THE WAGES OF SOCIALISM: Starving Oil Workers Sell Clothes for Food in Venezuela.

The latest horrifying example of the depths of Venezuela’s economic crisis comes courtesy of the country’s struggling oil industry, where hungry roughnecks are being forced to literally sell the clothes off their back to feed themselves and their families. . . .

There’s a nasty cyclical effect to all of this, too: runaway inflation is making oil workers’ salaries insufficient for necessary purchases, which is leading to “worker disillusionment, absenteeism, and a brain drain” in the oil industry, which is leading to a drop in the country’s oil production, which is dragging down the entire Venezuelan economy, which in turn is hurting oil workers…etc., etc.

Oil exports make up 95 percent of Venezuela’s export revenues, and a fall in output isn’t the only thing rocking the petrostate—there’s also the collapse in crude prices over the past two years from more than $110 per barrel down to around $50 today. Current prices are a very far cry from the reported $120 per barrel Caracas needs to balance its budget.

Nothing is going right in Venezuela right now. It’s producing less oil and earning less cash for what it is capable of drilling, its workforce is going hungry, and its economy is locked in a death spiral, exacerbating all of these problems. And, for Caracas, things are going to get even worse before they get better.

Bad luck.