{"id":60174,"date":"2021-10-31T06:12:53","date_gmt":"2021-10-31T11:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60174"},"modified":"2021-10-31T06:12:53","modified_gmt":"2021-10-31T11:12:53","slug":"venezuelans-turn-to-gold-nuggets-as-the-local-currency-implodes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=60174","title":{"rendered":"Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes<\/a><\/h3>\n

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The Venezuelan government\u00a0recently lopped off six zeros<\/a>\u00a0from its hyperinflating currency, the bolivar. The highest denomination currency note of 1 million bolivars,\u00a0worth less than $0.25<\/em>, was replaced by a one-bolivar note. At the same time, a 100-bolivar note, worth about $25.00, was introduced as the new highest denomination of the bolivar. The currency conversion was designed to spare the government the embarrassment of having to issue a 100-million bolivar note to enable people to purchases everyday items without having to carry around bundles of notes, given that the price of a loaf of bread had risen to 7 million old bolivars. Of course, the arbitrary scaling down of the denomination of the currency will not slow inflation, because the new currency notes can be printed just as cheaply as the old. The bolivar has already lost 73 percent of its value in 2021 alone and the IMF estimates the annual inflation rate will reach 5,500 percent by the end of 2021.<\/p>\n

It is not surprising, then. that all but the poorest Venezuelans have abandoned the bolivar as a medium of exchange, let alone a store of value or unit of account. US\u00a0dollars are the exchange medium of choice in Caracas and other large cities, while the Colombian\u00a0peso dominates along the Colombian border, particularly in the regional city of San Cristobal. The Brazilian real is current along the southern border with Brazil and the euro and cryptocurrencies have also found niche uses.<\/p>\n

What is wonderfully surprising is\u00a0the spontaneous emergence of a pure gold currency<\/a> in a remote region of southeastern Venezuela around the towns of Tumeremo and El Callao. The region abounds with precious metal ores and has a long history of luring prospectors and miners seeking their fortunes…<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Venezuelans Turn to Gold Nuggets as the Local Currency Implodes The Venezuelan government\u00a0recently lopped off six zeros\u00a0from its hyperinflating currency, the bolivar. The highest denomination currency note of 1 million bolivars,\u00a0worth less than $0.25, was replaced by a one-bolivar note. At the same time, a 100-bolivar note, worth about $25.00, was introduced as the new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7],"tags":[951,5059,1099,309,374,413,14441,647,13351,25781,851],"class_list":["post-60174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-survival-2","tag-currency","tag-currency-debasement","tag-currency-devaluation","tag-fiat-currency","tag-gold","tag-hyperinflation","tag-joseph-t-salerno","tag-precious-metals","tag-price-inflation","tag-the-mises-institute","tag-venezuela"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60174"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60175,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60174\/revisions\/60175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}