Yankee Dollars, Come Here!

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela has been no friend of business. But his policies have sparked a busy little trade in currencies, Reuters reports.

Many Venezuelans are making quick trips to neighboring countries to stock up on as many U.S. dollars as they can so that they can sell them at a much higher rate in a legal parallel market at home.

Venezuela has had a fixed-exchange rate of 2.15 bolivars (or since January, the bolivar fuerte, or "strong bolivar," with no trace of irony) to the U.S. dollar. But growing inflation and sliding oil prices means that bolivar is worth much less than the official rate. In the parallel market, effectively the real exchange rate for the Venezuelan economy, the bolivar is valued at nearly 5 to the dollar.

Venezuelans are permitted to buy as much as $5,600 in dollars a year, or $500 per month from ATM's overseas, for travel.

Places like the island of Curacao in the Caribbean are filled with Venezuelan tourists tapping cash machines or making purchases with the lower official rate.

"People say Chavez is bad, but Venezuelans never used to travel anywhere -- look at them now, they're all over the place," a taxi driver in Panama City told Reuters.

The good times may not last for long. The Venezuelan government is expected to announce a devaluation of the bolivar in January, which would bring it closer to the parallel domestic rate.