Free Republic

On Monday, U.S. oil prices fell below zero for the first time ever, shocking observers and raising doubts about the solvency of oil and gas companies coming out of the coronavirus crisis and the oil selling war between Saudi Arabia and Russia. These negative prices were distressing news for the U.S. economy, threatening livelihoods of oil and gas workers and the availability of the gasoline Americans will need after the crisis ends. Yet Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) saw them as a reason to celebrate. "You absolutely love to see it," AOC tweeted. "This along with record low interest rates means...

The usually well-informed Vcrisis website is reporting that the homes of two former executives of Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA have been raided by police today, and a third raid on another executive's residence is said to be planned. One of the former executives, Horacsio Medina, is reportedly charged with treason. The Marxist regime of Hugo Chavez is increasingly willing to openly intimidate its opponents. The "crimes" of the former executives are unknown, but the basis of the "crimes" might well be political. Currently, the unionized workforce of PDVSA is locked in a pay dispute with the government, and union...

To look at the soft-focus propaganda pictures of Venezuela's Castroite Chavez government, you'd think Venezuela's state oil company was not about producing oil, but rather rehabilitating life's down-and-outers. The Venezuela Information Office's Web site shows smiling, supposedly contented beneficiaries of the bountiful, beneficent state oil company, which is somehow turning singers into systems engineers, and you're supposed to feel good. But that's not what's going on for workers inside the huge Venezuelan state oil company. The remnants of the once-mighty PdVSA are battling the Chavez government in a contract dispute over three miserable dollars a day in wages. Inflation from...

As we reported last week, Venezuela's vengeful dictator, Hugo Chavez, continues to target eight helpless fired oil workers for long prison terms. Their "crime" was leading a strike. Former Venezuelan oil company executive Gustavo Coronel points out that they are, shockingly, being charged with crimes and neglect against the state oil company that happened after they were fired from their jobs by Chavez himself on live television. In today's El Universal, another Unapetrol oil union leader speaks out, pointing out the shifty legal maneuvers the Chavez court has engaged in over Christmas to deny the eight arrested strike leaders any...