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Paranoia And Purges For Venezuela As Oil Misery Continues
Submitted by Nick Cunningham via OilPrice.com,
As the finances of Venezuela continue to deteriorate under the collapse of crude oil prices, the government of President Nicolas Maduro is becoming more paranoid and vindictive.
Venezuela derives the vast majority of its export earnings from sending oil overseas. With the largest endowment of crude oil reserves in the world, the oil-driven economy worked well for the late Hugo Chavez: he provided generous support for the poor, and built allies in the western hemisphere by dispensing cash and cheap oil in exchange for political allegiance.
But state-owned PDVSA has struggled to keep production up. Rather than using its earnings to develop more fields, much of its earnings have been diverted for political and social projects. Chavez also purged PDVSA of thousands of experienced workers, leaving the company short of well-trained staff.
Chavez could paper over the decay of PDVSA’s production base because oil prices were so high in his final years. And for the first year or so of Maduro’s tenure, while the economy began showing worse signs of stress, he too didn’t feel any urgency to solve PDVSA’s problems.
However, the utter bust in oil markets pulled the rug out from beneath the Venezuelan economy. Inflation is running at an annual rate of 68 percent. Shortages of food and medical supplies are common. Shoppers at grocery stores need to submit finger prints to ensure they are not purchasing more than their allotted amount of basic goods. A confusing set of varying exchange rates and currency controls are doing very little to slow capital flight.
Maduro is cracking down on political opponents as the country deals with the economic crisis. Antonio Ledezma, the Mayor of Caracas, was arrested on February 20 on charges of conspiracy and working with the U.S. to stage a coup, touching off a wave of protest. Last year, in the wake of the unprecedented riots facing the “Bolivarian” regime, Leopoldo Lopez was also tossed in jail. Dozens of other perceived political enemies remain locked up. A teenager was shot and killed at an anti-government rally on February 24. Maduro’s government was quick to blame the police officer – as if security forces have not been encouraged from above to take a hard line with opposition protests over the last few years.
Maduro’s pronouncements have become more paranoid as the economy has worsened. He has accused Vice President Joe Biden of being the mastermind behind a plot to oust him from power, and questioned whether President Obama was aware of that fact. On February 2 President Maduro had the head of a major retail chain arrested for conspiring against the state by creating long lines at store locations that Maduro said was “irritating the people.”
Maduro continues to rely on assertions that food shortages, economic hardships, and even violence are the result of American plots, a claim that has worked in the past but is becoming an increasingly tired line of argument for many Venezuelans.
The only hope for Maduro is a dramatic rise in oil prices, which could provide a reprieve from the economic crisis he finds himself in. He has pled with Saudi Arabia and other OPEC members to slash production to boost prices, but to no avail. He even went hat in hand to China for financial assistance, with only modest pledges from Chinese President Xi Jingping.
The economic situation may only grow worse. The government’s budget breaks even with oil prices at an estimated $117.50 per barrel. Inflation could rise to an eye-popping 100 percent in 2015, and GDP could fall by as much as 7 percent. The government will likely see a shortage of foreign exchange of at least $7 to $8 billion this year. Gauging the credit default swap market, investors are betting that the chances of a default over the next five years are a near certainty.
With no imminent rebound in sight for oil prices, Maduro is resorting to state-sponsored repression to quell growing opposition.
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Coming soon to a country near you!
Clearly the problem is that this isnt real marxism...
Oil reserves: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Venezuela
Venezuela next in line for liberation.
(As Nick Rockefeller told Aaron Russo 10 years ago)
So what happened to all the gold that Chavez repatriated b4 he got cancer[ed]?
When asked about it's intervention in Venezuela, the CIA replied:
"We looked into it, but we could not figure out a better way to fuck up the place than what they are already doing."
pods
Funny, but no, the CIA and friends are fucking them proper.
One example where CIA involvement has ever helped a working man?
I agree. Since there is so damn much misery around the world at "our" hands, sometimes you just need a bit of humor.
