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