Maduro transforming Venezuela into the North Korea of the Caribbean

It’s hard to believe that guards at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas still let Venezuela’s breathtakingly clueless President Nicolás Maduro through the gate each morning.

Because history will remember Maduro — the laughable lefty who was fodder for a John Oliver monologue last week — for transforming the Western Hemisphere’s most oil-rich nation into the Caribbean Korea.

Meaning, North Korea.

Each day Venezuelans — especially the poor — haunt desperately long lines for scarce food, medicine and other basics. Violent crime is so rampant that citizens are morphing into rabid vigilantes. Some recently beat a mugger to death and burned his corpse after he robbed an old man of $5.

In fact, news reports from the South American country read like apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novels. And it’s only going to get worse.

Maduro’s government just announced it has to slash imports — yeah, food and other basics — from $37 billion in 2015 to $20 billion this year. The one problem, say analysts like Russ Dallen of Caracas Capital Markets, is that Venezuela may not have $20 billion left in its chest.

Maduro’s solution? He’s threatening to choke what little oxygen is left to the economy — ravaged by collapsed oil prices and his collapsed sense of reality — by confiscating even more private companies.

So regime change in Venezuela will probably happen soon, right?

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This story was originally published May 28, 2016 at 2:06 PM with the headline "Maduro transforming Venezuela into the North Korea of the Caribbean."