Bringing skills she gained working at a bank to her grocery store in Caracas, beset by a triple-whammy of ravaging food shortages, galloping inflation and plummeting currency, Miriam Borthomier relies on a basic but time-saving algorithm: 100 notes of any denomination of Venezuela’s currency weigh 110 grams. The biggest note in use is the 100 bolívar bill, which is worth roughly 2 US cents on the black market, forcing her customers to bring bagloads of cash. “I put the wads on the scale I use to weigh cheese and multiply the weight for the value of the notes, otherwise it’s horrible, I’d lose all day counting bills,” she said.
In an echo of Weimar Germany, Venezuelan shopkeepers have resorted to weighing banknotes instead of counting them. In defiance of official pegs, the local currency has tanked on the black market, losing a jaw-dropping 62 per cent of its value in November, making bills in circulation in the country virtually worthless. Hoping the recent Opec deal would boost Venezuela’s dwindling coffers, trade minister Jesús Faría said that “in the middle of such turbulence” the government would on Tuesday unveil measures to stabilise the currency.