The wife and I would be sleeping in a cardboard box under a bridge

Savings and Social Security totally wiped out.

Venezuela issues new currency, amid hyperinflation and social turmoil

The most incompetent socialists on the planet are utterly ruining this country both economically and politically.

Venezuela issued a new currency Monday in an attempt to bolster its crumbling economy as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that inflation could hit one million percent this year.

The move, part of a dramatic raft of measures aimed at halting runaway hyperinflation, comes as thousands of Venezuelans continue to flee across the border into neighboring countries amid food and medicine shortages, political turmoil and soaring crime rates.

In a tweet posted following the unveiling of Venezuela's new currency Monday, the country's president Nicolas Maduro hailed the recovery package as a "revolutionary formula."

The new "Bolivar Soberano" currency is worth 100,000 "old" Bolivares.

"We found the revolutionary formula that puts work in the center of the general re-adjustment of society, based on the production of goods and the value of salary. 

"With that, we're gonna put to rest forever the perverse model that dollarized the prices in the country," tweeted Venezuela's 55-year-old leader.

"I call on the people to defend -- conscientiously -- the adjustment of the prices on street," Maduro later said in another tweet.

The Jim Jones of socialist leaders, he is.

The new economic measures include a 60-fold increase in the minimum wage that will take effect September 1.

In an address Friday, Maduro said the government will provide assistance on the minimum wage increase for 90 days but employers are nervous they won't have enough money to pay their staff.

Explaining the measures on national television Sunday night, Maduro said: "This is a really impressive, magic formula that we discovered while studying with our own, Venezuelan, Latin American-rooted thinking.

. . . .

In a Facebook Live address Sunday, Maduro described the measures as part of a "re-balancing process."

"This does not happen overnight," he said. 

"This re-balancing process will be developed. This is a magic formula that is truly impressive. That we discovered through our own thoughts and analysis."

Amid the chaos, there have been attempts on Maduro's life. 

Two high-ranking military officers were detained earlier this month in connection with an alleged drone attack against Maduro. 

The government said drones armed with explosives flew toward the president as he spoke at a military parade.

Maduro has accused opposition groups of orchestrating the August 4 failed attack and claimed the "financiers and planners" of the operation live in Florida.

A good Catholic Venezuelan might pray for his happy death.