TREATING THE SYMPTOMS: Venezuela’s new series of bank notes, the bolívares soberanos, delayed.
Venezuela’s new series of bank notes, to be called bolívares soberanos, and necessary because the nation’s rampant inflation turned much of what it has been using into nothing more than play money, was supposed to be introduced on June 4.
When the Maduro government delayed it to Aug. 4, the national banker’s association asked for an extra month to prepare.
As of now, the Monetary Research Institute reports in its MRI Banker’s Guide to Foreign Currency, there is no indication that any of the seven new denominations, from 2 to 200 bolívares soberanos, have even arrived in Venezuela.
Maduro can knock as many zeros off the bolivar as he wants, but like weeds they’ll keep growing back.