Corina Pons and Charlie Devereux at Bloomberg have an interesting article on the "raspao," or "big scrape," in Venezuela. There is such a shortage of dollars that people go abroad, use their credit cards to get cash advances at the official rate, then come back to Venezuela and sell the dollars on the black market for a large profit (6.3 bolivars per dollar officially and then 29-1 on the black market). Ecuador is the most popular country for this.
The obvious irony here is that the "revolutionary socialist" system is creating significant capitalist incentives, and the rewards are only available to those who a) have a credit card; and b) have sufficient resources/acumen to do international travel and figure out the system. The poor are shut out of a scheme that the government unintentionally created.
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