Venezuela seizes oil rigs owned by US company

reply to post by intrepid


Appears to me the Chinese have the momentum, and everyone else is playing defence/catch-up, I'll be interested how soon Hugo Chavez gets that oil flowing their way, as I suspect he has also made that judgement...?

Originally posted by LieBuster
reply to post by Blaine91555

 

Last i checked we too are living under a dictator because our govermernt does not do or ask the people what they want and we get to vote for dog $hit or cammel $hit once in a while.

No argument about our government illegally acting like a Dictator. None at all.

There is hope. The courts finally told Obama no twice. I think people are waking up. Some of them.

reply to post by Someone336


I'm not sure we are that far apart over all here.

To explain my thoughts on Greece -
files.abovetopsecret.com...[/atsimg]]Analyzing the real Greek Failure

"Whereas during the 1990s, Greece frequently had to pay out 10 percent or more (18 percent in 1994) to borrow money, its rate fell dramatically to 3 percent or 2 percent. Ben May, Greek economist at think tank Capital Economics, said: "Their mistake was to go out, borrow money and use it to fund huge wage growth, rather than pay down its already substantial debts."

"Greece went on a spending spree, allowing public sector workers' wages to nearly double over the last decade, while it continued to fund one of the most generous pension systems in the world. Workers when they come to retire usually receive a pension equating to 92 percent of their pre-retirement salary. As Greece has one of the fastest ageing populations in Europe, the bill to fund these pensions kept on mounting. ...

"Tax evasion, endemic among Greece's wealthy middle classes, meant that the Government's tax revenues were not coming in fast enough to fund its outgoings. Hosting the Olympics in 2004, which cost double the original estimate of €4.5 billion, only made matters worse."

When a country, much like Venezuela, determines wages, regulates all business activities, provides cradle to grave care and as you see a unsustainable pension fund, how different is that from what I'm talking about.

As to Russia it imploded for a reason and I'm not so sure about your numbers as they no longer have a free press. Polls there are whatever the government says they are. Just like in Venezuela. You can't really overlook the propaganda problem when dealing with countries without and free press.

Look at where Japan sits in number two slot behind only Zimbabwe in the latest numbers available.

Public Debt as a % of GDP from 2009 est

1 Zimbabwe 304.30 %
2 Japan 192.10
3 Saint Kitts and Nevis 185.00
4 Lebanon 160.10
5 Jamaica 131.70
6 Singapore 117.60
7 Italy 115.20
8 Greece 108.10
9 Sudan 104.50
10 Iceland 100.60
11 Belgium 99.00
12 Nicaragua 87.00
13 Israel 83.90
14 Sri Lanka 82.90
15 Egypt 79.80
16 France 79.70
17 Germany 77.20
18 Portugal 75.20
19 Hungary 72.40
20 Canada 72.30
21 Jordan 69.90
22 United Kingdom 68.50
23 Austria 68.20
24 Ghana 67.50
25 Malta 66.20
26 Cote d’Ivoire 63.80
27 Ireland 63.70
28 Netherlands 62.30
29 Philippines 62.30
30 Norway 60.20
31 India 60.10
32 Spain 59.50
33 Uruguay 58.70
34 Mauritius 58.30
35 Malawi 58.00
36 Bhutan 57.80
37 El Salvador 55.40
38 Albania 54.90
39 Kenya 54.10
40 Morocco 54.10
41 Tunisia 53.80
42 World 53.60
43 Cyprus 52.40
44 Vietnam 52.30
45 Panama 49.50
46 Thailand 49.40
47 Costa Rica 49.30
48 Argentina 49.10
49 Turkey 48.50
50 Malaysia 47.80
51 Croatia 47.70
52 Poland 47.50
53 United Arab Emirates 47.20
54 Brazil 46.80
55 Finland 46.60
56 Aruba 46.30
57 Colombia 46.10
58 Pakistan 45.30
59 Bolivia 44.00
60 Seychelles 43.90
61 Switzerland 43.50
62 Sweden 43.20
63 Bosnia and Herzegovina 43.00
64 Mexico 42.60
65 Dominican Republic 41.50
66 United States 39.70
67 Yemen 39.60
68 Bangladesh 38.20
69 Denmark 38.10
70 Montenegro 38.00
71 Serbia 37.00
72 South Africa 35.70
73 Cuba 34.80
74 Gabon 34.70
75 Slovakia 34.60
76 Taiwan 34.60
77 Papua New Guinea 33.70
78 Czech Republic 32.80
79 Guatemala 32.70
80 Latvia 32.50
81 Ecuador 32.30
82 Syria 32.30
83 Ethiopia 31.70
84 Zambia 31.50
85 Slovenia 31.40
86 Lithuania 31.30
87 Moldova 31.30
88 Bahrain 30.10
89 Indonesia 29.80
90 New Zealand 29.30
91 Korea, South 28.00
92 Trinidad and Tobago 26.70
93 Mozambique 26.10
94 Peru 26.10
95 Tanzania 24.80
96 Macedonia 24.50
97 Honduras 24.30
98 Senegal 24.00
99 Paraguay 22.10
100 Bulgaria 21.40
101 Ukraine 20.70
102 Saudi Arabia 20.30
103 Romania 20.00
104 Iran 19.40
105 Venezuela 19.40
106 Uganda 19.30
107 Namibia 19.10
108 Australia 18.60
109 China 18.20
110 Hong Kong 18.10
111 Botswana 17.90
112 Nigeria 17.80
113 Angola 16.80
114 Gibraltar 15.70
115 Luxembourg 14.50
116 Cameroon 14.30
117 Kazakhstan 14.00
118 Uzbekistan 11.70
119 Algeria 10.70
120 Chile 9.00
121 Kuwait 8.20
122 Estonia 7.50
123 Qatar 7.10
124 Russia 6.90
125 Libya 6.50
126 Wallis and Futuna 5.60
127 Azerbaijan 4.60
128 Oman 2.80
129 Equatorial Guinea 1.10

