Spotting evidence of the destruction that Venezuela’s politicians have inflicted on the economy isn’t terribly hard. In fact, you start to see it as soon as you get off the plane.
The terminal of Caracas International Airport, a cavernous building built in the 1980s, is mostly empty. International carriers have largely abandoned the country. The combination of foreign exchange controls and the government’s refusal to let airlines repatriate earnings means that long-haul flights into the country have all but disappeared.
The picture is the same on the streets of the city. The local currency, the bolívar, has lost 70 percent of its value in the black market this year, and “legal” dollars are hard to find. Price controls and regulations on imports have made many basic staples disappear from the shelves. What remains is often unaffordable to most, as purchasing power in dollar terms has plummeted. (The photo above shows a worker walking past banners depicting Venezuelan currency.)
The picture is bleak, but you wouldn’t know it from official sources. The government has long since stopped releasing figures on everything from inflation to growth to the budget deficit.
To read more, please visit: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/13/looking-into-the-black-box-of-venezuelas-economy-caracas-bolivar-maduro/
