Venezuela’s president has accused the US of using continuing street protests to attempt a “slow-motion” Ukraine-style coup against his government and “get their hands on Venezuelan oil”.
Sigh.
The US already has its hands on Venezuela’s oil. For they’re the biggest customers for it. They turn up and pay for it at the going market rate.
Whoever governs Venezuela this will continue to be true. The Americans will be the major customers and they’ll pay for it just like everyone else. As they are paying the market price in Iraq after the invasion etc etc.
Re the Iraq invasion, and the claim that it was all in pursuit of Iraqi oil, I always thought that criticism lacked substance for precisely this reason: the Septics must have realised it would be cheaper to carry on buying the stuff in the ordinary way than to bear the cost of an invasion and then have to buy it.
Plus, they got more of their oil from Alberta and Venezuela than they did from Iraq.
Pure red meat for the communist followers, nothing more.
The irony of “it’s about the oil” claims is they were in fact true, however, it was Iraq’s control of Kuwait’s oil that was the worry (of Saudi Arabia), not America’s.
Venezuela created its “oil power” mentality as one of the founders of OPEC, and has projected that insanity onto America. In reality war costs more than trade, and it was OPEC’s political blackmailing that f*cked up the oil market leading to the search for alternative sources, if America didn’t invade back then it most certainly wont now, not on the eve of the shale gas revolution.
It’s a sad fact for socialists everywhere that capitalists tend to take the cheaper and safer (and often more peaceful) route.
@Mr Lud
Indeed. If it was “all about the oil”, Americas’s imperative in the oil exporting nations is for stable strong government. Even Saddam’s Kuwait adventure wouldn’t have provoked intervention, because there’s no reason to believe a Saddam controlled Kuwait wouldn’t have continued oil exports.
And if Maduro could manage to run Venezuela, apart from into the ground, there’s no oil reason why he shouldn’t get Yank backing. if he could provide strong stable government.
BinS
Strong stable government certainly seems to be what he’s aiming for, rather than fair functioning and prosperous government.
And he’s halfway there: with his Cuban officer corp, his armed paramilitaries, his price controls and his shut-downs of all dissenting organs he seems to have achieved the strong bit. Stable, well judging by the near absolute lack of comment on UK TV news bulletins,it must be. So smiles all round.
Chavez and now Maduro’s ongoing support for Josh Fox’s GasLand franchise shows the Venezuelan oligarchy are non too keen to see some oil & gas independence of supply in the USofA – just saying….
bloke in spain – “Indeed. If it was “all about the oil”, Americas’s imperative in the oil exporting nations is for stable strong government. Even Saddam’s Kuwait adventure wouldn’t have provoked intervention, because there’s no reason to believe a Saddam controlled Kuwait wouldn’t have continued oil exports.”
To Europe and Japan. Kuwait is not actually a big exporter to the US. Angola (where the President’s daughter is the richest person in Africa) is a bigger exporter. But then oil is fungible. If the Japanese looked to Angola it would make no difference. Although it is odd to think of Americans paying through the nose to defend Japanese oil exporters.
“And if Maduro could manage to run Venezuela, apart from into the ground, there’s no oil reason why he shouldn’t get Yank backing. if he could provide strong stable government.”
Well, it is all being paid for by looting the state oil company. Or rather not running it properly as anything other than a job creation scheme, and putting off a lot of investment. So running it into the ground he is.
It looks like America is determined to fight the usual insanity of Latin American politics by allowing them to elect whomever they like, preventing the usual Latin solution for this by banning military coups – and remember the US did order the Venezuelan military back to barracks, and allowing the voters to get what they want good and hard.
I wonder if it will work. I think the fecklessness goes too deep.
It’s actually worse than that. The crude oil that comes out of Venezuela’s oil well are high in sulfur content and requires extra equipment to refine it at a profitable price. United State is not only their biggest customer, they’re practically the only one that can refine it with the shipping cost tagged onto of it to make it profitable. Go ahead and try selling ALL of these sludge to the Chinese. Not only will they have to invest billions on their shore to refine the crude, but the shipping cost is a non-trivial amount.
“allowing the voters to get what they want good and hard.
I wonder if it will work. I think the fecklessness goes too deep.”
I do think it’s the better policy, but I doubt it’s going to work. When the ‘revolution’ runs off the rails, it’s always the wrong kind of revolution in revision and the next one will be new and improved, and so on.
David Moore – “I do think it’s the better policy, but I doubt it’s going to work. When the ‘revolution’ runs off the rails, it’s always the wrong kind of revolution in revision and the next one will be new and improved, and so on.”
As in Argentina. Ties with the British and limited exposure to British liberalism made them the richest country in the world. But since then, Crony Phony Socialism has made them poorer and poorer.
So obviously the solution is even more Crony Phony Socialism. Almost 100 years of failure and counting.
Yeap. There was a very good speech by Charles Munger about the causes of misjudgement, aimed more at investing (he’s Warren Buffet’s offsider), but the number one and two slots apply to everything;
1. Incentives
2. Denial.
http://www.rbcpa.com/mungerspeech_june_95.pdf
As a very old Socialist (Hiss! Boo!) I can dimly remember the Suez crisis when Eden defied the US and invaded Egypt to secure the uninterrupted flow of ships through the Suez Canal. It was not that Nasser and co could not run the canal efficiently
(and since he was anti- Muslim Brotherhood we might have saved a lot of bother long term by backing him) but that we and the Israelis felt that the Egyptians would have started discriminating politically against some Canal traffic the way Spain routinely stages go-slows round Gibraltar.
It is all spheres of interest stuff which the Americans’ buffoonish behaviour in the Ukraine shows once again , you can’t trust them to get right and not drag their allies into disaster.
Must be a difficult time for right-wing blowhards in the UK: the BoE confesses (nay trumpets) that the commercial banks create money out of nothing (so why can’t the State do likewise for its own spending?) and its the West threatening Russia in Europe .Its a world turned upside down.!
Tell you what: pretend it does n’t exist.That’s the best way.
It is all spheres of interest stuff which the Americans’ buffoonish behaviour in the Ukraine shows once again
Is there any evidence, anywhere, outside of conjecture on Russian blogs that the US is involved in Ukraine?
Read transcript of Victoria Nuland’s phone message where she discusses/ orders who should be in in new Ukrainian government post booting out Commies. Also she is on record as saying the US has spent $5 billion on this enterprise. But I am sure not a cent of this ever reached right-wing street militias which now appear to have got out of control!