Kicker: $20,000 bread

NICK EICHER, HOST: Here is how bad things are in Venezuela.

The country’s currency, the Bolivar, has so little purchasing power that back in August, socialist president Nicolas Maduro reissued Bolivar notes with five zeros knocked off.

Last week, Maduro ordered a minimum wage increase of 150 percent. This is part of Maduro’s response to an unfathomable rate of price inflation.

So compare that 150 percent wage hike to an October inflation rate in Venezuela of 833,000 percent. The International Monetary Fund projects by year end, it’ll reach 1.3 million percent. If you can’t imagine what that means, here’s an idea of what a million percent inflation means: a two-dollar loaf of wheat bread today would cost you at the end of the year $20,000.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

(Photo/NBC, Reuters)

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