Comment by dinobones

So there are 2 things that may not make this no longer so surprising.

1) The Maduro government is more like a large gang that is holding a population hostage, than a government.

All major businesses/imports/exports are owned by people connected to the Maduro regime. They are extorting remissions out of the population because they're the only ones who can import products. The government is so incompetent, it no longer has sufficient machinery or brains to operate their petroleum extractors, so instead they've pursued the more lucrative method of drug smuggling.

The upper echelons of military are in on it and are all very individually wealthy, the lower echelons are brainwashed, but still well compensated for a "government" employee in Venezuela. Think $100 month vs $3 a month.

This "government" will never give this up. They make too much money, and they have bought out the military. They can't just peacefully go away, or they will be tried for their crimes in any major nation. Almost every country has placed sanctions on various high level individuals from the government and frozen all of their assets.

2) There are no intellects in this government. The socialists that fought violently in the 90s that had little/no education rose up the ranks and are now extravagantly rich and powerful.

Imagine if you took a bus driver and made him the dictator of a country. That is exactly what happened, Maduro was literally a bus driver.

This is not to disparage bus drivers, they're fine people, but countries should be ran by experts. Economists, politicians, lawyers, people with some form of education.

They don't understand economics. They don't understand engineering. Almost all of the intellectual work of the country is outsourced to Chinese or Russians.

The entire country is being held hostage by people who have about a 3rd grade education, and that's being generous. But it's because they have guns, and money. But mostly the guns.