Until the dead of Chavez, we where slowly going the path to communism. Since Maduro, well, the news talk by themselves.

I'm an engineer, and would need around 60 years without eating or anything else to buy a little apartment in a so-so part of the city (Caracas), many people come to work from inland (only the few big cities you can find "some work"), but they find themselves using all their salary to pay for a room, food and cloth. I mention some work, because apart of working for the government (the biggest employer), there are not many private companies (with the recent events, I don't know if any will be alive by January), so a lot of people works by themselves in the informal economy, we call them "buhoneros". of course, as it happens with the controls, the only ones that sell what you can't find in a proper establishment are them (obviously at a pretty high price, if you take in consideration the fixed price at which formal economy had to sell them). Consider that as an engineer (If I'm doing something related to that at a moment, I earn about 2.5 times the minimum salary, luckily my family is from here so I don't need to pay for a room).

Exchange control, we can only use 400 USD a year by e-commerce, and depending where you are going to travel a maximum of 2500 USD a year, of course... if you can pay to travel, a place enoughly where you can use 2500 USD will be like 5 times my salary, or you can travel to a "friend country" like cuba, bolivia, ecuador, where you get 2500 USD. A black market has appeeared for taking out dollars, and the sell them at the real price here, that's to say, the official exchange is at 6,3 Bs per Dollar (in 2008 the coin got removed three 0s so 6300 of the old coin), but the implicit Dollar (Monetary mass/ Reserves) is 10 times that price. Talking about the implicit dollar is illegal, in fact ISP had blocked and continue blocking all the sites with that value, the government even asked 4 days ago to twitter to ban any account that said that value.

In security... oh security... well is as dangerous as it appears, is better to be home before 7 pm, and not leave before 6 am, and I live in a medium class zone (the slums are kind of hell in security as nor the police neither the military dare to enter there). Express kidnappings are normal, (kidnap for a few hours, for a medium sum of money), and the decadency and impunity (98% of all crimes never are solved) is such that sometime they just shot you to the legs, so they can rob you without confrontations, as there are very little probabilities to be stopped by the police.

In short, the Rand's nightmare in Gotham city without Batman.

Have to say, that this didn't started with Chavez (It just got much worse), but since mid seventies we started to have political control over the economy, and since mid sixties, all the government have been from the left (although, smart enough to let the economy to the ones that knew). Still although no right party has governed Venezuela, and there are 9 parties like that at the moment, the government (this and past) have always said, everything bad is the fault of the right.

There is a much more about Venezuela, we will need a "Wirtschaftswunder" to get out of this, for the moment,the only good could be (if we do not get trapped like Cuba), that this is getting so bad, that the government will be with no scape soon.

Oh, and now we have a "Fair Price Law" in everything (before it was just in most of the food), so... good bye everything.

That is all for now, got to see if I can make some bitcoins (although I'm far from even 1 XD), With the currency exchange control is very problematic, to get those 400 USD out, not much places accept Venezuelan credit cards (bitcoin exchange houses seemly are not one of them :/), and I must do something to save some money out of here in some way, next year the currency will probably take the same fate of Zimbabwe.

Sincerely.

Esteban Ibáñez

Excuse me, if there is some bad english.