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  • 2019-04-05 (xsd:date)
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  • Is this a Photograph of Worthless Money in the Gutters of Venezuela? (en)
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  • In late March 2019, a photograph supposedly showing piles of worthless currency thrown into gutters in Venezuela circulated on social media, attached to comments blaming socialism for the phenomenon behind the striking visual. One popular posting on Facebook was captioned, This is a street in Venezuela. That's money in the gutter. It's worthless. Welcome to socialism.: This is a genuine photograph of worthless money dumped in the gutter of a Venezuelan street. However, the accompanying caption presents an oversimplification of the series of events that led to this currency's worthlessness and its discarding by Venezuelan residents. The economic collapse in Venezuela that began in 2013 is a complex matter which can't be attributed to any single factor. News outlets such as Bloomberg, the New York Times, and Fox News have cited a wide range of issues that led to the country's current economic crisis, including plunging oil prices, government corruption, political unrest, and socialist policies. That brew of unfavorable economic conditions has spawned massive hyperinflation which has greatly devalued Venezuela's currency, as the Washington Post reported in January 2018: Although hyperinflation has indeed caused the bolivar to become all but worthless, the caption on this viral photograph is a bit misleading. The money shown lying in the gutter in this picture is Venezuela's old currency, the Bolívar Fuerte, which was replaced by a new form of currency, the Bolivar Soberano, in August 2018. When the Bolivar Soberano was introduced, Bolívar Fuerte currency in amounts less than 1,000 ceased to be legal tender, and Bolivar Fuerte currency in all amounts was completely withdrawn on 5 December 2018. Hence the discarded money seen here was literally worthless not because it had no value, because it had been completely replaced by a newer currency and was no longer legal tender. Here's an excerpt from a CNN report about the switch in currencies: The viral photograph was likely taken on 11 March 2019 and showed the aftermath of looting at a bank in the town of Merida. Local news outlet Maduradas.com compiled several other photographs of the incident and reported that the perpetrators had discarded the old money on the streets and even lit some of it on fire (translated via Google): Venezuelan journalists and social media users shared several other photographs of the scene: In short, the money in gutters image shown above captured an older and now invalid form of currency that was tossed aside after the looting of a bank, and not usable currency discarded by citizens because it had been made next to worthless due to socialism. (en)
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