No more free Chavez oil

[Tempest]

Quote:
CARACAS — Venezuela's state oil company is suspending a much-promoted program that provided free heating oil to hundreds of thousands of poor people throughout the U.S., the company announced Monday.

The program has been a public relations bonanza for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist who frequently attacks capitalism and the U.S. Chavez repeatedly has tweaked the noses of U.S. policy makers by saying the program shows that he's a good friend of America's poor.

Venezuela is halting the program at least temporarily because the sharp drop in oil prices is forcing the country to reduce government spending, the firm said in a statement from Citizens Energy Corp., a Boston-based nonprofit that's managed the program in the U.S.

Quote:
Whitewolf said that most households in 2008 got 100 gallons of propane, worth about $260. That covered about a month's heating bill, she said.

"We'll have to refer people now to churches and other organizations," she said.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/59027.html
So he is going to cut the program because he is running out of money. How very capitalist of him.

 

[Johnny]

They changed their minds and decided to keep the program.

 

[Tempest]

So he did:
Quote:
Venezuela's Citgo Petroleum Corp. announced the aid program would continue on Wednesday, just two days after its partner nonprofit group, Boston-based Citizens Energy, said Citgo had halted the free fuel shipments due to the world economic crisis.

"Chavez decided that it was a mistake," said Larry Birns, director of the Washington-based Council on Hemispheric Affairs. He said Citgo officials probably recommended the cost-saving measure to Chavez in the first place, but the impact may not have sunk in until the president saw the reaction.

He then "began to understand that the cutbacks of the U.S. program were very damaging in terms of image," Birns said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090108/ap_on_bi_ge/lt_venezuela_us_heating_oil
Now he is making decisions with his people's money based on his image...

 

[Shannow]

Is he up to $100T yet ?

 

[Win]

He decided to reinstate the program.

One of the many nice things about the complete collapse of crude oil prices is its potential to bankrupt Venezuela and Iran.

Unfortunately, it will also probably bankrupt anyone who put money into alternate energy production.

As it always does ...

 

[Tempest]

It burned Exxon bad in the early 80's.

And people wonder why they don't sink a bunch of money into "renewables".

 

[Shannow]

Because renewables are energy production, while fossils are energy mining.

Digging up energy is simply too cheap. Take away oil's free ride, and lots of things become realistic.

 

[Gary Allan]

Now he is making decisions with his people's money based on his image...

So he is going to cut the program because he is running out of money. How very capitalist of him.


Are there anymore lose:lose scenarios that you can pull out of it?

He's a louse for providing for his poor ..and he's a louse when he can't afford to do it ..and a louse when he does it again.

Wouldn't be all much simpler to say he's a louse?

 

[Steve S]

Dictators these days !

 

[Samilcar]

It's getting to be so you can't even depend on third world thugs anymore. Sheesh!

I'd rather freeze in the dark than accept a handout from Hugo.

 

[Tempest]

Quote:
He's a louse for providing for his poor

He provides?
Quote:
Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.

Mr. Chávez, whose leftist populism remains highly popular among Venezuela’s poor and working classes, seemed unfazed by criticism of his policies. Appearing live on national television, he called for the creation of “committees of social control,” essentially groups of his political supporters whose purpose would be to report on farmers, ranchers, supermarket owners and street vendors who circumvent the state’s effort to control food prices.

Quote:
The economy grew by more than 10 percent last year, helping Mr. Chávez glide to a re-election victory in December with 63 percent of the vote. Yet economists who have worked with Mr. Chávez’s government say that soaring public spending is overheating Venezuela’s economy, generating imbalances in the distribution of products from sugar to basic construction materials like wallboard.

Public spending grew last year by more than 50 percent and has more than doubled since the start of 2004, as Mr. Chávez has channeled oil revenues into social programs and projects like bridges, highways, trains, subways, museums and, in a departure for a country where baseball reigns supreme, soccer stadiums.