We are going to need that humor when it comes back to us in spades.
pods
Allegations of failed US-led coup in Venezuela:
http://www.mintpressnews.com/details-on-an-alleged-us-backed-coup-in-venezuela-come-to-light/202549/
~"One example where CIA involvement has ever helped a working man?"~
Allende. Chile, 1973.
The CIA liberated Chile by giving them Pinochet!... No, wait, that one didn't count...
It's the oil idiots.
And, they should have been loading up with gold while they were getting $100+ for their oil
Some of it is in the Chavez family safe-deposit bank boxes in in Houston and Miami.
I can only laugh, this is what happens when a communist piece of shit former professional bus driver is given the keys to an entire country...This is the inevitable result every time.
True.
Still, Victoria Nuland is on the way just to make sure that things turn out well for Venezuela.
Bus driver or community organizer?
Same shit, different latitude.
Shitty Communism + vindicative USA on Venezuela = today situation.
The funny fact is that the guy that will replace Maduro will probably becoming pro-USA.
The Venezuelan will gain in wealth but will lose in national independence, they will become another Zio controlled country.
The real question is how to get rid of Maduro and Communism without falling into Zio and America hands !?
The bus driver part is not the problem.
What do you prefer a buch on scum olygarch to run the place, as in Columbia. By the way there are over a million ilegal columbians in Venezuela, they know something must don't.
Haha, I was about to post something like this, but you beat me to it.
Nothing is real marxism because no such a thing exist. There are ideologies supposedly based on Marx's writings and suited to the local environment: Leninism, Maoism, etc, though Marx was just a philosopher and never wrote down any sort of method of governance or "solution" to the problems of capitalism, rather than pointing them out.
Venezuela may have the largest reserves, but it's all very low grade high sulphur oil that has to be refined 2 times to turn it into something that can be used to produce gas or diesel.
Yup, "sour crude"
"He has accused Vice President Joe Biden of being the mastermind behind a plot to oust him from power..."
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Crazy Uncle Joe could not mastermind a 1 clown car parade. But it would be fun to watch.
maduro is still in power so it is entirely possible
Yes, I've been trying to warn the world on my blog, and that means what you see is what you get!!! (Venezuela is a good look at the future!)
(Here's the real agenda of the elite...)
http://galeinnes.blogspot.com/2015/02/digital-terrorism.html
"Maduro’s pronouncements have become more paranoid as the economy has worsened. He has accused Vice President Joe Biden of being the mastermind behind a plot to oust him from power.."
Yeah! Right! Biden couldn't "mastermind" a wet dream...
Sounds like obama
Welcome to the poor house, Maduro.
"President Nicolas Maduro is becoming more paranoid and vindictive."
How is that possible?...
I'm sure there are no plans afoot to recreate the success of Ukrainian regime change in Venezuela. /sarc
Wasn't the media also filled with stories about how Yanukovitch was cracking down on dissent too?
Wasn't the media also filled with stories about how Yanukovitch was cracking down on dissent too?
I believe you are correct. Can you say "FEMA Camps"?
That would be like harpooning a beached whale. The CIA does some dirty shit, but it does not control Venezuela's printing presses.
It is easier than ever to control Venezuela printing press. Hey editor, here is a box of scott tissue 1000 27 rolls and 200 tampons for the wife. Its some of the cheapest agents the CIA will ever buy.
No mention of the recent attempted coup by the Nobel Prize Winner? Only the paranoid survive:
Obama failed his coup in Venezuela
by Thierry MeyssanOnce again, the Obama administration has tried to force the change of a political regime that resists it. On February 12, an Academi (formerly Blackwater) plane disguised as an aircraft of the Venezuelan army was supposed to bomb the presidential palace and kill President Nicolas Maduro. The plotters had planned to place former MP María Corina Machado in power and have her immediately acclaimed by former Latin American presidents.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article186879.html
O was far too busy overthrowing our constitution.
True. How come is always about Venezuela. What about some fail states like Haiti, Honduras, Columbia and YES Mejico.
