In the short term, the only way out is another devaluation to end foreign-exchange rationing.This month Mr Maduro has intervened in two ways.
After a devaluation which ended a decade in which the peso was fixed at par with the dollar, it sank quickly to around 1.85.See article: More protests in ArgentinaIn a sweeping government shuffle, Jean Chrétien, Canada's long-serving prime minister, named John Manley, formerly the country's foreign minister, as his deputy and seeming heir apparent.
Currency devaluation proved effective in ending the Great Depression.
Freeing up the currency is all very well but without a coordinated effort to rein in inflation, devaluation may just end up fuelling price rises and further falls in the peso.
Measures included ending price controls, currency devaluation, reductions in government expenditure, the ending of subsidies on food and fertilizer, and increased prices for farm produce.
In Thailand in the mid-1990s a property boom fuelled by cheap dollar loans ended in devaluation and disaster.
Rigueur has been a dirty word ever since then-President François Mitterrand, a Socialist, had to make a humiliating U-turn in 1983 after two years of free spending ended in devaluation, capital flight and large trade and current-account deficits.
Many economists reckon Latvia is simply a replay of Argentina's mess in 2001, when a quixotic effort to keep a pegged exchange rate ended in devaluation and default.In theory the Latvians have several choices.
Abandoning it would end speculation about devaluation, reduce transaction costs, lower interest rates and boost investment.
Abandoning it, say ministers, will end speculation about devaluation, reduce transaction costs, lower interest rates and boost investment.To many Estonians, the euro also means security.
