I was Cargo Super on a tanker that haul crude out
of Venezuela, don't belive every thing you read in
U.S. news papers or think you see on TV.
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This is from 2 yrs ago.
VENEZUELA'S CHAVEZ TAKES ON THE US
By Hazel Henderson
IPS COLUMNIST SERVICE, SEPTEMBER 2000
SAINT AUGUSTINE, Sep (IPS) - Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has reinvigorated OPEC and become a hero in much
of the developing world as a spunky new challenger to US global hegemony.
In response, US officials are repeating many of the mistakes that soured their relations with Latin America in the past.
Round One of OPEC vs the US is a clear victory for OPEC, thanks largely to Venezuela, a key player in and founder of the forty- year old oil producers' cartel. For starters, the US is on shaky moral ground in its demands for lower oil prices: it still uses about twice the energy per unit of GNP as Japan and Europe, while generating that much more pollution.
Moreover, in contrast to the political and media scapegoating of the cartel as the villain in the oil price spike, OPEC gets less in real dollars for its oil today at USD 30 per barrel than it did in the 1970s.
Few politicians care to remind US and European voters that the lion's share of consumer oil prices consists of taxes and refinery mark-ups. Less than 40 percent of the price of oil is the cost of the oil itself. It was the refiners playing roulette with their inventories, trying to beat price movements, that caused the short stocks of oil.
The US was especially vulnerable to an oil price hike. Special interests made sure that Congress avoided any legislation to improve auto efficiency and blocked ratification of the Kyoto Accords on reducing climate-changing air pollutants. US energy
efficiency advances have stalled, and the economy remains oil dependent and so vulnerable to inflation and/or recession -- afact the US has blinded itself to by removing oil from the Consumer Price Index.
US policymakers and media have aggravated the situation by demonizing President Chavez -- which assured his continued
overwhelming popular support in the recent Venezuelan election and burnished his image among the majority of the world's developing countries.
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Belive me if there is a strike in Vezezuela, it's
rigged..and Chavez is still very popular.
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We have never had an oil shortage that wasn't
rigged. and the BIG boys like XON, BP,
and RD are always in on it.
Jim |
