[Urbane Guerrilla]

Pierce, he'll run it into the ground because he's insisting on managing through the public sector that which runs far better in the private. Bureaucrats lack the needed motivation: their income and prosperity do not depend on how well economically the business they are managing is doing. When this is done systemwide, stagnation is the invariable result, and collapse is usually only staved off by abandoning the use of government bureaucrats to run the industry.

Who was it said "If the government were in charge of sand, there would be a shortage?" That which is not a free market does not efficiently provide goods or services.

Chavez will not notice nor react swiftly enough to downturns in oil prices or inflation, and these will be his Waterloo, and that of his largesse. This was all avoidable -- but to really avoid it, you have to avoid letting socialists into power in the first place.