Can You Feel The Bern?

By Rich Kozlovich

An article by Nicholas Casey and Clifford Krauss entitled "How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela?" notes Venezuela, having one of the world's great repository of crude oil,   is buying U.S. oil.  The country is a socialist mess.  The authors note:

"One oil rig was idle for weeks because a single piece of equipment was missing. Another was attacked by armed gangs who made off with all they could carry. Many oil workers say they are paid so little that they barely eat and have to keep watch over one another in case they faint while high up on the rigs. Venezuela’s petroleum industry, whose vast revenues once fueled the country’s Socialist-inspired revolution, underwriting everything from housing to education, is spiraling into disarray.  To add insult to injury, the Venezuelan government has been forced to turn to its nemesis, the United States, for help.  “You call them the empire,” said Luis Centeno, a union leader for the oil workers, referring to what government officials call the United States, “and yet you’re buying their oil.”

They're broke, but why, and how did this come into being? 

The author says they poured the profits from Venezuela's oil - " more than $250 billion in all from 2001 to 2015 - into the country’s social programs, including food imports".  Really?  That's where all the money went?  So how did Hugo Chávez 's daughter become a billionaire without ever having worked? 

Huge amounts of that money was leeched off to the ruling socialist elite, just as was done in Nicaragua by Daniel Ortega, who hypocritically "rails against the evils of "savage capitalism", however the reality is that he owns and manages multi-million dollar business ventures providing him with a personal wealth of more than $50 million. For a man of humble beginnings from a poor country like Nicaragua, this is quite a fortune."  Where did that money come from?  Certainly not his salary as the tyrant of Nicaragua. 

But beyond the incompetence and corruption of these "egalitarian" socialists, the real reason their oil production has plummeted is simple, Venezuelan oil is neither light or sweet.  It's "viscous and thick with contaminants that only a handful of refineries anywhere in the world can process......Almost all of those refineries are on the Gulf Coast of the United States."  But fracking oil is not only light and sweet.....it's ultra light and ultra sweet.  The world is turning to fracking and they don't need Venezuelan oil....and possibly in the near future......at any price.  Venezuela may become the only major energy producer in the history of the world to be a producer without a market. 

Here's the best part. 


Because of the Geography of South America and the lack of transportational development, Venezuela is largly isolated from their neghbors to the South.  Their only economic hope lies to the North.....to the U.S.....and they desparately need to repair their relationship with the U.S. because time's running for the people of Venezuela.  They're starving to death.   I'm sure they're feeling the Bern.

What I would like to know is where are all the rich elitist Hollywood lefties who praised Hugo Chavez and his revolution.  Where for that matter is Bernie Sanders....oh....I know.....he's at his newly purchased $600,000 dollar home. 

Hmmmmm....where did all that money come from?  Why didn't he - as an ardant anti-capitalist - give it to Venezuela to help the poor starving people there?  Oh....I know the answer to that one too.  Leftist elites in capitalist nations only believe in giving other people's money to the poor...not their own.