Five bananas and two eggs

From The Economic Times we have a story about haircuts in Venezuela.

In broke Venezuela, a haircut costs 5 bananas and 2 eggs

Imagine living in an economy where barter is the currency and where you have to pay food items such bananas or eggs for something as small as a haircut. That’s exactly what is happening in Venezuela.

In the hyperinflationary South American country, where bank notes are as difficult to find as chronically scarce food and medicine, Venezuelans are increasingly relying on to barter for basic transactions.

Once the richest country of Latin America, Venezuela – a country that sits on world’s largest oil reserves – today stares at a bleak future. People in this oil-rich country are scrambling for money, food and basic necessities, swapping different items and even doing chores for packages of flour, rice and cooking oil.

“There is no cash here, only barter,” said Mileidy Lovera, 30, while hoping to trade a cooler of fish that her husband had caught for food to feed her four children, or medicine to treat her son’s epilepsy.

Appalling of course but what did one of our most prominent political experts say about the cause of this disaster? Do we have any beguiling insights or pointers to a less disastrous future for those struggling Venezuelans such as Mrs Lovera?