Venezuela is facing a future as "Failing State" after its second year of deep economic recession. The crisis has spiraled into a humanitarian crisis: food shortages, skyrocketing inflation and a plummeting currency are just a few issues that caused Venezuela to become the world's worst economy.
According to CNN, the oil-rich South American nation has just $10.5 billion left in foreign reserves and $7.7 billion of those reserves is in gold. The level of crisis is so high, Venezuelan families must search for food in the garbage. On a video filmed by AFP, a local explains how hard it is to bring food to the table. "It's not only one, two or four. We are thousands on the streets looking for food in order to survive," says Jose Rafael Godoy, an unemployed bricklayer.
The U.S. Senate expressed concern about the internal situation in Venezuela and urged members of the OAS to take steps to address the crisis in the South American nation. But what has really caused the food shortage in Venezuela? The agricultural measures during Chávez administration caused food imports to rise dramatically. With Venezuela's reliance on imports and its lack of having dollars to pay for such imports, shortages ensued.
The country's current poverty is due oil, the same thing that made it rich. Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves, being the U.S. its biggest customer. President Hugo Chavez, who died in 2013, controlled oil profits. Chavez used all the money in education, health care and employment, but all that spending left Venezuela in recession.
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