Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro warned, in a televised interview Jan. 13, that an "economic coup d'etat" was afoot. He blamed "saboteurs" for hoarding goods and scalping prices in an alleged plot to "destabilize" the national economy.

Speaking from Algiers while on an extended global excursion to China, Russia and several Middle East oil-producing states, Maduro exhorted his companeros to keep the faith and ordered his ministers to probe "which economic groups are behind the ambush." The companeros already know.

With the economy in deadfall, inflation heading to three digits and supermarkets stripped of goods from poultry to diapers, Venezuelans are steaming. Instead of groceries, the authorities sent the National Guard.