Monday, January 22, 2018

Egg Accepted As Taxi Fare (Venezuela)




Havana Times
21 January 2018


Caridad

[…] The egg is the true currency of ordinary Venezuelans. It was a good joke on the social networks when people discovered that one day of minimum wage was not enough to pay for a single egg. But better yet was the man who didn’t have cash to grab a taxi after making a purchase at a food fair.

Overwhelmed by the weight, he asked a taxi driver how many bolivars he would charge for taking him home. Ten thousand bolivars, in cash of course. Ten thousand bolivars is the maximum allowed by banks to withdraw daily and the gentleman did not have them. So he made a very quick calculation, the egg carton of 30 units cost 300,000 bolivars. Each egg then has a cost of 10,000. He then offered an egg to the taxi driver in exchange for the raid and he, without hesitation, accepted.

I cannot assure that the anecdote is real, but it has all the basis to be it. […]