Yes Owen,I am familiar with oil in vs. product out “gain”. Very infact.
[Deleted paragraph]
()
The greater, and perhaps finer point was that if the USA refining companies, and the foreign owned,but located in the USA didn’t run their crude they wouldn’t have X amount of money to further fund their failed communist (by all accounts) social experiment the world still calls Venezuela.
Oh heck, I didn’t even notice your name. Ya, you would know about refinery gain and how it corrupts US production claims.
As for the evils of Venezuela, I’ll get controversial and wonder about “success”. You do realize the Fed created $4.1 Trillion out of nothingness over a 6 yr period. 25% of GDP. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) is still doing that as is the European Central Bank (ECB). Currencies don’t collapse because all the CBs cooperate to keep the wheels turning. My point being:
The correct measure of “failure” or “success” cannot be money. Money gets created on a whim. How can that be a valid measure. It’s not Physics or anything real. Quoting things like GDP . . . that’s measured in money. Has to be bogus.
The only possible legitimate measure would be population growth. Venezuela has food problems, but last I heard they are attacking those primarily. As for money, their national debt is about 50% of GDP, and that GDP is shrinking so that’s even harder to achieve 50%. This is far superior to the US’s 100% of GDP debt.
I don’t want to be pushed into a corner as the defender of Venezuela. The people are not happy there. But aligning themselves into a configuration where the become slaves of US banks can’t be a good thing. This would just try to make them Greece, with oil.