Cheap Gas? Try $1 a Tank

Last month, I paid a brief visit to Venezuela. Aside from the glorious, 80-degree weather, the most astonishing thing about the country is the rock-bottom price of gas.

It cost $1

Venezuela has long been among countries with the cheapest gas on the planet. It is an oil producer, and like other countries with similar oil resources, it heavily subsidizes the price of gasoline to its own people.

My colleague Simon Romero has written about the subsidies in the past, noting that in 2007, the cost to the government of President Hugo Chavez was estimated at more than $9 billion a year.

NY Times