Don't that just say it all?

in the short-term, because there are external factors shaping it over which they have no control: debt to China and other countries; oil prices; US refusal to repatriot Citgo profits. The government there, on the other hand, is responsible for corruption and mismanagement of the economy, and, in the long run, they will have to address these. The first priority should be making the country food self-sufficient not only to help the balance of trade but to make the country less vulnerable to outside manipulation.

Chavez-socialism has failed. Venezuela needs an economic reform. I'm no economist, I don't know what kind of reform, but anybody can see that it needs SOME kind of economic reform.

Except that Maduro cannot introduce reforms, because then he would have to admit that Chavez-socialism is not the best system ever and that would ultimately delegitimize his own power.

Chavez nationalized most all of the productive food industries and promptly bankrupted them. Venezuela used to export food. Now it can't feed its own.

during the "special period" when the Soviet Union collapsed and their subsidized oil disappeared. The had undertaken American-style agriculture with massive carbon inputs for fertilizer and pesticides. This was a big, state-run industry, operated much like private agribusiness in the US. But they figured out that to be self-sufficient they would have to return to something more akin to organic farming, without using massive machinery and carbon-inputs. They learned that this was done better on a small scale, so land was parcelled to co-ops and families, and their farms out-performed the state-run organization. It helped that some permaculture specialists came from New Zealand to help them reform their agriculture, but the took measures that were effective and could be in any country with cultivatable land.

In perhaps the most fertile land on the planet. And a LOT of it that is available.
Venezuela has a huge campesino community. So it isn't the lack of land or willing laborers.

So... what could the problem be?

Chavez promised these prospective campesino voters land. But instead of giving them their own land from vast tracts of arable, undeveloped land, he promised them someone elses land. Land that was already being farmed or used as ranch land. (The Chavistas took that cunning plan from the Lenin/Mao playbook.)

So these farmers had "land". But they couldn't farm it because they didn't have equipment, seed, fertilizer and every other thing a farmer needs to turn a profit. It turns out that Chavez ruined all of the equipment, seed and fertilizer industry in Venezuela by his mass nationalizations, and these things needed to be purchased overseas... at market rates, not at the subsidized rates in Chavismo's FantasyLand. (see Agropatria) Naturally, Chavez promised them all of these things...

Chavistas think that food appears by simply willing it to. Maduro say, "I'm injecting $4 billion into the farming economy!" And with great fanfare, not a thin dime gets injected into the farm economy...

....the irony being that Chavez virtually killed the country's ability to produce its own food. If you'd like me to explain how he did it, I can.

The nail in the coffin was Chavez's expropriation of a national company called AgroIsleña. Without a doubt, this was one of the finest agriculturally-related operations anywhere in the world. The company's products, equipment, services, and personnel were world-class. They even offered credit for the planting of crops, all of the seed, fertilizer, and chemicals the producer needed, technicians to help solve problems on the farm, and would buy the crop at harvest, paying within 30 days.

Within a year or two of its expropriation, the company was nothing more than a shell of its former self. Last time I passed in front of AgroPatria in Punta de Mata, all I saw were empty pallets.

Last year's corn harvest here in my area probably didn't reach 5% of what it once was. Think about that.

The repatriation of CITGO profits is a new sanction, less than a month old. Maduro has had every opportunity to spend those profits the way he saw fit. But instead of buying food and medicine (a perpetual promise to El Pueblo) he buys tear gas, anti-aircraft missiles and ammunition for his henchmen.

CITGO and PDVSA reports DIRECTLY to Manuel Quevedo, a General in the FANB? That all profits are funneled through them first? (an argument can be made that Cuba gets the first skim)

All food distribution is handled by the FANB?

The distribution of medical supplies is controlled by the same entities?

Venezuela has NO MONEY, NO FOOD AND NO MEDICINE.

Who to blame? (see below!)

The Chavistas blame everyone but themselves. No running water. No reliable electricity. No food. No medicine. No industry. No imports. No exports. The list is endless, and always someone else to blame.

https://www.newsweek.com/sun-causes-venezuelas-power-outages-maduro-ally-963209

........we've seen little difference in the before and after phase of these new sanctions. That's to say, things continue on pretty much as they were before.......zero drop-off in what one can find to eat around here.

What that means to me is that it would appear that whatever was being spent by Maduro beforehand to import the food and other needs of the people of Veneuzela, hasn't been reduced because of the new sanctions. I suspect therefore that what has been reduced is the amount of money being stolen off the top by the corrupt regime and its cronies.

It would appear that THEY are finally suffering, at least for now.

Grow some balls and name them, rather than a smear directed at anyone who differs from you in approach.

So we busy ourselves hinting and insinuating.

But if you feel inclined to tell us about every Chavismo victory I'd love to hear all about it.