True. We’ve been over this before.
He raised interest rates far beyond usury, further devastating the economy.
@jotham’s head must be spinning! 
He spent lavishly on social programs
Um, not sure what the definition of lavish is here. 
But he did start some new programs.
Coming off a stellar career as a bus driver, Mr. Maduro has turned to printing money
Sounds believable.
The rest is just paragraph after paragraph of Venezuela is crappy, like we didn’t already know that.
To sum up, what the article actually tells us about the causes of all this crappiness is really just the following:
- state-owned enterprises
- high interest rates
- social spending
- printing money
This is apparently the new definition of socialism. Good thing it never happens in rich countries! 
Oh, wait…
Comparison between pre-Chavez and Chavez Venezuela health care spending (from Wikipedia):
Shouldn’t you be praising Hugo for stabilizing and eventually lowering health care spending? 
Comparison between Venezuela and OECD social spending (from CEPR and OECD iLibrary):
As for the last one, I think in polite circles it’s called quantitative easing… 
If you have an actual explanation of how these four pillars of Smithian Socialism have caused failure in Venezuela yet fail to cause failure in most of the countries where they occur, I’m all ears. 
Oh and one more thing, what exactly does this mean?
Which year, and what measure of wealth?