21st Century Socialism is So Much Better

Venezuela's Inflation Rate Is 200% and Credit Card Companies Are Cashing In - Excerpt

"Venezuela’s 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." - Yahoo Finance  

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Venezuela Inflation Seen Pushing 200% as Rationing Deepens  - Excerpt

Venezuela, which already has the world’s fastest inflation rate at a reported 69 percent in December, could see that rate more than double this year as it struggles to respond to falling oil prices.
“We may end up this year with inflation at close to 200 percent,” Alberto Ades, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America, said in an interview on Bloomberg Surveillance Friday. He forecast the economy would shrink 4 percent. “Venezuela is in a dire crisis.” - Bloomberg Business

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Amazingly, Maduro Is Going To Make The Venezuelan Economy Even Worse. Yes, Worse  - Excerpt

There’s a useful point often made that when you’re at the bottom of a hole the sensible thing is to stop digging. That politics doesn’t work this way we know, almost every politician preferring to double down on their own prejudices rather than take note of reality and what the universe is trying to tell her. But it is rare to see true howling lunacy in action in politics, despite the sort of people who become politicians. Perhaps because we in the rich countries never do allow the true drooling incompetents to take power: or perhaps more realistically we never allow anyone to have enough power to destroy our economy.

I do not say that Maduro drools, nor howls, nor even that he’s a lunatic, but he is doubling down on a remarkably incompetent piece of public policy. . .

- Forbes

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