The value of the Venezuelan Bolivar has crashed by 50% in the last two months, breaking above 2000/$ on the black market today for the first time ever. We know this thanks to Gustavo Díaz, a Home Depot employee in central Alabama, who runs one of Venezuela’s most popular and insurgent websites, DolarToday.com, which provides a benchmark exchange rate used by his compatriots to buy and sell black-market dollars.
Hyperinflation is escalating as since Sept 22nd, the black market value of a Bolivar has collapsed from 1010/$ to 2021/$...
While the Black Market Bolivar has crashed 15% since the election, as El-Nacional reports, President Nicolas Maduro said he was committed to have the best possible relations with the newly elected US president, Donald Trump.
President Nicolas Maduro pledged to work to have the best possible relations with the elected US president (USA), Donald Trump.
"We hope to have the best relations with the people of the US and President - elect Donald Trump, and so mistakes as those committed by former eying George Bush are exceeded. All we want is to stop interventionism," said the Venezuelan president in the 73rd edition of his program Contact With Maduro , on Sunday.
The head of state and Trump congratulated for winning the elections this November 8th. However, on several occasions he demonstrated their dissatisfaction with both the republican and his then opponent, Hilary Clinton.
But, while the west in general are scapegoated as the reason for the economic collapse of his nation (not socialism), as The Wall Street Journal reports, Public Enemy No. 1 of Venezuela’s revolutionary government is Gustavo Díaz, a Home Depot Inc. employee in central Alabama.
How? He is president of one of Venezuela’s most popular and insurgent websites, DolarToday.com, which provides a benchmark exchange rate used by his compatriots to buy and sell black-market dollars. That allows them to bypass some of the world’s most rigid currency controls.
Socialist President Nicolás Maduro has accused DolarToday of leading an “economic war” against his embattled government and vowed to jail Mr. Díaz and his two partners, also Venezuelan expatriates in the U.S. The Venezuelan central bank unsuccessfully filed suit against the website twice in U.S. courts. The government has also turned to hackers to launch constant attacks, Mr. Díaz said, forcing the site to use sophisticated defenses.
“DolarToday is the Empire’s strategy to push down the currency and overthrow Maduro,” Vice President Aristóbulo Istúriz said earlier this year, asserting that the U.S.—“The Empire” to the Venezuelan government—was orchestrating the site’s work. “DolarToday is the enemy of the people.” The U.S. State Department declined to comment.
The alleged mastermind of the plot likes to sport a red University of Alabama baseball cap and answers questions at his day job from do-it-yourselfers on what kinds of screws they should use to hang shelves.
Mr. Díaz is a U.S.-trained retired colonel, and he indeed tried to overthrow Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, by participating in a short-lived coup in 2002. Mr. Díaz, who had been deputy security chief to the businessman who briefly took power in the ill-fated overthrow, said his conspiring days are over.
Now, he said, he is fighting for economic freedom and for Venezuelans’ access to information in a country that makes financial and other data secret. Venezuela is undergoing a brutal recession that has made it hard for most of the country’s 30 million people to find enough food and medicine.
“It’s ironic that with DolarToday in Alabama, I do more damage to the government than I did as a military man in Venezuela,” said Mr. Díaz, a short, soft-spoken man with a gray mane.
He moved in 2005 to Alabama, where a brother and sister were already living, and after being granted political asylum became a citizen.
And finally, as we noted previously, while Venezuela waits for the latest disappointment out of OPEC, Reuters reports that the country's massively unpopular president, Nicolas Maduro, who presided over Venezuela's terminal collapse and is only in power thanks to the army's support, is now trying his hand at salsa music to cheer up his broke countrymen.
According to Reuters, Maduro, a music aficionado who used to play in a rock band, debuted "Salsa Hour" this month and has broadcast four episodes from a radio booth specially installed in the Miraflores presidential palace, with each episode lasting several hours.
"This is a program full of energy and joy," said Maduro, 53, in one show, headphones on as he drummed his fingers and spun classics of the Caribbean rhythm. "I would do it every day ... to sing about our lives, anxieties, pains and dreams."
Surely singing about the "anxieties and pains" provides countless hours of content for the wannabe dictator. During the shows, sometimes also shown on TV, Maduro has danced with his wife, explained the history of salsa and devoted a program to Puerto Rican singer Ismael Rivera.
Politics have crept in too. He dedicated the song "You're crazy, crazy, but I'm cool" to arch-foe and National Assembly President Henry Ramos and the song "Vagrant" to opposition leader Henrique Capriles.
Though Venezuela's 30 million people adore music, especially salsa, Maduro's show has fueled criticism that he is disconnected from reality in a country where millions are skipping meals amid shortages and rising prices. "Maduro's program is like a mockery," said Capriles, who narrowly lost to him in the 2013 presidential vote and has championed a drive for a referendum to recall Maduro.
"He should have a bit more respect for the Venezuelan people. He is not an entertainer."
That however won't stop Maduro who appears to have taken a page right out of the Hillary Clinton book on how to become more popular with the poor:
"Maduro wants to connect with the poorest who, despite the crisis, still get together and listen to music," said Andres Canizales, a media scholar and spokesman for the Citizens' Monitor group.
We don't have high hopes for Maduro's radio show, but we can safely say that the modern equivalent of Nero fiddling while Rome burns, is Maduro dancing salsa while Venezuela's currency - and economy - disintegrates.
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Given all that, we leave it to Gustavo Diaz to sum it all up...
“To me, it’s still a passionate daily fight against totalitarianism."
The question is - should he be banned from Twitter and Facebook for what the president of a country would call 'fake news'?