AMHERST, Mass. — Most of the current news coming from Venezuela focuses on the country’s extraordinary economic crisis, and with good reason. By any measure, this is one of the worse crises in recent world history. But the most unspeakable aspect of this calamity is the government’s nonchalant response.

The economic devastation of the past four years in Venezuela defies words. Registering the world’s highest inflation and a profound recession for these years, Venezuela has become the first country in decades to transition from middle income to almost no income. And it seems that the government has no interest in solving the disaster. Rather, the crisis is starting to look like a deliberate plan.

The government’s central response is an economic package — called by its opponents “the Red Package ” — comprising nothing more than devaluing the currency by almost 95 percent, redenominating new bills by dropping five zeros and pegging the new bolívar soberano to a nonexistent, nontraded cryptocurrency called the petro. These measures are useless redecorating. Even economists sympathetic to the regime are unimpressed.

The government is making the crisis worse by raising the price of gasoline, imposing more price controls, and further curtailing food and medical imports. Other nations and international organizations offer humanitarian help, but President Nicolás Maduro declines. His administration does little while hunger and disease spread. A recent video of the president and his wife feasting on steaks and cigars in a fancy restaurant in Istanbul went viral in part because it captured Mr. Maduro’s indifference.