As Joel Hirst has said, “when the populism runs out, because there’s no more money, that’s when the repression starts.” Venezuela may have the world’s second largest oil and gas reserves, as Steve Hanke of the Cato Institute notes, but wrongheaded policies mean production has fallen considerably in the past 15 years — the Chavista era.
And when the money runs out, what’s to stop you from printing it? That always works, and the official inflation rate of 56 percent has to be true; it’s official.
The socialist party is over, and Nicolás Maduro will not be president in a year’s time.