Venezuelan economy is almost complete. A good look at the howling successes of the grand 'Bolivarian Revolution'.

I feel badly for the common folk there, but they brought this upon themselves. Demonizing the professional class and expecting all the necessities of life to be handed to you leads to ruin.

Always.

Here's what an American acquaintance of mine said who recently came back from a month-and-a-half long couchsurfing trip, so he certainly lived the day-to-day of Venezuelans, especially in Caracas (unlike the would-be Chavista know-it-alls who think for some reason that they know more about Venezuela than anyone):

Venezuela is a country blessed by incredible natural resources and beauty but cursed by a horribly corrupt and inept government. Most, if not all, of the people I have met believe this. Chavez created a socialist government with a lot of subsidies, worker protections, and programs for the poor. He also created a government riddled with corruption and inefficiency. These programs, while good on paper, have helped the poor but likely have hurt them more. Very high inflation, an exchange rate crisis, nationalization of once efficient industries, government theft of private property, and the flight of intellectual and financial capital from the country. Look up the official exchange rate of bolivars to dollars and the black market one and you'll understand how the countries industries can't export and it's very difficult to import resulting in crazy shortages and lines for ages. Venezuela has a lot of oil, yes. But it is not getting that oil out of the ground and selling it at a fraction of what it could. Look up what Venezuela does with its oil and how the nacional oil company is run. I would argue that what they do with their oil is one of the best examples of complete government failure and mismanagement in the world. Supporters of Chavez are generally broken in to two camps from what I have seen. One, the supporters of the gran misión. The people who really believe in helping the poor and building a good socialist system but believe that the government methods and policies were a disaster. The other camp are those in the extreme poor who live day to day and have seen their lives improved. They either don't have the education to know or don't care that if the government was better their poverty would be lessened. Rhetoric and propaganda mean a lot. Imagine if you live in a Barrio on the hillside looking down on the skyscrapers of Caracas with the middle class and rich driving around in SUVs and wearing suits. Then imagine that an incredibly charismatic man who came from among the people came to power after years of imprisonment and began tying to eliminate poverty. There was, and still is, a lot of loyalty to the ideals of Chavez. Maduro would have never been "elected" if he wasn't riding on the coattails of Chavez. Ultimately, however, change will come to Venezuela. With the current economic crisis and devaluation of oil things in Venezuela are going to get worse before they get better. Either a better government will be installed during recall elections or the country will likely face a collapse. I don't know what will happen because there were several attempts to remove Chavez and each time everyone involved was punished, fired from their job, or forced to flee the country. The government has consolidated a lot of power but support for the opposition is growing. Venezuela can be one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America but they have to get their act together. I am hopeful for their future.