Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves, which have earned more than one trillion dollars since 1999. Yet such is the crisis in the country that the only contemporary comparison that can be made is with Zimbabwe’s meltdown under Robert Mugabe. Venezuela has the world’s worst inflation, currently about 180 per cent and predicted to rise almost tenfold next year. Yet for all the money being printed, there is almost nothing to buy in shops, with shortages from flour and nappies to medicines and underwear. Desperate people queue from the middle of the night outside supermarkets; tear gas had to be fired to disperse hundreds of looters after a lorry carrying salt and shampoo crashed.