Venezuela Post-Chávez: Hustlers' Paradise -- Roben Farzad, Bloomberg Businessweek
Venuzuela, a country of 30 million, has been in a state of economic bedlam since strongman socialist Hugo Chávez succumbed to cancer a year ago. His successor, former vice president and bus driver Nicolas Maduro, has a penchant for sub sandwiches and the teachings of an Indian spiritual guru with an afro. The stock market is up 483 percent in the past year, largely because people holding depreciating Venezuelan bolivars seek any store of value and traders bet on the end of Chavismo and/or a return to some semblance of capitalistic rule of law.
The black market, meanwhile, seems straight out of Mad Max. Last year the bolivar tanked 73 percent vs. the U.S. dollar on the unofficial but prevailing Caracas street exchange rate, a crisis that has spawned hording, looting, and dire shortages of food and consumer staples such as toilet paper and soap—this in an economy with the world’s No. 1 oil reserves. Last year upward of 24,000 murders occurred in Venezuela, making it one of the bloodiest nations on the planet. A former Miss Venezuela and her husband were recently ambushed and killed in front of their five-year old daughter.
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My Comment: Here is an easy prediction .... the situation is going to get worst before it gets better.
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