Anyone could have maduro killed if they actually wanted it. I once stood meters away from Hugo Chavez. Not a single of his IQ 78 guards frisked me.
All politicians are vulnerable. Unlike bankers they cant just hide in a bunker, they do need to get out and kiss babies.
Into your bondage gear bitchez.
To the Statist, the best way to aid an ailing economy is to simply start roudning up and harrassing dissenters - and then move to mass graves when that doesn't work.
When you're lame, you blame? :D
You know Maduro has lost it when he's accusing Joe Biden of being the mastermind of anything.
My guess is Creepy Joe has been doing Mrs. Maduro.
To be fair, he's got pretty good reason to be paranoid - the US is out to destroy and loot his country.
Its not "His" country. Maduro hates Venezuela and spics in general.
Troll for Shell or Exon 123?
Its not his country. Maduro does not "own" Venezuela and generally speaking, Venezuelans do not give a damn about Venezuela, including Maduro. Venezuela is an artificial state.
Leonard Nimoy, Spock of ‘Star Trek,’ Dies at 83http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/arts/television/leonard-nimoy-spock-of...
RIP Mr. Spock.
He's dead, Jim
Can't he take "executive action" like Barry and mandate wealth and prosperity for all Venezuelans?
68 % inflation rate = happy horseshit. What is the rate if a product/service is no longer available?
Obamas dream of his father for real.
Socialism Kills!
Venezuela's problems have US neocon fingerprints all over it. Speaking as an American, I therefore reluctantly have my fingers crossed for a catastrophic meltdown of our monetary system.
I wonder how many understand how profoundly these people have gutted and degraded the entire planet. I not just speaking of things like that nonstop BP oil gusher in the gulf, or even the 23 years of chemtrails dumped on our heads, nor even the tens of millions of homes stolen and shuttered by the banking system to maintain overly-inflated real estate prices. I'm talkin about the alternative once-and-future history --stolen by the military-industrial complex, and now including the prison-industrial complex-- could easily have led to everything from cities on the Moon to free universal health care and education ( and no, not due to "socialism," my little neocon puppets) And hey! as long as I'm at it: someone stole my hovercar!
Progressives are in charge dude. I'm sure Ozero and Hitlery thank you for your support.
Grimaldus
Looks like several koch trolls venting their bs on this story.
Crony capitalist fascists, not progressives, are in charge, having lied, cheated and bribed their way into virtually total control of all aspects of American gov/commerce and life.
Progressives are people like Eliz Warren, Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and a handfull of others who are thoroughly demonized and marginalized by crony cap owned msm who make billions from the status quo sustaining charade of free elections where clintons v bush is same old, same old oligarch manufactured bs theater. Meanwhile, the banksters are stealing us and the rest of the world over the cliff.
We are driven by genetics. Genes dont care about cities on the moon. They care about long term survival whatever the cost. Biology is an endless fight of everything vs everything. Physics too, in its own way.
About his oil..they still own a refinery in the USA....the Bad USA..where they ship their heavy oil to process and sell in their Citgo gas stations....I think at some point we should just take them over for payment on what they took from our oil companies...and say...sell your crap to someone else....no one wants that heavy oil...no one..he is now saying Colombia is out to get him too..but if I was him...I would be more worried about his maid or cooks first....
When do the people say El Presidente is out to get them?
Perhaps, but I doubt it, Governments of Oil Producing nations will finally come to realize that basing their budgets and economic futures solely on the Oil Card is a ticket to disaster. It is so easy when all a Government need do is tax export oil and then spend big and relax. How many nations have done this over and over again, even when a freshman economics student knows oil is cyclical. It will collapse at some point before forces cause a rebound and then rise till governments are fat dumb and happy, before it collapses again. Everytime this happens, oil governments go into crisis.
Russia was a prime example. With all the resources it could want for a thousand years of economic expansion, it instead relied upon the oil revenues to fund most of it's government, and ignored domestic manufacturing and agriculture. Russia's modern history was not of an oil state. But since the 70's oil shock, government after government has decided to live off of oil and let their economy die right in front of their noses.
