Some Venezuelans, alarmed by Maduro’s measures, speed up plans to flee

Carpenter Jose Narvaez had planned to flee Venezuela and emigrate to the nearby Caribbean island of Aruba towards the end of the year, until Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro unveiled his plan to turn around the crumbling economy. Now the 43-year-old Narvaez wants to leave as fast as he can. Maduro on Friday stunned the South American nation by announcing a 96 percent devaluation and vowing to peg the bolivar currency to Venezuela’s new ‘petro’, a cryptocurrency that experts have cast doubt on as a functional financial instrument. “I am looking for flights to leave on Wednesday, any way I can,” Narvaez said in Venezuela’s western oil hub of Punto Fijo, home to massive but deteriorated oil refineries. “I am sure this is going to get worse because the man’s ideas lack all logic.” More…