Latin America
Related: About this forumVenezuela's Inflation Rate Is 200% and Credit Card Companies Are Cashing In
Venezuelas economic collapse is driving factories out of business, leaving store shelves barren and wiping out workers purchasing power.
MasterCard Inc. is doing just fine.
Two powerful forces are pushing Venezuelans to rely increasingly on credit cards amid the chaos: runaway inflation and soaring crime.
People are racing to spend their money as fast as they can, trying to keep ahead of consumer price increases that Bank of America Corp. estimates could almost reach 200 percent this year. Yet because that inflation surge has decimated the value of Venezuelas money, shopping with cash would require carrying around a brick-sized wad of 100-bolivar bills -- not a great idea in a country with the worlds second-highest murder rate.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/land-200-inflation-mastercards-business-230001261.html
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)rate like that for any prolonged period. If Dim Successor doesn't start taking some immediate steps to halt the economic collapse in progress he will need to start shopping for a new residence in exile.
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)in german
http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/venezuela-nie-zuvor-eine-krise-dieser-dimension.1184.de.html?dram:article_id=309298
* four different exchange-rates Bolivar-Dollar (extra-cheap for importers, but a lot of abuse with corporations that exist on paper only)
* state-mandated low prices for products to ensure consumption, but so low that actually producing them becomes unpractical for corporations. -> International corporations are leaving Venezuela and chronic shortages of all kinds of products.
* massive corruption, increasing influence of military, unaccountable paramilitaries ("collectivos" taking over policing
* simply not enough school-buildings due to insufficient funding in the last decade -> fresh recruits for the gangs
* by far most crimes go unpunished because of corruption
* forced collectivization of haciendas destroyed local food-production, but Chavez was able to balance that with food-imports with oil-money. Now the oil-money is gone and Venezuela starves.
* Chavez wanted a fully state-controlled economy, but that model was proven to fail in the former soviet states. Maduro could have undone that, but he can't admit that Chavez was wrong because he needs Chavez to legitimize his own rule.