1/14/2006


HERE COME DA TERRORISTS, THANKS HUGO

I have a pal over a 20 year period who has lived at least half his time in Mexico and Central America. He speaks Spanish so well that cab drivers turn their heads when he speaks. He has an Masters in Spanish from Oregon State and he just got back from down there and here is what he told me.

Chavez (Venezuela President) has created a haven for Muslims in his country, many of them guys who are wanted in Europe. He is laundering identities, furnishing them with all the ID necessary, and does what he can to sneak these guys across his Northern borders pointing them to the U.S. He has been doing this for five years. There are roughly 50,000 Muslims in Venezuela, most of them in Caracas. Chavez knows that too many of them are another Paris, so he exports them if they look like trouble. When Pat Robertson pointed out that Chavez was a dictator and so on, our Left Wing pussies immediately jumped on him as they do whenever anyone says something disparaging about their fascist hero.

It's deja vu all over again that today's WSJ ran a major piece on Venezuela and Chavez which seems to indicate that he has done to Venezuela what every Commie on the planet has done to every country they have taken over: pauperized it. He has mismanaged the oil fields, put no capital into them at all so infrastructure is falling apart, over production has reduced recoverable reserves by 25% in just ONE YEAR, food is so expensive that people can't eat (even with the oil riches) and he sends money to Cuba. He is now playing kissy face with the mullahs in Iran.

If what the WSJ says is true we are looking at nearly zero oil in four to five years because we get something like half thirteen percent our oil from there.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Venezuela is #2 or #3 in imports to the US. Canada is #1. The top five countries we import from (Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Saudi and Nigeria) colectively do not make p half of our consumption. Close, but no cigar.

If Venezuela craters (which it will) all we wil see is a short term uptick in oil prices. Oil is fungible. It doesn't matter where it comes from. When oil starts to become scarce, we have the dollars to pay for it.

THe big problem is Iran. And that situation may take care of itself in the coming months.

Howard said...

You are wrong. I traded energies for twenty years and the supply demand balance right now teeters on the brink of vanishing supply. Any country pulling production will skew markets, as the recent Russian threat to withold supplies from Europe and the Ukraine showed everyone. Right now we get around 12% of our crude from Venezuela. Take 12% of crude oil supplies off the market and you will see $125 crude. We get nearly a billion barrels per day from Venezuela and another five hundred million from Iran.

Oil is NOT fungeable. Venezuela recently sold oil to Cuba directly for less than the market price. It is suspected, but never proven, that the Saudis delivered oil to us directly for less than the market price. These direct sales do not show up on any reports or charts.

Take it from me and real life; one percent drop in crude supplies will result in a $5 to $7 spike virtually immediately.

Anonymous said...

No Howard, we do not get "nearly a billion barrels per day from Venezuela and another five hundred million from Iran". Do you mean per year?
Otherwise, you are right. Take Venezuela's oil off the market and the world price will explode.

Bartelson

Howard said...

It's a billion bbs per month. My mistake, shouldn't comment when trying to figure out the ins and outs of a digital camera...