Being a bunch of coked up Marxists is no way to run a Bolivarian republic. But that’s the mess Venezuela is in.

The left-wing sociologist running the Venezuelan economy doesn’t believe in inflation. Last year he wrote a pamphlet in which he insisted that “Inflation does not exist in real life.”

Inflation certainly exists in Venezuela which has seen 500% inflation. The Socialist regime responded with price controls. When stores and farmers wouldn’t sell at set prices, soldiers were sent in to take them over. Crowds initially cheered all the subsidized products. But they wouldn’t be cheering for long.

The Socialist government tried to solve its money problem by printing more money. But it wasn’t able to pay for the money it wanted to print because of the inflation which officially did not exist.

Teachers sell passing grades to students in exchange for milk and flour. Lines at government stores are endless and an entire economy has been built on buying and trades spots on food lines. Fingerprint scanners are used to enforce milk rations. And a heavy military police and military presence is required to stop mobs of starving people from grabbing the food as soon as it arrives.

That was 2016. It’s 2018 and inflation still isn’t real. It doesn’t exist in real. It doesn’t!

Economists say inflation in Venezuela could top an astounding 1 million percent by year’s end as the country’s historic crisis deepens. The International Monetary Fund predicted the decline Monday.

The once wealthy oil-producing nation of Venezuela is in the grips of a five-year crisis that leaves many of its people struggling to find food and medicine, while driving masses across the border for relief into neighboring Colombia and Brazil.

Shortages in electricity, domestic water and public transportation plague millions of Venezuelans, who also confront high crime, the IMF noted.

IMF economist Alejandro Werner says that if the prediction holds, Venezuela’s economy will contract by 50 percent over five years.

Werner says it would be among the world’s deepest economic falls in six decades.

Socialism. It really works. Just ask Maduro or Ocasio-Cortez.