LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Swamped in Inflation, Venezuela Will Cut Five Zeros From Currency.

“I imagine if we keep like this we’re going to have to do the same thing in December,” said Ms. Nowak, who has been forced to raise prices in her cafe at least 40 times this year.

Slashing zeros from Venezuela’s inflation-cursed currency, the bolívar, is the tent-pole of a set of economic changes by President Nicolás Maduro as he tries to right his country’s capsized economy. The five-digit inflation has earned Venezuela comparisons to the hyperinflation of Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany from the International Monetary Fund.

The newly minted currency, which will be known as the “sovereign bolívar,” will be rolled out on Monday. In addition, the president has ordered measures that his United Socialist Party has been loath to consider in the past: An increase in gas prices for some drivers and a modest ease in the currency controls that have made dollars inaccessible to most Venezuelans for years.

Madura knocked three zeros off the currency as recently as March of this year.