Posted on 12/17/2014 6:44:33 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The drop in gasoline prices is a wonderful Christmas present for U.S. consumers. It's great up here, but keep an eye on Venezuela. The country could collapse if prices keep dropping.
TIME magazine has a good summary about the mess in Caracas:
The economic dysfunction and falling price of oil leaves Maduro in a tough spot. He lacks both the political will and popularity to push through meaningful reforms to push Venezuela’s economic house in order. At the same time, he is being increasingly squeezed by the weakness in the oil price. Hugo Chávez was luckier. At the height of his powers, he commanded widespread domestic acclaim, and was buoyed by rising oil prices on the world markets (he was also adept at showmanship, hosting, for example, OPEC heads of state in Caracas soon after he first came to power). Maduro faces an altogether more challenging environment.
“Ordinary Venezuelans are starting to get tired of slogans and socialist rhetoric and no concrete actions on any front,” says Moya-Ocampos. “As the economy deteriorates, so will the political situation in Venezuela.”
There are several reasons that make Venezuela acutely vulnerable to a drop in oil prices:
1) The extremely inefficient public sector paid for by high oil prices.
2) the domestic subsidies, from cheap gasoline to giving Cuba cheap oil. These subsidies have bought votes for the Chavez-Maduro regimes. My guess is that these subsidies would have to be curtailed substantially if oil prices keeps dropping.
3) Maduro is in a very weak political position. He is not Chavez, a more popular figure who got to govern at a time when oil prices could finance every scheme and ambitious project.
There is a perfect storm brewing in Venezuela, and the leadership looks totally unprepared for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Funny thing about these socialist paradises - they never seem to be self sustaining.
Venezuela WILL collapse and oil dropping will not be the reason (it will just accelerate it)
Good as an object lesson in Socialism/Communism, bad for the peeps.
From the Bible and its oral tradition, Jews constantly hear God expressing this refrain to humanity:I have created most of you with almost limitless yearnings and desires, but I have placed you in a world with apparently limited resources. It may seem that there is not enough for everyone. However, if you follow my rules of ongoing and constant cooperation, there will be more than enough for everyone. Should you decide to try it on your own, you will condemn yourself to a constant struggle for survival. I have set up the world in mysterious and counterintuitive ways. You are going to have to be generous and giving to one another. You are going to have to cooperate with one another, and you are going to have to understand that interpersonal economic interaction through Ethical Capitalism is good and pleases Me, while many of the other attempts to solve the problem of extracting a living from the world without voluntary cooperation are not only evil, but I have arranged for them ultimately to fail.
It would be funny if they gave their el presidente the il duce treatment.
Funny? More like poetic justice.
Venezuela collapsing?
Say it ain’t so!
Venezuela has such control over it’s citizenry that they cannot even buy food without proper documentation (fingerprints).
If it collapses, so what? Brazil and Argentina have been teetering for years.
My only regret is that when the revolution happens, Chavez is not there to be the one hung upside down and spat on in the streets....
Whatever will Sean Penn and the rest of those morons do?
Something interesting I just found out.
While Venezuela harbors South America’s largest crude oil reserves, it also sits on a huge additional complement of Canada-like “oil sands,” second only to Canada in tar-sands reserves in the Athabasca region of its Alberta Province.
Blame the USA for the collapse of Venezuela.
Obviously, if we’d banned fracking when we should have, this wouldn’t have happened.
We (humans of the world) will NOT EVER run out of oil.
Are we playing with fire here?
This could EASILY spin out of control and take the entire worlds economy down with it, and with Obola in charge... *shudder*
Sure would be nice to have all that oil available as a democractic state. Although that wouldn’t happen under Obama if he can help it.
Who will pay Joe Kennedy’s $400K salary to run the “charity” that sells cheap Venezuelan heating oil?
This heavy crude produced a very desirable roofing flux that was shipped to the port of Mobile and made its way into dozens of asphalt shingle plants in the US.
Hugo decided instead to blend this product off and sell it for much less to China. Pure genius.
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