Probably the reduction was 180,000 to 50,000, but anyway, the steal is outrageous. I personally did never trust in the promises of the banks who called for deposits in U.S. dollars offering high interests and wide smiles, some years ago, and then kept my couple of dollars and pesos at home (as medieval as it could seem). Many people did neither trust, and took their money out of the country, to off-shore banks or U.S or Europe. Especially those funds stolen from the nation's resources, went to off-shore banks.

My personal problem, as the problem of millions of small companies, artisans and professionals, is that we can't collect anything in cash, we collect only checks (if we are so fortunate to be working) which come from checks from checks from checks, and the banks will not allow more than 80 dollars/week in cash. We can use the rest through debit cards (the most expensive in the world) or our own checks (if you "qualify" and pay the extremely high expenses). Furthermore, the bank deducts 1.2 % of each transaction as an additional tax dictated by the government. And nobody guarantees that one day we will not find our bank closed. (The case of the Canadian ScotiaBank) Credit cards are rejected everywhere, and have fallen practically out of use.

Sorry - I have to rush to the bank which closes at 4 PM, because the ATMs will probably be empty, so we have to go to the counters. More at night.

Un abrazo - Andrés