Venezuela Economic Graphs: Crude Oil Rigs, Crude Production, and When the Gold is Gone.

From "The Age of Turbulence" by Alan Greenspan.

Property rights

are what separates

the First and the Third World.

Economic growth

is based on shared belief:

(ie - the social contract)

Personal Property comes with rights.

Expropriating private property

shatters business confidence

and is Economically Unsustainable.

It's easy to take a property,

and the yields will be lucrative,

but only in the very short term.

The Privatization of the Crude Oil Industry

didn't break right away.

But once the Maintenance Companies

were privatized.

Everything starts to fall to ruin.

And Nicolas Maduro, President of Venezuela:

the former bus driver

and bodyguard of Hugo Chavez,

begins dipping

into the Gold Reserves.

And when the Gold is gone.

The Gold's gone.