[edit on 6/24/2010 by Blaine91555]

reply to post by Blaine91555


Yes, but the big kicker is that Greece is still operating with an relatively free market. Sure, regulations are in place, but it is nowhere near the planned economies of the former Soviet Union and modern Venezuela. 100% planned economies such as those are destined to fail, unless Chinese style pro-market reforms are implemented. Stricter regulations must also be put on the government's ability to borrow money. Borrowing into systemic debt cannot be a good thing.

While public debt sounds horrifying, and it is in the levels we are seeing, small levels are not such a bad thing: injections of fresh cash can and will generate more money in the market, and hopefully without the problem of tax evaders (such as in Greece) and other mechanisms of corporate greed portions of the new money can be used to pay off the debt. I would recommended you to the works of Kenneth Fisher on how small public debt is sometimes beneficial.

The solution? Shattering the corporate stranglehold so small business can compete in the market the way its intended to function, a progressive tax and higher tariffs.

The rigs are LEASED by an oil compnay...NOT owned. Therefore his actions are unjust and possibly an act of war.

Originally posted by Elieser
These are fighting words for many. Seeing how much the government loves the oil companies, I think that this is not going to be taken lightly.


[edit on 24-6-2010 by Elieser]

Uhm, apparently you don't know your history. This is far from the first time they've taken over U.S. owned rigs. We have never attacked them for this reason

Originally posted by ~Lucidity
I think this was already posted this morning...here

Okay. If you people are going to maintain two topics on the same thing, I'll just repost what I had to say in the other topic here.

First, I think "seized" is such a sleazy headline. the original Reuters headline was much classier. And probably far more accurate, even if this one garners more attention.

Okay, I read the article. But it's not clear to me what "takeover" means. Doesn't seem like it's a hostile or military takeover, because at one point say he persuaded some other company...do we assume that to mean persuaded them to sell to the government?

From what I remember, Chavez believes that natural resources like oil and water belong to all the inhabitants on the planet. If that is the thinking then a government agency managing it for its people makes more sense than a private firm doing it for profit. Closer to the people.

I guess I need to look more closely into this to get all the facts.

What I do find more interesting is the shrewd timing amid what's going on in the GoM and Middle East. And the timing refers to releasing a story about what's probably been going on a long time now or who decided to release it and why now?

And let's not forget that Chavez and Venezuela are allied with Iran and both participate in the The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which is an intergovernmental organization of states considering themselves not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc.

reply to post by djvexd


And what exactly were his actions? Did you read past the headline?

It Was allowde tohappen to guage the publics response. With an out cry to reapeat this from our gov, they will feel like they got hte green light. Seiaze bp's rig and then we own another company.

This is not a big deal. Nations seize company assets (either their own or foreign) all the time - all the time. And although its usually that nation's court that backs them up, it also happens based on executive order alone. Oil resources, mineral resources, agricultural resources, manufacturing resources, and even bank accounts. Its been that way for centuries.

I suspect that if Chavez siezes the oil platforms, that the affected company will go through legal motions in Venezuela first, and then the world court to remedy the situation. It will drag on for years in all probability. And in the end, there is no guarentee that Venezuela will abide by a court decision that goes against its desires.

