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Comment by aristus | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela's official rate has been about 1/5 of the black market rate for many years. I remember my wife shooing me into a corner at the airport while she traded dollars for bolivares with the security guards.

The differential has caused all kinds of effects. Plane tickets are hard to come by because so many people take advantage of the spread by flying somewhere, buying goods at official, returning for cash then trading at black market. An investment of as little as 500 usd pays for the trip and then some. Officially this does not exist but searching for mercado lechuga (lettuce market) shows a thriving ecosystem.

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Right now the official rate is Bs.6.3 per dollar. The black market rate is just getting to Bs. 50/$.

Thats one of the reasons we are set to have a 50% inflation rate this year.

My monthly salary has withered away and as an engineer I'm making just over $200/mo.

Fellow Venezuelan here (although living outside of the country right now)

I have hard times explaining to people how the economy works over there. Most people overestimate how harmful is a regime under foreign currency exchange control. But some metrics like the big mac index (http://www.economist.com/content/big-mac-index) can give a rough idea of what is happening.

In Argentina the Big Mac's price is actually regulated by the government (http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/05/01/why_big_macs_... the prices shown in that menu are about double now, except for the big mac, which is still ~30 pesos). Just another example of how much our government controls metrics here. I'm surprised the same thing doesn't happen in Venezuela, though, as Cristina Fernandez seems to have copied almost her entire "economy model" from Chavez's.

Well is hasn't been regulated yet because it is an "imperialist" product hence it is a luxury. But most products are regulated in Venezuela too, and those products are scarcity now because nobody likes to produce without profit and there is not enough money to subsidize all of them and cover the whole demand.

McDonald's has become so expensive here in the last months that it's sometimes cheaper to eat in a relatively decent restaurant. I don't eat in McD but a friend recently had a chicken sandwich, fries, coke and a sundae for close to Bs. 180. It's rid.iculous. At the official rate that's around $30. But at the black market rate that's under $4. Same goes for clothing, electronics, etc.

It seems argentina didn't learn from their past hyper inflation or from Venezuela's economic problems...

$180 doesn't sound right. One of the most expensive combos (say an Angus Tasty or something) is around $90ARS.

Bolívares.not $ ... As he said, using the official rate it would be $30

The distortions these kind of controls generate cannot be explained to someone who lives in a normal economy. Here in Venezuela, it's much better to go in to debt (get loans to buy stuff like refrigerators, TVs, etc) than to use any unexpected or larger than usual income to pay off your debts because of the high inflation rate.

Only in Venezuela can a car cost more the minute you drive it out of the dealerships (if you can find them), than in the showroom floor.

>"Here in Venezuela, it's much better to go in to debt (get loans to buy stuff like refrigerators, TVs, etc)"

That is pretty much true in most countries but for different reasons. Over there, inflation rate is usually higher than the controlled interest rates. On the other hand, in other countries stores give you cheap loans to impulse sales.

In any case I am agreed with you that you have to spent some time over there to understand the distortion of a economy with a high inflation. Also you would understand how easy is for a government to manipulate economic metrics and give a different impression from outside the country.

I took a trip there in 2011 and 1/5 sounds a little off for what tourists could get. Officially at the time $1 would get about 4.5 bolivars. Unofficially, we could get around 7-9 bolivars per $1.

We were pissed because we didn't know about the exchange rate issues or the ATM restrictions. We ended up going to a bank every day to withdraw the max on 3 different cards. Probably would have saved about $60/day if we had simply brought a bunch of cash with us.

You don't know the right people. :) Cash on the street is the way to go but unless you can navigate la vivesa criolla you'll get robbed. I was shooed into the corner because a gringo lookin guy would have killed the deal.

You will always find a Venezuelan who needs or knows somebody who needs to buy dollars at the black market rates! Anyone who comes to Venezuela and exchanges their dollars at the official rate is getting robbed. Of course it can be scary as a tourist if you don't know anyone here.

It wasn't by choice. We only had $100 in our pockets because we didn't know. In most countries I had been to, its easier to use a card to pay for stuff rather than exchange cash. I figured it would be the same way in Venezuela, I just didn't know.

I was there last year and the rate seemed to be between 9-11.

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