"Working with some guys there" is not as reliable a source as a guy who actually lives and works in the country. You shouldn't have called him a lier.
The maximum surveyed income, according to SalaryExplorer, is 72,000 bolivars per month, which amounts to approximately 10x minimum wage, or around $100 a month.
Given the median though, one assumes that is an extreme outlier.
Don't speak for me.
Given at least half of us have no idea what 10.3$/month is, why don't one of you enlighten us and let us draw our own conclusions?
So, According to this somewhat recent article by Bloomberg[1], "A school teacher with 25 years of experience made 9,786 bolivars a month in 2014. That's about $35 a month at the current black market exchange rate, which won't even buy a used television."
It's hard to tell what the actual exchange rate of the bolivar is to the dollar, because apparently Venezuela fixes the exchange rate, so while it's been steady on paper, it appears that in practice, its actual exchange rate is approximately 100 times less than the official exchange rate. The official rate indicates that 1 bolivar == .16 US dollar, but other sources indicate that the effective, actual rate in Venezuela is more like 1 boliver == .0036 US dollars (or, because my simple math skills are horrible, 100 bolivar == 36 US cents.)
If that's the case, and I'm not missing something crazy, it doesn't seem far-fetched to me at all that an electrical engineer would be earning the American equivalent of $10.3 US dollars per month, depending on how you define the exchange rate.
[1] - http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-06/monthly-sa...
The thing is, you cannot buy anything imported because then the real exchange rate goes, and you actually can buy only u$s 10 worth of imported stuff. You are forced yo spend your salary in locally-produced stuff, that actually kinda work for countries like Argentina that produces a lot of stuff (except computers and high-tech products), but do not for Venezuela, that only produces oil.
Interestingly, what happens if you go with your US-savings, say, u$s 50000 to Venezuela? well then you are basically a king there. You could buy half a city with that money, thats why they had to put laws to prevent foreigners to do that kind of thing.
TLDR: You can be rich with u$s 10/month, as long as you dont leave the country and don't buy anything imported.
In it, the story apparently focuses on a couple of folks - a taxi driver, and members of a car club. Because of the trade embargoes (now lifted in theory) between Cuba and America, most of the "newer" cars in Cuba are 60s-era classics, for which finding parts is nearly impossible.
Apparently Cuba's embargo has left them trading with Russia, so, if you want/need a new carburetor for your American Chevrolet, you end up having to retrofit a diesel carburetor from a Russian schoolbus, at exorbitant prices, and only by trading labor with someone capable of making the retrofit work.
I know it's reality TV, which already makes it very unlike reality, but it's difficult to watch in spots, as I see people struggling with what would be, in America, a completely solved problem.
And yes. Venezuela is a touchy subject since its nasty regime sadly is idolized by many left-winged intellectuals in the west.