By Anne RinaudoFriday 14 Sep 2018Open House InterviewsFinance and BusinessReading Time: 1 minute
Listen: Dr Michelle Carmody in conversation with Stephen O’Doherty.
Venezuela has been experiencing an incredible cycle of inflation – currently around 108,000%. The situation is so bad that people can no longer fit into their wallet the money required for the simplest purchases. Combined with stagnant growth, and low prices world for oil – their main export- the economy is in deep crisis.
The IMF have forcast the inflation could soon top a million percent. The government had tried to fix the problem by printing more money which only added to the inflation rate and has now stepped in and massively devalued the local currency the Bolivar; 100,000 Bolivar is now worth one of the new sovereign Bolivars.
Dr Michelle Carmody is a Latin America specialist from Melbourne University. On Open House she explained how the oil rich country fell into such crisis and what it means for the future of left leaning politics in Central.
To listen to the podcast of this conversation click the red play button at the top of the page, or you can subscribe to Open House podcasts in iTunes and they will appear in your feed.