas Maduro tried to tamp down a growing currency shortfall. [......]Last month, De La Rue, the world’s largest currency maker, sent a letter to the central bank complaining that it was owed $71 million and would inform its shareholders if the money were not forthcoming. The letter was leaked to a Venezuelan news website and confirmed by Bloomberg News.

It’s an unprecedented case in history that a country with such high inflation cannot get new bills,” said Jose Guerra, an opposition law maker and former director of economic research at the central bank. Late last year, the central bank ordered more than 10 billion bank notes, surpassing the 7.6 billion the U.S. Federal Reserve requested this year for an economy many times the size of Venezuela’s.
World’s Highest Inflation
The currency crisis sheds light on the magnitude of the country’s financial woes and its limited ability to remedy them as Oil -- the mainstay of its economy -- continues to flatline. Venezuela’s inflation, the world’s highest, is expected to rise this year to close to 500%, according to the International Monetary Fund.
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Venezuela has a long colorful history of corruption and instability....and when it was stable it was governed with a heavy hand.
Interesting that it winds down to a Socialist state and appears to be falling into chaos.

I'm Bernie Sanders and I approve of this mess. Sad that so many Americans are begging for a similar fate.
I've thought for a long time that it will take a real national crisis that hits hard to shake the majority of American people back to their senses.
Venezuela is there. We're well on the road
 
Yeah, I read this yesterday.

There is a lesson there to be learned.

My guess is socialists won't learn it.
 
Venezuela’s woes are mounting as it turns the lights off
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/28/venezuelas-woes-are-mounting-as-it-turns-the-lights-off.html
Luke Graham
28 Apr 2016
Venezuela's economic problems hit a new peak this week as rolling blackouts and a two-day working week were introduced to alleviate an energy crisis.

Venezuela's government announced earlier in the week that it was cutting public sector employees' working hours down to two days a week for at least two weeks in order to reduce electricity consumption.

The country's president, Nicolas Maduro, had already decided Venezuela's 2.8 million state workers would have Fridays off through April and May. Daily four-hour power cuts around the country were also planned to further save energy.

The plans are a response to a drought that has left the country's largest hydroelectric dam near its minimum operating level. But according to Michael Henderson, lead economist at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, the plans indicate just how poorly the country is doing as a whole.

"Venezuela is in the final throes of a downward social and economic spiral borne out of a legacy of terribly misguided policymaking....
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