Venezuela sits on the world's largest oil reserves and was once the wealthiest nation in South America. But since 1999 the government has focused only on selling oil to other countries and abandoned management of other natural resources and critical infrastructure.

That's the curse of the oil. For decades people (most famously Arturo Uslar Pietri) warned the government that they should use oil money to diversify the economy, instead of giving handouts and telling people that the country was rich, letting them believe they didn't have to work much.

The current situation is not new, it happened already in 1989 after the high prices of oil during the 70s crashed. They learned nothing.