ALVARO VARGAS LLOSA: As despair spreads in Venezuela, Maduro doubles down.

The country’s GDP has had 10 consecutive quarters of negative growth. (The annualized rate is now minus 12 per cent.) Investment is down 26 per cent from 2015. Consumption, which had fallen precipitously, is down another 16 per cent this year.

The government, whose expenditure has dropped 50 per cent, cannot mitigate the disaster with oil money because, besides committing much of the reduced revenue to creditors or allies, it has decapitalized the industry. In 2015, oil revenue amounted to 915-billion bolivars ($119-billion); in the first five months of this year, the figure was a paltry 159-billion bolivars. Despite having eight times the reserves of the United States, Venezuela has had to import oil, which is cheaper than refining its own heavy crude.

Letting Venezuelans starve, unleashing a ferocious campaign of intimidation against critics and desperately seeking U.S. dollars are the only responses Mr. Maduro can come up with.

“Bad luck.”