Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro raised the Socialist country's heavily subsidized fuel prices for the first time in 17 years.  It's part of program to stem a spreading economic crisis that has left the country with triple-digit inflation and chronic product shortages - which Maduro blames on meddling by the US and its wealthy cronies, but his critics say are the fruits of state-run mismanagement.

"This is a necessary measure, a necessary action to balance things, I take responsibility for it," President Maduro said of the fuel hike.  Gasoline's price will rise by 1,329 percent.  But the subsidized price is so low that filling up the old Hyundai will still be way under a dollar, around AU$0.35 - less than the price of a soft drink.

Mr. Maduro also devalued the currency to try and shore-up Venezuela's finances as super-low oil prices play havoc with the country's income as some US$10 Billion in debt payments come due and millions of citizens struggle to make ends meet.  The exchange rate is expected to go from 6.3 Bolivars to the US Dollar, to 10 Bolivars per greenback.

Earlier this week, Maduro dumped his economic czar, Left-wing political economist Luis Salas, after just six weeks on the job.  Taking over as Vice President for Productive Economy is the former businessman and sitting Industry and Commerce Minister, Miguel Perez Abad - who describes himself as committed to building a "powerful and socially just homeland" as well as a "believer in productive socialism".

Despite all of this - an inflation rate of 141.5 Percent in 2015, with food prices ballooning a whopping 254.3 percent in the same year - the Venezuelan government's 17-year old Chavismo policies are keeping the weight of the crisis off of the shoulders of the very poor, unlike most other countries.  The percentage of Venezuelans living in extreme poverty figures was 4.78 in January, down from 4.9 percent in November, and way less than half of what the rate on the day that Hugo Chavez was first sworn in 17 years ago this month.