hugo spent every resource venezuela had (many times over) and it should be his socialist revolution that ends up getting blamed now that the bill is coming due. for the past 14 years or so it's been rob the west, rob the russians, rob the chinese.

imo, in the next couple years venezuela is going to get smacked with over $30bil in arbitration penalties at the same time thier production continues to dwindle and then the russians and chinese may want to see some of thier money back.

long story short, venezuela is completely screwed and i'd rather see the chavista revolution be in power when the whole thing implodes. then maybe they finally get a business friendly regime.

sad part is that history has a funny memory! i can see venezuelans 20 years from now saying "everything was great when hugo was alive!" .. of course it was great, he spent everyone elses money to give free toasters to the poor and never paid a bill.

the old saying about socialism seems true in this case. "eventially you run out of other peoples money".