In the previous post, I said that the new decree issued by the Government would give Chavez about US$ 11 billion in extra pocket money, but I failed to take into account the fact that he was already harvesting some of the money, since there was a previous decree that gave Fonden 50% of all the revenues above $70 per barrel when oil is below $100, plus 60% of the amount in excess of $100, when oil goes above $100.
Below a graph:
in which I show on the left the difference between the old “tax” (Red Line) and the new “tax” (purple line), with scale on the left. These are dollars for each barrel of oil that go directly to Fonden.
Using the scale on the right, the green line then shows the extra revenues the Government will receive from this new “tax”, assuming exports of 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, where I mean the new extra money, not what the Government was receiving before. Thus, around US$ 105 per barrel it is about half a billion US$, half of what I had calculated. If oil goes to $150, it will be almost US$ 23 billion.
I also note that according to Carlos Vecchio, the new decree does not follow the Enabling Bill and violates the Constitution. Chavez would have had to create specific fund in order for this to be legal.
The Devil's Excrement 