Venezuela’s experiment in establishing a socialist paradise has been undone by corruption, incompetence and the rapidly declining price of oil. GDP declined at least four percent in 2014 and inflation is now over 60 percent. This has led to high unemployment (or underemployment) and an unprecedented crime wave, with Venezuela now the murder capital of the world. A growing number of poor Venezuelans turned to crime. The murder rate in Venezuela is over 60 per 100,000 people a year; one of the highest on the planet and more than ten times the rate in the United States. Since 1999 the government has implemented at least twenty different plans to deal with the crime and none have had a lasting impact. The fundamental cause of the crime is a lack of economic opportunity, which the Venezuelan government made worse and worse with its enthusiasm for central planning and incompetent implementation of those efforts.
I know. It's inconceivable that a system could be so effed up when it was set up by this man:
Even the parrot had the sense to turn his back on the cameras rather than be associated with this idiot.
Amazingly, Hugo's successor, Maduro, has made the situation worse--even before the oil price collapse last year.
