Friday, February 02, 2007

How Will Hugo Go?

An excellent article in The Economist how Hugo Chavez is spending his oil windfalls like a drunken duo sorority girl and trophy wife with daddy's credit card.



I like the chart because (well, I like charts) it shows you just how dependent he is on a high price of oil. It also shows you how much spending he's done bribing people with this temporary windfall.

But what I get a kick out of the most is that Chavez and all his supporters who clamour about socialism can only contribute their success to the high price of oil which has been driven up in price by largely our growing capitalist economy here in the US and the capitalist free market reforms that have bolstered China's and India's growth thereby boosting the demand for oil

That reality is really a bitch isn't it?

5 comments:

Alfred T. Mahan said...

What's really going to be a kick in the head/pants is when/if they notice that oil is no longer as pricey as it once was, and just what this means for Hugo "Mack the Knife", because all the Euros are high (har!) on global warming being All Our Fault, so we're going to cut down on fossil fuels (at baguette point if necessary), and with his recent let's seize-our-oil-industry kick, no one with any money's going to come fix Venezuela's infrastructure when it goes smash (which it will).

So he's spread the wealth to investment opportunities like Cuba (which worked out so well for the Soviets in the long run), and turned himself into...a minor pain in the butt to the United States on the level of, say, Ghadafi in the '80's.

Why are we taking this dork seriously again? Oh, right, because we're being TOLD to.

Frank said...

Ya reckon it's possible to slant drill that far from the US? :)

Alfred T. Mahan said...

If anyone can do it, leave it to...

*in appropriate voice*

MONTY BURNS!

"Excellent..."

Captain Capitalism said...

I was going to say the same thing.

Alfred T. Mahan said...

Actually, I was waiting for you to say, "No, those people are all gristle", given your overseas interests... :P