Since Venezuela exports petroleum and petroleum byproducts and imports most of what it needs, the exchange rate is crucial for economic stability. Food scarcity and inflation has been cited among the reasons why there is ongoing protests in Venezuela.

Hoping to quell some of this protest, last week the Bank of Venezuela introduced another exchange system, Sicad II, hoping to take control of inflation and scarcity of essential goods.

To discuss all this and more is our guest, Mark Weisbrot, who recently returned from Venezuela. Mark Weisbrot is an economist and codirector of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

Mark Weisbrot is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. He is co-author, with Dean Baker, of Social Security: the Phony Crisis and has written extensively about economies of developing countries in Latin America. He is also the founding president of Just Foreign Policy, an NGO dedicated to reforming US foreign policy. He is also a weekly columnist with The Guardian.

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