Well, the price of oil went down, so the exalted socialist leader needs to pillage some other resource to try to tide his regime over. And remember with the types who gravitate toward socialist authoritarian governments, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, sustained by their narcissism and confusion of themselves with their country, there is the feeling that what's good for the narcissist is good for the country. It only makes sense to be unaware of the idea that "others" have any raison d'etre. It's all "me," great exalted leader, who "knows."
Right now, Venezuela is lumbering along on the leftovers accumulated by the preceding capitalist government. Chavez is in there with the concept (shared by communist-indoctrinated narcissist Obama) that it is only because capitalism is mean-spirited that there is not a plethora of wealth available to all. These people operate initially at least, on the principles of good and evil, with only evil, and not the realities of nature, preventing the production and distribution of goods and services.
But when "the opposition," the bad guys against whom the socialist regime has been flailing are no longer a factor, and the miraculous transformation does not occur, the socialist tyrants are flummoxed that somehow, there is not plenty for all.
For a while, after their confiscation policies (through seizures and nationalization in Venezuela and incremental increases in taxes taking propery in the U.S.) do not provide the provender, they sustain themselves on the plunder. Then as the resources diminish, and productivity declines through lack of innovation and initiative and bureacratic burdens on efficiency, the socialists cannot placate their followers, people they have gulled, and the standard of living drops. The "poor," who expected something for nothing have had their "festival" of a high life on previously accumulated capital, and then its down, down, down.
The fact of the matter is that usually the poor are poor because they are not "productive" in terms of a particular society. The poor are not immediately transformed into intellectual giants and technologically apt people, who are motivated to great productivity using their (unfortunately non-existent) skills.
This worms eye view of society, and the lack of greater affluence over time only due to "meanness" of the haves, and not other natural factors reminds me of an anecdote. Years ago, I sometimes went to a restaurant for lunch that was run with admirable efficiency by a Greek man, who seemed to sit around all day just being there. I heard one of the employees there complain that he just sat around doing nothing and "got all the money." He went on a month's vacation to Greece, and left her in charge. A very efficiently operating business, went to pot in that short period. What was perceived as "nothing" was actually "something" that the employee couldn't see. But it was there.
The inexperienced people who can't "manage" businesses, such as Chavez (and Obama) experience dismay when things just don't go right in a way that their models predict. Eventually the violent repression begins to subdue dissident elements to whom the failures are ascribed. Ease up boys, it's the system that doesn't work, further compromised by your total ineptitude.
