Latin America suffers an outflow of dollars

From Mexico to the tip of South America, a huge outflow of dollars is causing widespread shortages of consumer goods and social unrest.

Dollars, which are vital to trade, have been flowing out of the region at the rate of hundreds of millions a day. Depressed world prices for export products, economic mismanagement, and the worldwide recession have left many Latin American nations - including Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Dominican Republic, and Bolivia - grasping at any opportunity to pull in more greenbacks.