When money dies: how bad is Venezuela's hyperinflation?
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The Spectator
4.4 • 785 Ratings
🗓️ 22 August 2018
⏱️ 37 minutes
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Summary
Venezuela is racked with hyperinflation. The crisis is now so bad that the President has instituted a new currency which essentially cuts off several zeros from the old currency. Will Maduro’s mad policies make things worse (00:50)? And back home, prisons have been in the limelight as we hear about the horrendous conditions in Birmingham Winson Green prison. But is Birmingham an anomaly (11:30)? I talk to a former convict who says not. And last, Ross Clark worries that the prevalence of sperm donation these days raise the chances of half-siblings falling in love. Just how prepared is the donation industry (26:40)?
With Steve Hanke, Julia Buxton, Will Heaven, Cody Lachey, Ross Clark, and Laura Spoelstra.
Presented by Katy Balls.
Produced by Cindy Yu and Matt Taylor.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This podcast is sponsored by Seller Plan from Berry Brothers and Rudd, collecting fine wines for future drinking. |
| 0:11.2 | Hello and welcome to the Spectator podcast. I'm Katie Balls. |
| 0:15.6 | Venezuela is wrecked for hyperinflation. The crisis is now so bad that the president has instituted a new currency, |
| 0:21.6 | which essentially cuts off several zeros from the old one. Will Maduro's mad policies make |
| 0:26.6 | things worse? And back home, prisons have been in the limelight as we hear about the horrendous |
| 0:31.2 | conditions in Birmingham-Winson Green prison. But is it a what-off? I talk to a former convict, |
| 0:37.3 | he says not. And last, Ross Clark worries that the |
| 0:41.0 | prevalence of sperm donation these days raises the chance of half siblings falling in love. |
| 0:46.5 | Just how prepared is the donation industry? This week, Venezuela's hyperinflation crisis went from |
| 0:51.3 | bad to worse. The very high and typically accelerating inflation |
| 0:55.5 | quickly erodes the real value of currency. President Medeiros has been creatively tackling the problem |
| 1:01.0 | in his own way. He has created a new national currency, then peg that tear cryptocurrency, |
| 1:06.6 | and increased the minimum wage by 6,000%. Easy. In this week's cover, Jason Mitchell writes that money has died in Venezuela. |
| 1:15.4 | With me to discuss how we got to this stage and whether the majority's policies have any chance of working, |
| 1:20.4 | a professor Steve Hanke, an expert on hyperinflation, |
| 1:23.3 | who served as an advisor to former Venezuelan President Caldera, |
| 1:31.5 | and Dr Julia Buxton, an expert on Venezuela at Swansea University. |
| 1:39.2 | Julia, for those of us who haven't been following in the country's developments closely, can you start by giving us a brief rundown of how Venezuela got to this point? |
| 1:46.7 | Well, this has been a very protracted decline for Venezuela. In terms of the economic situation, I would suggest there are a number of factors that have led to the quite dreadful situation today. First of all, |
| 1:52.3 | most obviously, the decline in the oil price. Secondly, the underinvestment in the national oil |
| 1:57.7 | company, Pederva, the state has drained investment from PEDA |
| 2:01.5 | thirdly, the lack of international and domestic private sector investments in the country. |
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