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Venezuela’s National Oil Company On Its Last Legs
Oilprice.com ^ | 18-07-2016 | Luis

Posted on 07/18/2017 10:27:56 AM PDT by bananaman22

On Sunday 9th, 2017 Venezuela hit a hundred days of anti-dictatorial regime demonstrations. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have taken over main streets and roads demanding a new presidential election, a humanitarian solution to counter food and medical supply shortages, the release of political prisoners and the reinstitution of the National Assembly’s functions.

Since the protests started, more than one hundred people have been killed, 3,500 arrested and thousands injured across the country.

This critical economic, political and social situation does not seem to have an easy solution. In Venezuela, 96 percent of foreign currency earnings come from oil industry, and with the collapse of oil prices, income has fallen more than 50 percent. But in addition to a decline in revenues, oil production has also dropped, adding insult to injury.

(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Politics
KEYWORDS: crude; oil; refining; venezuela

1 posted on 07/18/2017 10:27:56 AM PDT by bananaman22
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To: bananaman22

Well then...die commie scum!


2 posted on 07/18/2017 10:34:29 AM PDT by rrrod (just an old guy with a gun in his pocket.6l)
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To: bananaman22
Classic case of the difference between the capitalist attitude that wealth must be generated and the socialist illusion that it's static and merely needs to be redistributed along more equitable lines (the ruling party taking a very large cut off the top, naturally). Venezuela is experiencing brown-outs from another such example, its hydroelectric power generation industry. The maintenance funding leaks away due to corruption, the equipment itself is expropriated or simply not repaired, and then when it becomes obvious that production is failing as a result, there's no more revenue to rectify the matter and it gets worse.

The article references a speculation that this, when it finally does fail, will send the international price of oil skyrocketing. But this isn't the 1970's and there are a lot of sources now that there weren't then, just waiting for the price to rise back to profitable. The spike, if there is one, isn't likely to last that long. In any case, there's not a lot to be done about it in Venezuela. The government is in a hole and is still digging.

3 posted on 07/18/2017 10:46:10 AM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: bananaman22

Hmmm. Wasn’t there something posted yesterday about the possibility of $120/bl oil price looming?


4 posted on 07/18/2017 10:51:02 AM PDT by rktman (Enlisted in the Navy in '67 to protect folks rights to strip my rights. WTH?!)
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To: bananaman22

Communism, which is hard-core and militaristic socialism, demands that the resistance to the ideology be suppressed by any means possible, including death and arrests and threats general mayhem against those doing the resisting.

So, what else did anyone expect? It’s the implementation of that which the people, at one time, wanted but had no idea about how oppressive and aggressive and abusive and controlling it would be.

Liberals in the U.S. would have done the same our country 100 years ago or more, but the only thing standing in their way, was the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law, and that most precious of our liberties, the right to bear arms. Any country without the right to bear arms is an easy candidate for communism and despotism.


5 posted on 07/18/2017 10:55:11 AM PDT by adorno (w)
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To: bananaman22
Hermann Escarrá, a constitutional lawyer, candidate to the constituent assembly and one of the key people participating in the new constitution, declared in front of hundreds of PDVSA workers that one aim of the new constituent will be to nationalize all oil joint ventures.

If he does that, you can write the country off, as foreign investment and technology will just disappear. When are these clowns going to learn the lesson the Nationalizing virtually anything ends up worse in the end. Idiots.

6 posted on 07/18/2017 11:03:45 AM PDT by econjack
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To: bananaman22
Hermann Escarrá, a constitutional lawyer, candidate to the constituent assembly and one of the key people participating in the new constitution, declared in front of hundreds of PDVSA workers that one aim of the new constituent will be to nationalize all oil joint ventures.

If he does that, you can write the country off, as foreign investment and technology will just disappear. When are these clowns going to learn the lesson the Nationalizing virtually anything ends up worse in the end. Idiots.

7 posted on 07/18/2017 11:05:51 AM PDT by econjack
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To: bananaman22

PDVSA used to be a good company, professional and efficient. Always found them good to work with. But beginning with Chavez political idiots absolutely destroyed the company and turned it into a pathetic shell of its former self. Lots of good, experienced professional people that could managed it fled the country. Sad in a lot of ways but so typical of what happens when Leftists take over.


8 posted on 07/18/2017 11:41:32 AM PDT by Bayan
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To: Bayan

I worked with some PdVSA people in 1999, when Hugo Chavez was in office but he had not yet made a mess of things. Still, some were looking for the escape route, since they saw the writing on the wall. This was not just the managers and engineers, this even went down to the maintenance technicians. BTW, great people to work with.


9 posted on 07/18/2017 12:10:35 PM PDT by Fred Hayek (The Democratic Party is now the operational arm of the CPUSA)
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To: bananaman22
The trouble with socialism all boils down to Joe Biden’s three-letter word - JOBS. What is a job? A job is a structured way to systematically contribute value to society. And a paycheck is your share of that contributed value.

The highest form of job is to lead others in contributing value to society. This is done by pastors and teachers - and, most concretely, by employers. Employers establish discipline in their own domains, but employers are also disciplined by their “employer” - which is society. A.k.a., “the market.” The difference between the employee and the employer is that the employer actively seeks out opportunities to serve society and get concrete credit for doing so. The seeking may be by developing new products which society could not previously get (including in the extreme (smart phone) case products which society didn’t even know it wanted), or by identifying new customers for existing products in order to at least compensate for inevitable attrition due to disenchantment, removal, or death of customers.

The cynic says, “you didn’t build that,” but the reality is that all business are either dying or are being renewed continually. If you are not trying to improve, you are getting worse. Socialism is cynicism, and cynicism cannot encompass that reality. Socialism assumes away effort at improvement, and promises “quality health care,” when quality is impossible even to maintain, let alone improve, when socialism cannot allow individuals to seriously profit by serious efforts to improve.

Likewise oil production not only will not improve when no one is rewarded for exerting themselves and taking risks in order to increase it, oil production decreases in the absence of incentives to improve.


10 posted on 07/18/2017 12:14:30 PM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (A press can be “associated,” or a press can be independent. Demand independent presses.)
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To: bananaman22

Corrected Headline: Venezuela On Its Last Legs.


11 posted on 07/18/2017 2:43:30 PM PDT by AZLiberty (A is now A once again.)
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To: bananaman22

Socialism...communism. Hahaha. Losers everywhere...always.


12 posted on 07/18/2017 3:33:03 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation camp?)
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