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Originally Posted by eddie
I can't imagine what its like for the people there just trying to feed their families and keep a roof over their heads. Whole thing is sad.
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Yeah, this is a nightmare for the people there.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...ar-maduro.html
Quote:
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela made a baffling announcement on Dec. 11, saying that his government intended to yank the 100 bolívar note from circulation in three days to thwart a supposed plot to hoard Venezuelan currency abroad. Any 100 bolívar bills that were not exchanged at the central bank within 10 days would become worthless. The result of this reckless decision was predictable.
Venezuelans, who have endured months of chronic food and medicine shortages, mobbed banks and A.T.M.s in a desperate attempt to offload their stacks of the highest denomination bill, which has become so devalued it is now worth roughly 3 cents in American dollars.
Shops and merchants stopped accepting the note, all but paralyzing an economy wrecked by years of abysmal mismanagement. Looting and riots erupted in several cities.
Although prices are rising, food can be cheap at the subsidized government price, if you can find it. Parents line up before dawn to wait for hours for the chance to buy flour, milk and baby formula for their family at official prices. But the lines have also become easy targets for robberies, forcing some to weigh hunger against the threat of violence.
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Without getting too far off topic, it's this kind of seat-of-the-pant autocratic leadership style that worries me with our incoming president.