Hello again, John Strong. Thank you for reading the article

I actually talk briefly about how price controls are currently causing smugglers to export food from a starving country in my latest piece here.

I actually believe they are a bigger problem now than they were under Chavez. The article posted here was written in January, and while price controls played a part in accelerating the deterioration of the state I still don’t believe they were a primary cause- rather a corollary one.

Having said that, I have also published interviews with Venezuelans who have fled citing them as the primary reason for doing so, especially small business owners.

At any rate, you are the first person to have ever hinted that I am a regime apologist. I assure you that I am a very strong critic of the Maduro regime. I have witnessed their brutal repression personally more than once.

We share an opinion as well that the regime often uses “economic warfare” as a wishful fantasy term to explain away their own failures. When I finish my current assignment, I am happy to dig deeper into the effects of price-controls on the economic collapse.

But I fear we disagree on one main premise; namely that the Maduro regime can be classified on the left/right spectrum. Despite their propaganda, I believe it is best described as Dictatorship whose economic system relies on thievery and corruption- a condition than can and has arisen both sides of the political spectrum.