The economic measures recently imposed by Maduro caused uncertainty and fear among shop owners in Barquisimeto. They have no capacity to pay the new minimum wage and unemployment and shutdowns might become the new normal.
This school year, 15% of schools may shut down: between 400 and 500 preschools, elementary schools and high schools won’t be able to open in September. The new economic measures put a noose around the neck of parents and representatives, teachers and students alike.
For a supposed gamechanger in cryptocurrencies, the petro is almost impossible to find anywhere. A special report by Reuters doesn’t have many answers, but raises many questions instead.
Of the economic measures Maduro announced in August, the tax reform is perhaps the part that people have paid less attention to.
During Carlos Andrés Pérez’s first presidency, a law was passed so Venezuela could benefit the most from oil revenue. It was well thought out and, most importantly, well executed. It would change our relationship with our natural resources forever.
In Venezuela, those who should theoretically live in a magic bubble against the crisis, have stories of resistance. Here’s the case of a banker who hasn’t gotten hold of cash in a long, long time.
Maduro tried to clear the air through a Facebook Live broadcast, but he left us with even more questions and a clear understanding that the so-called recovery plan is nothing more than the same old 21st Century Socialism with a face-lift.
Big changes are coming and no one seems to understand how they will work. Wages will be anchored to an unexisting but centralized cryptocurrency, five zeros will be removed from the bolivar and fuel will have a new international price. What does it mean? We’re all in the dark, trying to guess.
In a bizarre, rambling address, President Maduro announced a genuinely weird, heterodox economic adjustment that left Venezuelans at a loss for words.
When Chávez took office in 1999, one dollar was worth 5.6 bolivars. 19 years later, the amount of zeros is so long, it’s confusing. Today, regrettably, we reach the one billion later benchmark.
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