The big question in Russia today is whether they have finally learned their lesson. Will they follow through with their promises to finally invest in agriculture and manufacturing, and cease the "sell oil - import food and consumer good" model. It's a failed model, as todays situation shows. Some countries have only oil to live on, like Saudi and Iran. Russia actually should be able to stand as an economic power with oil being only a bonus to the real economy.
South Dakota was riding high and tought of itself as the real America, the model for us all. Just because they had oil and gas shales underground. They had a good run, paying chicks 60-80 thousand dollars a year to drive a water truck, or sand truck around the fracking fields. This money flowed through SD economy, and SD took credit for being the future of America. Well, they are only new beginning to see the Utopia wind down. Lets revist SD and it's economic miracle again in a year.
He who lives by Oil alone, will die by oil. And " Venezuela derives the vast majority of its export earnings from sending oil overseas". They too are paying the price for being an oil state.
If you make life easy for someone by providing a set and large income for life, all their talents and potentials are just ignored and they go to sleep, fat, lazy, stupid and happy. For this reason, the rich should never give their kids the promise of a well funded easy life. As it goes for nations, so it goes for individuals. If you don't go into the market place and work to prosper, you well become an atrophied individual or state.
My impression would be that the best way to avoid the resource trap would be to invest the money off-shore through a sovereign wealth fund. When oil revenues are high you stop the domestic economy from beoming overheated and unbalanced. When oil revenues drop, you pull back on investments, and export the pain. The problem seems to be that most resource-rich countries are far too populist and corrupt to intentionally slow and diversify their economies.
One sentence: natural resource curse.
Viva La Revolucon!
Marxism = Death!
OK, but capitalism = fuck the environment and the whole wide earith. Or we can blame marxism for it.
Paranoia is unjustified suspician of others . A better word for Maduro would be defensive.
No different than Bibi with Iran or the USSA with the terrists. Boogiemen! Chavez and Maduro spent 16 years blaming the USA for absolutely everything.
"16 years blaming the USA for absolutely everything."
and with damn good cause! Chavez and Maduro rejected big oil/ bankster attempts to rule the country and keep the people barefoot, hungry and undeducated-- same as Castro originally sought to do in Cuba. Bankster bought US sanctions against both countries is main reason they are economically fucked.
As for Bibi-- he's the exact opposite of Chavez and Maduro-- a slug dedicated to accumulating as much power and wealth as he can without any regard for the well being of the people of his country.
Venezuela is more fucked than ever. It was a nice place until the late 80s, a country of immigrants like the USA. If 16 years of Chavez/Maduro were a response to the bankster threat then the medicine was worse than the disease.
The Chavez family is wealthy and so is Maduro. They never cared about the people living in Venezuela. Fits your statement about Bibi just fine. You will reject this fact because it does not fit the Zerohedge narrative you have internalized.
A quarter of a million Venezuelans have been murdered in the last decade alone. And at least a million have emigrated. Is that what caring for the people means?
Maduro and Chavez never stopped selling oil to the US. For all their blabbering they kept selling oil to the US and taking payment in dollars which were quickly forwarded to Switzerland.
Yet another shining example of the joys & wonders of socialist vision & leadership taking a rich & vibrant country & driving it down into the depths of dispair! Chalk another one up!
All true socialists know that suffering is required to achieve the promised failure of the Revolution.
I guess they will never figure out that others ain't really willin' to work for them & their utopian dreams!
Anybody that accuses Biden having a mind, much less being a mastermind, is totally out to lunch.
Let's just for a moment suppose that it is indeed Joe Biden that is kicking Maduro's ass .............
Whoa!!!!! What an embarrassing supposition.
"Effective immediately- all children under the age of 16 years old, are now 16 years old. Gracias"
Seventeen.
My heart goes out to the poor & desperate people of Venezuela. Next time you might want to elect a leader that makes sense who puts you ahead of their dangerous cancerous vision!
