[BLOOMBERG] Making sense of the rolling political and economic disaster in Venezuela isn't easy. But the bigger mystery may be why the whole country isn't flooding into the streets to demand the end of the social revolution that's left one of Latin America's most resource-rich nations in a shambles.Start with the riddle of why the country with the world's largest crude oil reserves has suffered constant power outages. (Spoiler: instead of using oil to generate electricity, the government has relied on hydropower while failing to plan for this year's punishing drought; it neglected to build new power plants or invest in its crumbling infrastructure.)
And how has President Nicolas Maduro responded to the energy crisis? He cut the work week for public servants to two days. Along with the furlough, Maduro -- who also is presiding over the world's worst recession -- ordered a 30 percent hike in the national minimum wage. Just how much the crowd-pleasing bonus will matter in a country with high triple-digit inflation, where consumers queueing for hours can't find eight out of 10 staple goods at grocery stores, is debatable. Not to mention that Venezuela is literally running out of bank notes.
The fact is, the Maduro government may have lost its way, but it's still got an iron grip on this nation of 30 million people. And that residual clout, coupled with disarray among the president's political foes, has given the regime the benefit of public doubt even in desperate times.
Yes, barely five months ago, a voter rebellion handed Maduro's long-underperforming political opposition control of the legislature, where the United Socialist Party had ruled since the late Hugo Chavez rose to power in 1999, ushering in his version of "21st Century Socialism."