Posted on 04/19/2019 2:58:13 PM PDT by PA Engineer
EL CALLAO, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela’s most successful financial operations in recent years have not taken place on Wall Street, but in primitive gold-mining camps in the nation’s southern reaches.
With the country’s economy in meltdown, an estimated 300,000 fortune hunters have descended on this mineral-rich jungle area to earn a living pulling gold-flecked earth from makeshift mines.
Their picks and shovels are helping to prop up the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro. Since 2016, his administration has purchased 17 tonnes of the metal worth around $650 million from so-called artisan miners, according to the most recent data from the nation’s central bank.
Paid with the country’s near-worthless bank notes, these amateurs in turn supply the government with hard currency to purchase badly needed imports of food and hygiene products. This gold trade is a blip on international markets. Still, the United States is using sanctions and intimidation in an effort to stop Maduro from using his nation’s gold to stay afloat.
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(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Would get more value if they sold their bolivars on eBay.
Send down the Hoffman family.
Fancy name for dirt poor shovelers !
Since I am disconnected from TV and the Comcast cable, I had to go surfing to figure out the reference to the Hoffman family.
Oh well, those are memory cells that I gladly saved for other adventures, like Q-hints. /smile
“Hand-crafted”, “gourmet”, “amazing,” and “artisan” are words that have lost all meaning with me due to their lazy over-use.
Bless your heart.
Yep. I noticed that.
—I lived in El Callao in 1981-—was working for and engineering company trying to get a local mine (owned by the government) up and running-—
—at the time it was a sleepy backwater place——no more——
My search for the Hoffman Family reference only sent me to a bunch of dentist offices.
Critter Jones would be great for the gig since everything he touched turned to gold.
Heh.
The financial black hole that is Venezuela can drain the Turks for all they’re worth.
That’d be a win.
Only saw season 1 on visits at Dad's house. Did not remember the name.
The only IDIOTS who COULDN’T pay for their operation if they were mining Fort Knox.
I stopped watching the second season, wanted to drop SQUEEKY GRANPA into a ball mill.
STUPIDEST SO CALLED MINERS I EVER SAW.
it’s really too bad that these peasants have no way to sell their gold for dollars ...
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