Throw in some crack and a wife named Michael and this article could be about Barry.
Like a fucked up social worker told me when I was just a kid...
"Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you"...
(Rot in Hell, Paul Sh...n).
You are not paranoid if they really are out to get you.
Has this freak not figured out it doesn't matter who is tryin' to sabotage him because socialist/marxist governments ALWAYS consumes themselves? I guess they are tryin' to make one work for the 1st time ever?
Are they wearing their underwear on the outside yet? ya know, to facilitate "checking".
"Are they wearing their underwear on the outside yet?"
For the "youngsters" reading ZH, this is a reference from the Woody Allen movie "Bananas".
I believe that that movie was also the inspiration for the song: "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss' by the Who.
.
Is there anything more adorable than a proud socialist visionary emblazoned with a colorful sash & chest full of big shiny medals holding up their defiant fist in activist glory?
While simultaneously driving his country into the ground.
A prosperous Venezuela could as well have no surplus oil available for export. The poorer they are, the less oil the burn. It is good for the oil buyers to have Venezuela driven into the ground.
How about we drive the 'oil buyers' into the ground?
That would be the USA. The USA is buying Venezuelan oil.
Prosperous Venezuela=Venezuelan drivers=Less oil for the USA. Thus, it is in the interest of US drivers to drive Venezuela into the ground. Or to see it there, while others do the driving. Anything is acceptable as long as it frees more oil.
For pointing out this fact i get called a Marxist. Even if i were one, what does it have to do with anything?
Ok how about less Americans & moar Venezuelan drivers then? Failing that , how about we just drive the American's into the ground so the Venezuleans can have more oil for themselves? L
I forgot mustachioed!
From the oil consumers point of view, it is a good thing to have Venezuela driven into the ground. In fact if the entire population were to die there would be more oil available to export, a lower demand for scarce import goods (which do take energy and resources to produce) and more cash for the swiss accounts. The world would be better and even the dead would be grateful, if they could.
Venezuela is but a gas station and the population an unnecesary burden.
Spoken like a true Marxist!
What do you mean?
To a Marxist people are generally unecessary, expendable & disposable. They are an adorable crew!
I never said i shared this vision. I just pointed that the world would be better if the population of venezuela were to die. By "better" i mean that there would be more oil available for export and less imports (actually 0 imports and 100% of exports), making Venezuela a perfect resource source.
The population is a burden on the rest of the world and on the government of Venezuela. We could say they have a "right" to life, but technically speaking, they are a burden and the world and Nicolas Maduro would be better without them. Isnt it right that without a population Nicolas would no longer need to play Presidente? He could focus on running the oil industry or have a golden retirement in France. The people add nothing of value. Mostly because of the boot on their throats but... they add nothing.
This is just a technical observation, im not endorsing Maduro's or the CIA views.
That's even more Marxist/Maoist than your original statement! How about we do sumthin' kookie like leave ALL the people alone & eradicate the visionary politicians & their ingenious masterminding that only bring death & dispair?
How is it even MORE marxist/maoist?
Your statements are meaningless. Cmon... leaving the people alone? Whom? You, me? You are not a head of state nor a political leader to be "leaving the people alone". You are nothing but a one-liner tweet generator.
You stupid fuck do not have any reading comprehension. Nothing i said was technically wrong. Without a population in Venezuela there would be more oil for export and less of a hassle for Nicolas Maduro. That is a fact. Rather than agreeing or disagreeing with this fact, you first call me a marxist and then call my second statement "more marxist", along with some vague call to leave the people alone.
How about reducing the Venezulean population by just one (uhhhmmm...let's say the 'hassled' Nicolas Maduro for instance) & let the people (all of them) decide what they want to do with whatever oil remains along with their vast treasure trove of riches & resources? Let's let population control itself shall we. It usually does a better job than any physics mastermind!
You're all heart.
I think he's another Social Science Humanities Ph'd candidate!
Master in Physics.
Now your scaring me!