Chavez brings the pain...
Out of context: Reply #236
- Started
- Last post
- 425 Responses
- spifflink0
with the oil prices rising(on average), worse and harder to extract oil becomes economical. the middle east(saudi arabia) and its OPEC specialize in light cude. as the prices rise canada with its oil sands become economical which gives it a lead over saudi arabia and iraq as the biggest potential reserve. however raise the average price a little more and venezuela with its heavy oil becomes economical to produce. venezuela has 1.36 trillion barrells of heavy oil. thats more that the oil industry originally predicted was in the earth total. awesome for venezuela, shitty for the middle east. the oil companies want back into venezuela. they dont want to be taxed for their small share of what they have now, because it keeps money in the country intead of going to the US then coming back in the form of high interest loans. as a result of this "nationalization" of the oil, venezuela's economy grew an astounding 14% in 2004 and an amazing 9% in 2005. This is because 20% of the new revenue generate by the larger amount the government is taking from the internation(US) oil companies is directly invested back into the population. Chavez isnt a socialist, he is a "european-style" socialist, as in its not real socialism because it still relies on markets which fundamentaly creates inequalities. although chavez' new markets arent the neo-liberal free markets the US is used to shoving down peoples throats, so the US is pissed because they lose out on the profits from venezuela's 90% of all heavy oil reserves in the world. the US is mad because chavez is disrupting the prevailing monetary flow from latin american countries by not only his oil but by using it to pay off his county's and several others'(ecuador, argentina, etc.) international debts.