Free Stuff

In some places, that apparently includes free labor.  At least that’s Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro’s view.  He’s going to

raise wages by nearly 6,000% and…devalue the already-embattled currency by 96%….

Let me get this straight.  The bolívar fuerte (ironic name, that; it translates to “strong bolívar”) already is next door to worthless, Maduro is going to replace it with the sovereign bolivar that’s as much closer to worthless as he can get it (taking five(!) zeros off the face value of each piece of paper, which the sovereign bolivar does—the mechanism of the devaluation), and then he’s going to give workers even more of this useless “wage.”

I’m here to tell you, multiplying a nearly zero value by some number gives an answer that’s still right beside zero.  Maduro is expecting Venezuelans to work for nearly free, and he intends to make their pay even more worthless, so that they work even more nearly for free.

Such a drastic devaluation only fuels inflation: the supply of anything that can be bought is relatively fixed compared to demand, especially so in Venezuela, and making the currency used for purchase even less valuable only requires even higher prices to make the buys.  Throwing lots more money (of any value) at the supply only drastically potentiates the inflation.  The 1,000,000% [sic] inflation that Venezuela has for this year will look stable next year.

On the other hand, Maduro is reaching one of Communism’s two goals: eliminating money altogether and getting from each according to his ability.  Maduro does need to work a little harder on the needs goal, though.

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