, Columnist
How Hugo Chavez Trashed Latin America's Richest Economy
He overspent and crippled Venezuela's oil industry.
Yes, he's gone, but look what he left behind.
Photographer: Sven Creutzmann/Mambo photo/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
When Hugo Chavez first took office as Venezuela’s president in 1999, the country wasn’t exactly anybody’s economic model. Great oil riches had been squandered, repeatedly. Inflation was a recurrent problem -- it had topped 100 percent in 1996. The economy wasn’t growing much. Almost half the population was below the country’s poverty line. One political scientist, sizing things up a few months into the Chavez presidency, went so far as to declare that the nation was “in ruins.”
Still, Venezuela was Latin America’s most affluent country, thanks to all that oil. Its government finances were in tolerably good shape, also thanks to oil.
QuickTake Venezuela