Several years back, Venezuela used a currency called Bolivares, named after their lord and savior, Simon Bolivar. Well, you'd need several thousand Bolivares just to buy a bottle of water or some fruit or a bus ticket. One of Chavez' many changes was to slash three zeroes from the currency. So instead of paying 25,000 Bs for a bus ticket, now you'd only pay 25 BsF. The 'F' stands for fuerte, or strong. OK, makes sense, makes math and life a bit simpler for everyone, right ? Except that they never took the old coins out of circulation !!!
We see just as many coins that read 500 Bolivares as coins of 50 centavos (they're equal). And that simple math I was talking about gets a whole lot more complicated when you have a handful of coins of 100 Bs, 50 centavos, 1 BsF, 500 Bs, and 25 centavos...and then the elderly woman behind the counter says, ''that'll be 5,500 Bolivares, please'' because the older generation still counts in (weak ?) Bolivares while the younger Venezuelans generally use Bolivares Fuertes...aaargh.
We see just as many coins that read 500 Bolivares as coins of 50 centavos (they're equal). And that simple math I was talking about gets a whole lot more complicated when you have a handful of coins of 100 Bs, 50 centavos, 1 BsF, 500 Bs, and 25 centavos...and then the elderly woman behind the counter says, ''that'll be 5,500 Bolivares, please'' because the older generation still counts in (weak ?) Bolivares while the younger Venezuelans generally use Bolivares Fuertes...aaargh.
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