[maniatico]

As a Venezuelan, it is interesting to see how the Castro's used the CUC to save face from the defacto dollarization they had.

Also, it's interesting to see the parallels with the Petro. I'm thankful that it mostly failed, minus some money laundering by the government and pensions (this is Maquiavelian, they pay part of the pension and bonuses in a controlled electronic currency to elderly people who mostly don't have access to the internet and maybe even electricity, but good for propaganda). From the last quarter of 2018 we went from talking about dollars being illegal to a heavy push towards defacto dollarization where a lot of party and army people opened bodegones (mostly imported good stores, they pay 0% taxes by presidential decree) where they mainly accept USD (sometimes EUR) and sometimes Bolívares (the official currency). The government tried to push the Petro to them, but failed to convince even it's own people who want hard currency and not useless monopoly money. And now even some state run stuff is marking prices in USD (some elite government places stopped accepting Bolívares)