Why Venezuela's Sliding Toward Dictatorship, Default: QuickTake

Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia and more poverty than Brazil. Its previous leader, the late Hugo Chavez, sought to use the country’s reserves to light a leftist path to prosperity for Latin America’s poor. Under his protege and successor, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela hasn’t always been able to keep the power on, and with U.S. sanctions biting, the country faces possible default on its debt. With reduced oil prices, the country, once one of Latin America’s richest, is plagued with shortages of everything from toilet paper to antibiotics and food. And that’s on top of triple-digit inflation, widespread violent crime and corruption allegations.  More…