In an indicator of concern with Mr. Chávez’s economic policies, which included nationalizing companies in the telephone and electricity industries, foreign direct investment was negative in the first nine months of 2006. The last year Venezuela had a net investment outflow was in 1986.

Shortages of basic foods have been sporadic since the government strengthened price controls in 2003 after a debilitating strike by oil workers. But in recent weeks, the scarcity of items like meat and chicken has led to a panicked reaction by federal authorities as they try to understand how such shortages could develop in a seemingly flourishing economy.

Entering a supermarket here is a bizarre experience. Shelves are fully stocked with Scotch whiskey, Argentine wines and imported cheeses like brie and Camembert, but basic staples like black beans and desirable cuts of beef like sirloin are often absent. Customers, even those in the government’s own Mercal chain of subsidized grocery stores, are left with choices like pork neck bones, rabbit and unusual cuts of lamb.

Quote:
There are competent people in the government who know that Chávez needs to lower spending if he wants to defeat these problems,” Mr. Rodríguez said. “But there are few people in positions of power who are willing to risk telling him what he needs to hear.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/17/world/americas/17venezuela.html?pagewanted=print
But hey, government knows best.

That article is a perfect example of what happens when government steps in and starts to run the economy. We are going to have to get used to it.

 

[Win]

"Mr." Chavez and Mr. Achmacantspellhisname are going to have a tough time of things for quite some time to come.

Despite the OPEC cuts and a war in the Middle East, it looks like there is simply no market for crude past the upper thirties to low forties / bbl.

Too bad, so sad.

 

[Tempest]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Because renewables are energy production, while fossils are energy mining.

Digging up energy is simply too cheap. Take away oil's free ride, and lots of things become realistic.

Imagine what steel and aluminum would cost if we had to synthesize them from their subatomic parts.

And that big sun in the sky that gives free energy to plants so that we don't have to provide them artificial light...

If only we had to pay for the "real" cost of making food and oxygen, we might appreciate them more.

We are being "subsidized" by nature in other areas as well.

 

[Shannow]

Tempest,
as usual, you take off on a ridiculous tangent.

Steel and aluminium ARE undervalued, finite resources.

The fact that I went to the dump yesterday (to recycle a christmas tree into mulch) and saw saw much steel and aluminium thrown out demonstrates that like fossil fuels, the market does not reflect the fact that the resources (and currently energy) required to make them will one day run out, and become increasingly hard to find/mine/process.

Digging up fossil fuels is exactly the same as Government borrowing.

Some stage we are going to have to live within our means.

 

[Tempest]

The examples I cite are perfectly in line with your statement. You want us to synthesize something that is freely available in nature. Using the available resources that we have only makes sense.

What makes no sense to me is purposely using something that costs more and is less efficient. Ethanol is the perfect example. It's renewable, but there are lots of other things that it effects.

Are higher food prices and diverted resources (subsidies) worth renewable fuel for our cars?
These are the things that happen in central planning and are the same consequences in the article above.

If steel and aluminum is undervalued, how much more should they cost? 10%? 30%? 50%?

 

[Shannow]

They should cost to the point that they get recycled.

What's the worth of the resource in the ground, when one day we will run out ?

You don't want our children paying taxes for today's waste and excess, why would you want them running out of resources ?

 

[Steve S]

I wonder about things , is the free world waging an economical war against the oil rich countries and China?

 

[Steve S]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
They should cost to the point that they get recycled.

What's the worth of the resource in the ground, when one day we will run out ?

You don't want our children paying taxes for today's waste and excess, why would you want them running out of resources ?
We will remine the dumps when needed.

The worth of anything will always be the cost of mining and processing and the demand.

Look at how our governments blow through free money as it is .The USA is so in debt that IMO we are in big trouble.

 

[Steve S]

Aluminum is one of the most abundant minerals on earth .There is plenty of steel that is why it is [undervalued]

 

[Shannow]

Yep, plenty of aluminium oxide...just huge energy investment to get it out of oxide state, with far lower energy requirement to recycle.

Once again, energy too cheap.