Quick, where can I purchase a life insurance policy on Hugo Chavez? A big one?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VENEZUELA_OIL_TAKEOVER?SITE=ILKAN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

May 1, 3:03 PM EDT

Venezuela Seizes Last Private Oil Fields

By NATALIE OBIKO PEARSON
AP Business Writer


BARCELONA Venezuela (AP) -- President Hugo Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last privately run oil fields Tuesday, intensifying a power struggle with international companies over the world's largest known petroleum deposit.

Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez declared that the fields had reverted to state control just after midnight. State television showed cheering workers in hard hats raising the flags of Venezuela and the national oil company over a refinery and four drilling fields in the Orinoco River basin.

Chavez, a strident critic of the U.S. and a leader of the leftist movement in Latin America, traveled to the refinery for a ceremony with red-clad oil workers on May Day, the international workers' holiday. The military planned a fly-over by Russian-made fighter jets.

While the state takeover was planned, BP PLC, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., France's Total SA and Norway's Statoil ASA remain locked in a struggle with the Chavez government over the terms and conditions under which they will be allowed to stay on as minority partners.

to a global emancipation from predatory militarized corporations.

why doesn't Chavez just cut them out completely and tell them if they want the oil they can just buy it from the Venezuelan people (government)

But once you get western companies in it is damn hard to get them out.

Don

The only difference so far is that Mossadeqh was assassinated in 1953 by allies of the US/UK working on behalf of companies like BP upset that he nationalized Iran's oil resources.

Right now, your company could have a life insurance policy on you that you know nothing about. When you die -- perhaps years after you leave your employer -- the tax-free proceeds from this policy wouldnt go to your family. The money would go to the company.

Whats more, the company might use this policy to pay for retirement benefits and other perks not for you or your fellow workers, but for your companys top executives.

Sound outrageous? Such corporate-owned life insurance is also big business:
Companies pay a whopping $8 billion in premiums each year for such coverage, according to the American Council of Life Insurers, a trade group.

The policies make up more than 20% of the all the life insurance sold each year.

Companies expect to reap more than $9 billion in tax breaks from these policies over the next five years. The policies are treated as whole life policies. So, companies can borrow against the policies (though the IRS won't let them write off the interest). And the death benefits are tax-free.
Hundreds of companies -- including Dow Chemical, Procter & Gamble, Wal-Mart, Walt Disney and Winn-Dixie -- have purchased this insurance on more than 6 million rank-and-file workers.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Insurance/P64954.asp

I only think, what kind of an ego would you need to take on the mafia?

Go, Mr. Chavez, and go carefully.

As do the Venezuelans.

These do not coincide with the U.S. interest.

I wouldn't bet against Chavez.