So what? Its not an affront to America, a clarion call for nuevo-communism or the opening blow in WW3. Its just the way stuff happens in world business. Should the US do anything? I think we have enough fish to fry already.

If anything, people (stockholders mainly) should be pissed off at the company management for not properly assessing the risk this would happen, or having a mitigation strategy in place now that it has. This is just another lesson to us all that corporate greed for profits makes them take risks that are unwise. Let's all be thankful that in this case, an ecological disaster ultimately affecting tens of millions won't be the outcome.

Considering the US government can't even manage to do something about BP when they are destroying large parts of our country, oceans, entire ecosystems and the remnants of our economy... I'm not expecting much lol.

reply to post by buni11687


Not much of a big deal?... A Communist leader taking over an American private oil company.... Yes it is a big deal....

Socialists/Communist always like to claim that "Capitalists are the ones raping nature", yet if you go to real Socialist/Communist countries and you see what sort of environmental laws they have, you will see something different...

Venezuela, and more so under Chavez barely has any environmental standards...

Socialists/Communists love to not care about nature yet they blame Capitalism for it.....

[edit on 25-6-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

reply to post by buni11687


Chavez seizes them Obama shuts them down two real brain surgeons there .

reply to post by buni11687


Nothing new there since it's Venezuela we are talking about. They did that with Petrobras from Brazil years ago. That guy is just insane and pretentious as hell.

I wonder for how long he will be able to count on the diplomacy of others.

Originally posted by ElectricUniverse
reply to post by buni11687

 

Not much of a big deal?... A Communist leader taking over an American private oil company.... Yes it is a big deal....

Socialists/Communist always like to claim that "Capitalists are the ones raping nature", yet if you go to real Socialist/Communist countries and you see what sort of environmental laws they have, you will see something different...

Venezuela, and more so under Chavez barely has any environmental standards...

Socialists/Communists love to not care about nature yet they blame Capitalism for it.....

[edit on 25-6-2010 by ElectricUniverse]

Not that simple my friend. The company is operating in Venezuela's soil, not US one so even though "wrong" he is entitled to do so. He is doing with his oil and gas what the US is doing with Mexicans.

That's how things work. I don't agree with his policy because he doesn't use any diplomacy whatsoever and acts like a crazy dictator but I also don't agree with international companies making money out of resources of other countries while paying those countries in peanuts.

And socialism/communism has nothing to do with caring or not for the environment. That's a whole different topic and a bit more complex than what one may think.

Anyways... It's a private company, I'm not a share holder or a employee so why bother.

Chavez is a two bit pirate, he has pushed and dictated for years.
Take over our oil rigs. Two words NAVY SEALS

I would be a little more understanding if Venezuela was concerned with oil spills, but this doesn't make sense! What are the odds of Venezuela nationalizing the rigs so that it can use the rigs to sell China the oil ?

I have a few points to make....

First of all the USA created chavez and made him the peoples hero with their little attempted coup. If not for the USA's meddling in other countries affairs Chavez would not have had the "I kicked the USA's ass" clout he does today with his people.

Second, WTH did you expect a socialist country to do?

Third the USA is the biggest communist country in the world, the only difference between the USA's form of communism compared to others is that the USA gives cradle to grave benefits to corporations not the people. Your Oil, pharmaceutical and weaponry corporations are the biggest mooching commies on planet earth.

Now I'm a Mexican this means that i'm genetically a, "thief pirate capitalist" But nationalising your countries vital resources is just a smart thing to do.

If you don't believe me now just wait until your paying 7 bucks a gallon at the pump.

reply to post by Amagnon


You do know lots of Venezuela suffers because of Chavez's decisions, don't you? No alternative media, electrical power supply failings, resources to only those he likes.....It is not freedom in that country. Do you get that? So why do you like it that he snubs the U.S.A., a country that is (generally) always trying to be a free country, even though the U.S.A. has it's problems?

[edit on 25-6-2010 by problemsolvr]

reply to post by pirhanna


With all the tax money from the citizens you should expect much from the government! The U.S. government currently does not know how to properly allocate funds correctly. The U.S. Government uses a huge percentage of the total tax money gained to go fight overseas in other countries, while those countries could just use that against the U.S.A. They are playing the U.S.A. for fools. All you have to do is defend the borders, not go into other countries with different ethnic cultures acting like you own that country when you don't even comprehend the culture or religion of the foreign region.


[edit on 25-6-2010 by problemsolvr]