As journalist William Blum notes, there’s one thing the United States hates more than a Marxist in power, and that’s a democratically elected Marxist in power. A prime example was Salvador Allende of Chile. September 4 marks 31 years since his election. September 11 marks 28 years since his death in a U.S.-sponsored coup.

Oh, and Nixon was perfectly sane, wasn't he? The ravings of a madman, and his opportunistic super-ghoul assistant. This is STILL our national policy, all these years later.

People like our own oligarchs see land, property, business in other countries taken by US-based corporations as being the same as part of the U.S. itself, inviolate, no matter how it was obtained, and at what tragic cost to the people of those countries.

Wow.

These quotes from the actual conversations of Richard Milhous Nixon have a powerful impact today, Saturday, February 21, 2015.

You are generous, thoughtful to provide this important straight view of history. Vital information.

But, economically, he was also far to the Left of anyone who has any hope of winning the Democratic nomination. He once said, "we are all Keynesians," which would almost make him a Marxist today. We live in ideologically starved times.

He doesn't seem to have a problem with capitalism.

Too much of "our" profits have to stay in Venezuela, where too much goes to the poor. In the view of "serious people" in Washington, that makes him a Marxist. So, he has to be dealt with as is traditionally the case.

We are their largest trading partner and we buy as much of their oil as they are willing to sell us. We are not responsible for the falling oil production and deficit spending that has put them in a bind. Nor are we responsible for their domestic currency laws that precipitated the current economic crisis.

While oil exports to the US have been down since the first failed coup (2004) and the 2008 nationalizations of Exxon and Conoco platforms, overall exports (particularly to China) have more than offset that. (Fig1 and Fig2) The long-term prospects for oil earnings of Venezuela, which has the world's largest reserves, is promising. (Fig3)



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Due to lack of infrastructure investment and a brain drain of skilled oil workers moving to better paying jobs - many are in Canada and the US.

That investment deficit in Venezuelan production will be turned around by additional tranches of FDI from Asia. Venezuela's reserves are just too valuable for the entire world to let production decline over the longer-term. What we are seeing is a shift from exports to the US (where the overall demand/domestic production ratio has fallen) to growing Asian markets.

You might start by reading an authoritative source on the subject: http://www.eia.gov/countries/cab.cfm?fips=ve

much mismanagement of the country's oil resources as you would like to believe. In the long-term, Venezuela's huge proven reserves -- and growing global demand --guarantee that the country remains creditworthy and its balance of payments will stay healthy.

Furthermore, as I discuss, below, production is less important than exports in guaranteeing a country's balance of accounts and macroeconomic viability.

You're ideological zeal blurs your ability to see the larger picture.

Their government bonds have been down graded to junk bond status with a rating indicating default in imminent.

Last edited Mon Feb 23, 2015, 01:09 PM - Edit history (1)

Nobody's arguing that Venezuelan production wouldn't be higher with additional funding from Exxon and other US oil giants, but that isn't the issue here. The country's economic problems are not really so much attributable to the mismanagement factors related to the nationalization of the VZ oil industry that some claim.

Export earnings continue to be robust, and Venezuela is almost infinitely credit-worthy from global sources, which frustrates the hell out of those who are offended by Venzuela's renationalization of upstream supplies after 1999.

how in the hell can those earnings be robust with oil prices, and hence oil revenues, plummeting?

in VZ that you and some others celebrate isn't going to last very long, and the present elected government is proven to be robust and probably isn't going to fall. Sorry to disappoint you.

The long-term prospects for Venezuela's economy are excellent. It has the world's largest proven oil reserves - Asia will buy it, even if the U.S. doesn't.

1. Prices will not recover for at least a year. VZ's economy will not last that long in its present state.

2. They have issued massive amounts of debt - any economic increase will go to service that debt. What is left over will have to go to oil infrastructure investment if they hope to stop their production slide.

3. While they have world's largest proven oil reserves it is extremely hard to extract - their oil is similar to Canadian shale oil in its difficulty to pump and refine. That means two things - the price of oil has to be pretty high for them to break even - their costs are much higher than Saudi Arabia for example. There is no reason to think Saudi Arabia will let the price get that high considering their desire to knee cap US and Canadian oil fracking production. Secondly, they cannot extract that oil without the help of the large oil companies - VZ does not have the expertise nor the capital to do it by themselves. They will not get that help until they show they are willing to honor contracts and pay their bills on time.

Last edited Tue Feb 24, 2015, 11:23 AM - Edit history (3)

to CA, which is nothing compared to the $4 or 5 trillion they have in the ground;

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/08/china-venezuela-20bn-loans-financing-nicolas-maduro-beijing

VZ has some of the most expensive oil in the world and they have no influence what so ever on global prices.

Once again - they cannot extract that oil without the help of international oil companies. Right now oil companies are not rushing to do business in VZ because of the toxic business environment.

because the customers have to. That's why they call them supply contracts.

There are plenty of smaller oil services companies around the world that are quite happy to supply current technology and trained personnel.

They are not credit worthy by any stretch of the imagination:

are dreams.

Neither Venezuela nor Russia relies upon western securities markets for their government funding, so this is just another futile step that's punishing the private sector in both countries.

their debt has gone up as their revenue has gone down. They can't pay their bills.

