Hugo Chavez is planning to solve Venezuela's growing inflation problem by simply "lopping three zeros from the currency." At best, this move won't make the situation worse (sort of like waxing your car in an attempt to fix its busted radiator). If something costs $5.00, lopping a couple of zeros off the currency doesn't alter the cost of the item. It only makes yesterday's $5.00 worth $.05 today.
Of course, if people conduct their financial transactions with cash, this means the value of a bill is worth, in this case, 1,000 times what it was. Thus, people are richer, and the problem is solved, right? Wrong. Money, like everything else in economics, is subject to the law of supply and demand. Lopping three zeros off the currency effectively increases the money supply by 100,000%, and the value of money will adjust until supply equals demand (i.e. prices will shoot through the roof until the situation looks the same as it did before but is really 1,000 times worse).
To prevent prices skyrocketing, Chavez is looking to implement and enforce price controls, but as the story notes, this will lead to decreased supplies of goods and services. In addition artificially low prices will artificially raise demand. The combination of artificially low supply with artificially high demand will lead to widespread shortages of goods and services as demand far outstrips supply. As a result, Venezuela will have the worst of both worlds: lots of worthless money they can't spend on anything, at least officially. I'm sure the black market will do quite well.
As Alberto Bernal says of Chavez in the article, "He has a funny understanding of the problem."
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