July 20, 2009

88 billion of your bolivars, and counting...

Quico says: Bloomberg has an excellent piece on the scale of the fiscal sink hole the government is in these days. Facing a budget deficit worth as much as 7% of GDP, the government is hitting up Venezuela's banks hard, borrowing more and more of the bolivars you put into your bank account. At last count, the commercial banks' domestic currency holdings had risen over 50% from last year, to Bs.88 billion. The upshot of all this? Morgan Stanley expects the economy to contract by 5% this year.

Post 4 of 100. This is going to be hard.