Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s mad president has taken another jump through the looking glass: he’s chopped five zeros off the existing currency and replaced it with a newly made up one, the “Sovereign Bolivar,” which he claims is pegged to another currency. Unfortunately for Venezuelans, that other currency is a crazy cryptocurrency.
It’s straight out of Alice in Wonderland.
Venezuelans – especially children – are starving as Maduro cooks up new crackpot schemes to strengthen an eviscerated economy that is defined by hyperinflation. Rather than strengthen the rule of law and pursue market liberalization, which has worked wonders in neighboring Colombia, Maduro fosters endemic corruption. As Reuters notes, the situation has become so dire that hundreds of expectant mothers are now crossing into Brazil each month to give birth. One woman told the publication, “My baby would have died if I had stayed. There was no food or medicine, no doctors.”
The refugee situation is similar in Colombia. But it gets worse: Maduro is now threatening Colombia and the U.S. in order to distract blame away from his own failings. And it’s hard to see how things will change anytime soon.
Until Maduro is pushed out by courageous street protesters, or until he is cut off from being able to sell oil (Venezuela holds the largest proven reserves of any nation) the president will continue his rampage.
