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If only I were Paul Krugman, I'd try to delve into the true, long-term meaning of that 16 percent loss against the Euro. Is the dollar fundamentally weakening? Or is this two-year long plunge just a seasonal malaise? I have no way to know.
What I can tell you is what the sight of a dollar - and by that, I mean an actual one-dollar bill - means to anyone living in this populist Caribbean petro-state as it moves toward 21st-century socialism.
The Current Discussion:The global economy is quaking. Are we heading toward a global recession? Who's to blame?
I live in Venezuela, a Latin American neo-populist petrocracy. The prospect of a “global recession” looks a bit different from here.
For the last decade, my government's economic officials have pledged themselves to the "comprehensive, humanist, endogenous and socialist development of the nation", whatever that means.
Perhaps that gobbledygook just means that in Venezuela it is much easier to fetch a bottle of premium Scotch whisky at any low-income neighborhood's supermarket than a bottle of milk, a pound of sugar or a dozen eggs. Paradoxically, the local Audi dealership set an all-time Latin American sales record during 2007 by capturing a 22% share of the region's luxury car market.
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