In 2015, Venezuela ordered more than 10 billion banknotes to combat rising inflation. It is reported that De La Rue, a currency manufacturer in the United Kingdom, has sent an unreceived payment notice to the Central Bank of Venezuela. The money owed by Venezuela for the printed money was reportedly $71 million. Venezuela is on the brink of economic collapse and terrible policies have been largely blamed. Venezuela's leadership has failed to establish basic economic policies that include price controls and printing money to fight inflation. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay In 2003, employees of the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela, SA went on strike, halting oil production for several months. With the vast majority of export revenues coming from oil, Venezuela found itself short of cash. The value of the local currency collapsed and then President Hugo Chavez decided that the solution to the problem was to fix the exchange rate between the bolivar and the US dollar. Even after the strike ended and oil production resumed, Chavez kept the fixed exchange rate in place and was continued by his successor, Nicolás Maduro. All was well as oil prices remained high and oil export revenues poured into the country. Then the price of oil collapsed in the summer of 2014. The massive drop in oil prices caused a drop in revenue and the Venezuelan government found itself short of cash again. This time, with the price of oil remaining low for the foreseeable future, it was a much bigger problem that would require a big solution. Unfortunately for Venezuela, Maduro has essentially done nothing and the fixed exchange rate put in place by Chavez would have devastating effects on the country. With US dollars limited due to declining oil revenues, the value of the dollar has increased and, as a result, the bolivar has decreased. It should be noted that this is what happened in terms of black market value. Venezuela's fixed exchange rate's artificially fixing the price of the dollar and the bolivar inevitably created a massive black market in which Venezuelans would pay large amounts of bolivars for a single US dollar. The black market exchange rate ratio far exceeded the government exchange rate, resulting in an influx of bolivars. Too many bolivars equals higher inflation. At the end of 2016, the 100 bolivar note, the most widely used Venezuelan banknote, was worth about 2 cents. Rapidly rising inflation has rendered Venezuela's currency worthless, preventing importers from purchasing basic necessities. To make matters worse, Maduro has instituted price controls on goods to combat rising inflation and even threatened to jail retailers and suppliers if they hoarded or overpriced their products. Basic economics tells us that price controls lead to a shortage or a surplus. In this case, Maduro has set a price cap on goods to keep them affordable for consumers. As expected, demand increased and supply decreased. This resulted in long queues at supermarkets suffering from severe food shortages. In the midst of all this, Venezuela printed billions of new banknotes in another failed attempt to slow inflation. Combined with a worthless bolivar that makes it impossible for importers or the government.