Venezuelan Inflation Soars to 800%

[Bacchus4.0]

http://panampost.com/fergus-hodgson/2015/08/04/venezuelan-inflation-soars-to-800/

If Venezuelans thought their inflation woes couldn’t get any worse, they were wrong. While the regime has failed to report inflation beyond 2014, contravening the law, the Troubled Currencies Project estimates the annual rate at 808 percent, as of July 25.+

The figure from Steve Hanke of the libertarian Cato Institute, deduced from the black-market exchange for US dollars, is more than 10 times the official rate of 68.5 percent for 2014. Further, the monthly rate of 20.2 percent pushes the Venezuelan bolívar deathly close to hyperinflation.+

One now needs 687 bolívares to buy a single US dollar. In other words, the highest denomination bill available, 100 Bs., is worth a mere 14.6 US cents. This black-market rate comes from DolarToday, an outlet censored by the regime. However, they calculate the going value of the bolívar from the Colombian city of Cúcuta, located on the Venezuelan border.+

In the face of constituent need, Chavista officials have resisted printing 500 or 1,000 Bs. notes — perhaps because they do not want to acknowledge the disparity between official numbers and the reality on the ground. For example, the official headline exchange rate of 6.3 Bs. per US dollar, available to the chosen few, overvalues the the bolívar by more than 100 times.+

[MADem]

1. They're heading for Jamaican Dollar territory.

They should do what Ecuador did, forsake their worthless script, and just use USD. It would, at least, stop this insanity.

Of course, Maduro hates us so much, he'd probably rather use the yuan!

[Bacchus4.0]

2. They should sell off Hugo's assets and confiscate his fortune, he's not using it nt