THIS IS THE WAY OF THINGS IN LATE SOCIALISM: Oil Workers Starve as Venezuela’s Crude Output Collapses.

Venezuelan oil workers are starving as the country’s production shrinks. Few things are breaking Caracas’ way these days, but its struggles to keep pumping oil, its most important resource, are undoubtedly at the very top of President Maduro’s list of concerns.

Actually, I’m pretty sure his top concern is to finish the last bit of looting and then figure out how to get safely out of the country.

Earlier this year Venezuela suffered its largest one-month drop in oil production in more than a decade, and things haven’t improved much since then. Output has dropped roughly one million barrels per day over the past 18 years, and analysts expect a further decline through the rest of 2016.

Two years ago it was reported that Venezuela needed oil prices to reach $120 per barrel in order to balance its budget. At ~$45 per barrel, oil prices a far cry from that so-called breakeven level, and bargain crude is sending the petrostate’s economy into a death spiral. Power shortages are forcing producers to cut output and oil services companies are refusing to cooperate with country’s state-owned oil company because they aren’t being paid for their work. Crises beget crises, and it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.

By failing to ensure that the coup against Hugo Chavez succeeded, the United States left Venezuela to over a decade of horror, and it’s not over yet.