Posted on 03/02/2008 10:35:00 AM PST by MeanGreen2008
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) - Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is sending 10 battalions of troops to country's border with Colombia.
He's also ordered the Venezuelan embassy in Bogota closed and say all embassy personnel will be withdrawn from Colombia.
The announcements by Venezuela's leftist leader pushed relations with its neighbor to their tensest point of his 9-year presidency.
Chavez is also warning that Colombia could spark a war in South America, calling its U.S.-allied government "a terrorist state" and labeling President Alvaro Uribe (oo-REE'-bay) "a criminal."
You would starve to death if you had to move closer to work and walk to the grocery store?
roads mainly...nice for airstrikes
much of the Colombian/Venezuelan border is swampy or very mountainous
the Guajira to the north is passable dry ranch land (spring wet season starts in April) but the only thing in the Guajira are some fierce narco-Indians and a huge coal mine....a tough conduit to launch an offensive to accomplish much
Colombia is a tough country to fight in period.
Answer a rhetorical question as to why the oil industry isn’t charging a billion dollars for a barrel of crude? Are you serious? Please tell me you are not seriously expecting an answer to that question.
amazing how now the whole world now knows how to place the race card, even a murderous mulatto in Caracas.....
where....I used to be very familiar with Colombia myself....kept a place in Bogota and Branquilla at times
good post....Cucuta would be the most likely target but beyond Cucuta is tuff.
i think it’s abour rainy season there right now
Firm Hand/Big Heart.
nice..
Your argument is that oil companies have complete dictatorial control over the price of oil and that they can charge whatever they want; we'll just have to pay it. So the question is - why don't they charge even more? Why would they be so modest as to keep it down to $100 per barrel? Why not double that or ten times that?
The answer is that they do *not* have that kind of control. That's not the way free markets work, and the oil market is indeed a free market.
Please show me where I said "complete dictatorial control". I stated that the oil companies use any excuse that comes down the pike to justify an increase in the cost of fuel at the pump. You don't believe it? Try talking to people who work in that industry.
“For just a moment, imagine 10 battalions of the mexican military sent to our border. How would that strike you?”
It would look just like 10,000 illegals about to rush the door.
Venezuela has one armored batallion, one light armored batallion and on mechanized batallion
No, I consult/write software for a guy that is a supply chain management consultant for large oil multinationals. We work to optimize the supply chain to shave a few cents per gallon of cost for them. Most people have absolutely zero idea how that whole industry operates.
From my experience the (relatively) free market establishes the price of gasolines. I say relatively because there is an INSANE amount of complexity in state and federal regulations and fuel mixtures being delivered all over the place by 10000 different suppliers who buy from the multinationals.
Trust me when I say that even if they wanted to control the prices the system is too complex to be able to, really. Hell they do such crazy inneficient things as is. They do, however, make a lot of money because they sell A LOT of their product. And I mean, a boatload.
Furthermore, I suggest you include some exposure to the energy companies in your portfolio.
If I had a portfolio, I would certainly have investments in that area. Unfortunately, I wasn’t raised in a family that knew anything about stocks, and I’ve not been in a position to invest.
Oil companies don't control the price at the pump; they don't control the pump at all. Gas stations "control" the price at the pump, and their margins are pennies per gallon. As for using "excuses" to raise the price - why do they need excuses? They're a business trying to make money; they have the absolute legal and moral right to charge whatever the market will bear for their product.
Perhaps you should speak to someone who owns/operates a "gas station" and tell them they control the price at the pump. I'd like to be there when they respond to that statement.
ROFL. Well read my earlier post.
Do tell, whom did you talk to from that ‘industry’ ? The guy that owns/leases the pump ? The guy that delivers his gasoline ? The warehouse where the delivery guy picked it up ? The bulk tank operator who moves things through pipelines to the warehouse ? The refiner ? The multinational that produced/imported crude ? Everyone in that chain adds some cost, and, those costs VARY wildly on the day to day basis. These are around 10000 different companies that participate in this chain. To say that someone arbitrarily sets the price is ludicrous.
Depends on the gas station. The owner of the gas station does indeed determine the price of a gallon of gas, whether it's a local or corporate owner.
Well I certainly wasn’t raised in one of those either, but learned the value of it myself. Heck my father couldn’t finance his way out of a paper bag, but always wishes he’d learned/knew more.
And - employed folks are/should be in the position to invest. Even $50-$100 / month makes a lot of difference placed in a, say, ROTH IRA.
The price at the pump is determined before the fuel reaches the pump. I’ve talked to enough owner/operators to know that. They do not set the price pump.
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