In other words, with its debt covered, and the price of oil headed back up, those who have announced the demise of the Venezuelan government are premature.

so why are they on the verge of default? Why haven't they tapped that endless credit limit to ease their present economic crisis? Their economy can't provide the basics to the people - don't you think they should actually do something?

nationalized after the coup attempt?

And, then what, return the rest of the Venezuela national oil company's assets held by the public since 1976?

I have no problem with VZ nationalizing whatever they want - they just have to accept the consequences of their actions. I am assuming they knew the risks they were taking.

So to get back to my question - why hasn't Maduro tapped that Chinese credit to get his country out of the hole it is in?

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Imagine where we all would be, if someone with basic skills was running things in DC.

Such unjustified arrogance is not to be encouraged, let alone believed.

and that goes back to Nixon and Kissinger, which is when it all became political here, there were no longer any places were lying for political purposes was not allowed, no longer any things that were not done, and no longer anybody who gave a shit about unimportant things like that.

One could make an analogy with the corruption and short-term thinking in our business elites too, since they are closely connected.

Their rapacious brutality and total indifference to national sovereignty started the backlash which freed portions of South America from US hegemony and Empire, and that process continues, thanks to stunning early successes like Venezuela and massive incompetence since Allende's murder.

Watergate was a blessing for the world. Too bad its influence didn't last long in the USA.

These assholes are coming out of the woodwork again now. If they get their way, they will finish the job. I have been torn since Bush the Lesser came in between trying to warn people and just watching the show. Mostly I watch the show.

We've lost two generations since Nixon...maybe 3, and I don't think the Boomers are going to live as long as previous generations, either.

That kind of personal experience doesn't get handed down to the children, nor is it taught in the schools (nothing is, nowadays, as far as I can tell, not even arithmetic)

Worse yet, a lot of people haven't been paying attention, because:

1. Quality of life has been on a rapid decline since Nixon (the start, but he had lots of help since then)
   
   
2. Corporatism is taking over everything, even in places that Corporations have no business (ie: no profit-making opportunities) just because they can. It's Orwellian.
   
   
3. Globalism is peaking and collapsing, simultaneously. It's like a wildfire, or a hurricane: massive destruction that is unsustainable in the long term. The fuel gets burnt up, the atmospheric energy dissipates.
   
   
4. The power of the press is shifting to distributed sourcing via the internet, so getting information is much harder these days, and knowing whom to trust is worse. There are too many liars and shills clogging up the information pathways. but they get identified, and then ignored.
   
   
5. Creating a true grassroots is going to take time, time we may not have as a species. But rather than sit around moaning, the most survival-oriented are going to act, meet, and form people-based institutions that will have to take down Globalism, Corporatism, and the 1%.

And wasteful. And we are all going to die, we are ephemeral beings, and ought to accept it, it's a good deal, why fuck it up? This is a beautiful place, it can be a lot of fun.

1.) Indeed. Right around 1970, I just slipped under the wire, I was 20s then, got that good free education before they started treating students like widgets. The Mighty Wurlitzer was still in its infancy. We had a decent independent press and publishing industry, or the remnants anyway.

2.) That's the return on investment (ROI) thing other people like to talk about, and indicates the lack of further opportunities for exploitation at the desired rate of return. All of those bigshots sitting on all of that cash have to make X% ROI on it or they are failures. So they try to attach to the public teat. With great success so far.

3.) As your heart fails, it runs faster and faster. It's a warning.

4.) Well, I think at this point the objective is just noise, to prevent communication and organization down here in the rabble. Trolling technique has changed since I came here. They used to try to argue. Likely that is the only strategy for control still accessible in the chaos of the internet. They amp the chaos up, or try anyway.

5.) Yep, us hippies have been working on that since Nixon, and some of us are out there now. Kobane. Subcommander Marcos. Bolivia. There are still people out there who have some respect for themselves and the Earth.

claims they go to war to promote democracy. And I do not believe them when they say they are not promoting unrest - starvation?

President Obama please stop the trickle down disaster capitalism that we are pushing throughout the world. I does not work. And Standard Oil (Exxon) does not need to take over in Venezuela again.

using tactics which create starvation, and unrest could believe it, either. It's such an ancient formula, and it has been used to death with no one powerful enough to prevent it.

Reminds one exactly of the memorandum written by Undersecretary of War, John Breckenridge, regarding his advice for the treatment of Cubans in order to take them over, written Christmas Eve, 1897:

~ snip ~

The island of Cuba, a larger territory, has a greater population density than Puerto Rico, although it is unevenly distributed. This population is made up of whites, blacks, Asians and people who are a mixture of these races. The inhabitants are generally indolent and apathetic. As for their learning, they range from the most refined to the most vulgar and abject. Its people are indifferent to religion, and the majority are therefore immoral and simultaneously they have strong passions and are very sensual. Since they only possess a vague notion of what is right and wrong, the people tend to seek pleasure not through work, but through violence. As a logical consequence of this lack of morality, there is a great disregard for life.

It is obvious that the immediate annexation of these disturbing elements into our own federation in such large numbers would be sheer madness, so before we do that we must clean up the country, even if this means using the methods Divine Providence used on the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

We must destroy everything within our cannons’ range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army. The allied army must be constantly engaged in reconnaissance and vanguard actions so that the Cuban army is irreparably caught between two fronts and is forced to undertake dangerous and desperate measures.