-In this “democracy” things are not even discussed anymore between independent powers. On March 16th. Minister of Oil Ramirez sent a memo “ordering” the National Assembly to approve the contracts for the new oil partnerships.They obviously did, you don’t argue with the autocrat.
-Curiously, for the champions of “sovereignty”, the approved contracts include international arbitrage, as ordered by Ramirez.
-And the new Cuban/Venezuelan oil company in which Cuba has 51% allows for Cuba to sell oil in the international markets, essentially giving a “legal” framework to what had been happening all along. Nice deal, you buy oil at preferential prices and preferential interest rates, don’t even pay for it, and then turn around and sell it at international prices. Ahora PDVSA es del pueblo…cubano? (Now PDVSA belongs to the…Cuban people?)
-The total amount of the gasoline subsidy (gasoline is sold at 4.46 US$ cents per liter or 17 US$ cents per gallon) is 14.5% of the National Budget or three times what is spent on the “Misiones”. By the way, my share of the subsidy as one that is in the top 25% of the population by income is ten times larger than that of those in the bottom quartile.
-In an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, that newspaper suggests that Chavez will also nationalize the heavy oil partnerships. Given the huge amount of resources required to further exploit the Orinoco tar sands and the fact that PDVSA has no money to do it on its own, this would mean that there will be no more new heavy oil projects in the foreseeable future. .
As someone said today, Chavez is so sure of winning in December that he no longer even gives a damn about Venezuelans.
The Devil's Excrement 
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