HARI SREENIVASAN, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR:

Venezuela has the world's largest reserves of oil, but with the price of oil in a free fall, the country's economy is shrinking, and the South American nation of 30 million people is suffering from severe shortages of food, consumer goods, and services like hospital care. Some critics say Venezuela's problems stem from socialist policies and want a referendum to remove President Nicholas Maduro from office.

"New York Times" reporter Nicholas Casey is based in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, but today, he joins me here in the studio to discuss the crisis.

First of all, let's give some people in the audience a kind of snapshot of what day-to-day life is like there. In some of your stories, you've kind of painted it in a society that is losing the rule of law.

NICHOLAS CASEY, "NEW YORK TIMES" REPORTER: It is. It's especially become a society what at one point was for many people middle class society that's in the state of collapse.

If you go outside in any neighborhood, in any city or town in Venezuela now, you're going to see huge lines of people trying to get food. There are people who are lining up starting at 5:00 a.m. in the morning to try to find food. Venezuela doesn't have any lights right now, because there's very little electricity. Big parts of Caracas don't have water in it anymore. There's many of the most basic government services have just suddenly vanished.