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Doesn't MIGA cover political risks for corporations (who hate government interference)? Risks include monetary transfer restrictions, expropriation, war and civil disturbance, and host government's breach or repudiation of a contractual agreement.

Excellent question. There may be some utility in the World Bank afterall.

I'm worried about a couple of things:
1. The world markets have tended to reward the Chavez's and the Ahmedinejehad's (or whatever the thing calls itself) by bidding up the price of crude. The great game goes on.

2. The timing of Paul Wolfowitz 'affair' is curious in light of this. At any rate, Wolfowitz's absence is not going to help any such remedy.

3. Chavez's and Amed... seem to have calculated that we are preoccupied with the WOT. So far the gamble's paying off

4. Is the Monroe doctrine completely kaput?

5.They say oil is 'fungible' once out of the ground. Is it so while in the ground? Isn't much of the oil accessible from neigboring Brazil and Colombia?

Just curious what you'd think.

Thanks.

I was attempting to be a bit sarcastic. U.S. corporations complain of "government interference" and flee the U.S. for Red China. (Red China! -- to get away from government.. oh, that's right, there's no pesky labor laws protecting workers there.) Meanwhile corporations gladly suffer "government interference" when it benefits them.

Your post did invoke my memory, 1996: Venezuela's dirty oil barred from U.S. It violates the Clean Air Act standards, World Trade Organization rules against Clinton Administration. Clinton buckles.

I think that the Monroe doctrine is "waiting and watching," though I believe we have forces fighting in South America in limited numbers just like our forces in the Philippines.

Oil may cease being fungible if the "peak oil" crowd is correct and oil becomes more dear as demand drains what's left of the oil, in or out of the ground, I read some place. More and more nations will take control away from oil companies, the same source suggested -- and somehow China will wind up with a lot of it. (The next world war? Number 4.)

I don't know about the oil's accessibility to Brazil and Colombia.