Hugo Chavez cheating on OPEC? Absolutely not, he says. The latest OPEC production cuts mean nothing to Chavez. Many besides he are violating agreements. Look for crude to slip further and look for big trouble for Chavez as Venezuela inflation hits 30%. And the poor? Yeah, right. BUT BUT it seems that Hugo has been lying about the production numbers on the upside because production has dropped by two million bls per day since 2007. In other words no guess about his production can be accurate. We do know he's selling oil for less than production costs. Even worse for sir Hugo is that the price differential between WTI and the ever popular high sulphur Venezuelan Shit has grown from 8% to 28%, which only means that for him to prosper (or stay out of the poor house) supplies from other countries must tighten further otherwise the price for his oil will drop even more. Right now the subsidized cost of gasoline in Venezuela is $5 per barrel and the cost to produce is $25 per. Unsustainable? Ask the old Soviet bosses.

So what about Russia? What about them? They are also lying about their capacity to deliver which sags more and more due to infrastructure problems and their oil oligarchs panic and suck more and more rubles out of the economy and store it in Switzerland. We are paying so much attention to our serious problems that we ignore the even more serious problems for our enemies.