The question for businessmen and governments with a stake in the deteriorating situation in Venezuela is no longer if the regime of Nicholas Maduro will come to a premature end, but under what circumstances. This reality has little to do with the determination or sophistication of the Venezuelan opposition, nor of the resiliency of its almost completely compromised institutions. Rather, the Maduro regime has locked the country on a course of national self-destruction, responding to the deepening economic crisis with counterproductive, and simply bizarre measures, such as criminalizing the attempt of the market to respond to shortages, or reducing the federal work week, destroying the little productive capacity that remains in the country. Similarly, in the face of the population’s demand for a change in course, evinced by the massive opposition victory in the December 2015 mid-term elections, Maduro’s intransigence increases the probability that the suffering and frustration of […]