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How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

nytimes.com

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Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#101

Post by tloble »

mikeash wrote: post #88
metaphorm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you don't get it? This stuff pops up because some of the community here are ideologues trying to score "points" off of this, regardless of whether or not it is appropriate of the situation being discussed. Any excuse to push for more tax cuts.

I guess I either assume they're sincere, or if not then they should at least be aware enough to realize that it's a bad argument. I realize this assumption may not be very well supported, but it can be hard to adjust.

Propaganda doesn't have to be a good argument.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#102

Post by MrZongle2 »

metaphorm wrote: post #63
nnq wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sincere question: HOW? I mean, even if we assume a socialist economy is terribly inefficient, like operating at 50% of the efficiency a capitalist one, it still should be enough for sustaining a resource-rich country. WTF they are doing so wrong?! Are they under intense internal or external sabotage? Corruption is so bad? I mean, this is not some mid-African country with >50% of the population illiterate, bunch of ho…

> A country like Venezuela should "kind of work" even with corruption and inefficient socialism! What the heck is going on there? its not just a little corruption. it's absolutely stunning batshit off the charts rampant corruption.

"Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of corruption in a socialist country. Based on this latest report, it would be a Twinkie thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds."

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#103

Post by rdiddly »

cobbzilla wrote: post #72

Curious American asking any Venezuelans out there: how does this situation get any better? What do you look to for hope? I'm not familiar with the Venezuelan media perspective (any non-state-affiliated stations left?), but from here, it seems like there is no serious effort to change course; on the contrary Maduro seems to be driving ahead with the notion that, somehow, more of the poison will cure the patient. When…

Yes, living in the USA does make one sympathetic to other nations living under state-controlled media, with an incompetent government obdurately dragging everyone down a self-destructive and delusional path.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#104

Post by tloble »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #94
metaphorm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you don't get it? This stuff pops up because some of the community here are ideologues trying to score "points" off of this, regardless of whether or not it is appropriate of the situation being discussed. Any excuse to push for more tax cuts.

Yes points. And perhaps there's a larger discussion about what the role of the federal government should be is now discussed in our daily lives, not just hacker news, with such topics as student aid debt forgiveness, basic income, mandatory health care, etc. And also maybe it's an example how power can be purchased with social programs. Also points. Gotta get those points. I hear someday I'll be able to cash them in…

Let's not pretend you tried to make a well-researched and honest argument. The whole point of your comment was bullshit propaganda.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#105

Post by davidivadavid »

tptacek wrote: post #27
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Socialists. I really was getting tired of hearing from the usual anti-US types on how wonderful Venezuela was back in the early 2000s and how Chavez stands up to the US and such, meanwhile it was led by what was pretty much a strongman with socialist policies and industry nationalization that quickly destroyed their wealthy oil-rich country. Now we're selling them oil so they don't starve in the streets. Curious to s…

Everyone sees their own ideological nemeses in the HN user base, which is both a sign that things are working well, and a reason for us all to avoid ideologically-charged political discussions as much as we can. I promise, the "anti-US left" sees HN as stuffed to the gills full of US apologists as well.

Everyone's certainly prone to confirmation bias, but some information about the real numbers would be interesting.

Has no one yet developed a super duper machine-learning-based sentiment analysis system that could give us a more precise answer about HN's political leanings?

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#106

Post by abysmallyideal »

alphydan wrote: post #98

How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich USA? It’s Buying oil from all over the world! in 2015, the USA imported 9,400,000 barrels every day from 82 countries (Mostly from Canada, Saudi Arabia and ... surprise, surprise from Venezuela). Now the NYT thinks that Venezuela importing 50,000 barrels of light crude (to dilute their heavy crude) is news? They forgot to mention that last year the US imported 830,000 barrels from Venezuela (t…

The US is hot on the plan to burn all of the world's fossil fuels and natural gasses before anyone else does. Some old strategy from ww2.

Edit: my android autocorrect is altering my posts

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#107

Post by Animats »

dghughes wrote: post #79
cheald wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Venezuelan oil tends to be very heavy and needs to be mixed with light crude for refinement. It does have its own light reserves, but they've driven the oil industry into the ground and are unable to produce enough light crude to refine their heavy crude production.

I think very heavy is an understatement you could probably call it soft pitch. Alberta tar sands is similar, thick crude oil mixed with sand, but I don't think it's anywhere near as thick as the oil in Venezuela.

What comes out of the Alberta tar sands is basically asphalt. It has to go through an "upgrader" before it can go into a pipeline. This is an "upgrader"[1]

[1] http://jirirezac.photoshelter.com/image/I0000y08u1qUWSHA

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#108

Post by kilroy123 »

cobbzilla wrote: post #72

Curious American asking any Venezuelans out there: how does this situation get any better? What do you look to for hope? I'm not familiar with the Venezuelan media perspective (any non-state-affiliated stations left?), but from here, it seems like there is no serious effort to change course; on the contrary Maduro seems to be driving ahead with the notion that, somehow, more of the poison will cure the patient. When…

Not a Venezuelan, but I've talked to a few Venezuelans in person, recently, about this. (Down in Latin America) They seem to feel very hopeless, and don't expect any change, any time soon.

I ask why they don't do anything about it. They seem to think, there is nothing they can do.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#109

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jimmywanger wrote: post #83

Currency controls and price controls and government nationalization have destroyed Venezuela. Currency controls: there's a 1:10 exchange rate, dollars to bolivars, for essential imports, like food, medicine, etc. The black market exchange rate is about 1:1010. To get the good rate, you need connections. But hey, it's a pain in the ass to actually contact suppliers and get goods through customs, and you're capped at w…

Bingo. Too many people equate socialism with safety nets and draw the wrong conclusions from either.

Socialism traditionally means that the state - composed of the people, one assumes - owns the means of production. This does not mean that safety nets are assured or can even be sustained if the profits are insufficient.

A safety net can exist independent of government control/ownership of industry. Just take a bit out of everybody's paycheck and BAM! Universal healthcare.

It is clear to anyone with a basic understanding of economics and history that the private market allocates resources more efficiently and creates more wealth than central planning. There are times that the government steps in to fix market failures or areas without sufficient private investment (acid rain regulations and the interstate highway system), but that doesn't mean letting the government step in is an inevitable path towards Leninism.

It simply makes more sense to tax the profits of the private sector than to step in, say you can do it better, and route the profits directly to the social safety net without cannibalizing the business in the first place.

Re: How Bad Off Is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil

#110

Post by civilian »

metaphorm wrote: post #68
civilian wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna blame it on communism. It's not that they don't know how to produce oil. It's that the oil company has been so heavily mismanaged and used for political purposes that it has become extremely inefficient. http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21607824-venezuelas-l... > IN 2003 Venezuela’s then president, Hugo Chávez, fired more than 18,000 employees, almost half the workforce, of the state-run oil corporati…

your answer is on target but you're wrong to "blame it on communism." that has nothing to do with communism or any other abstract theory of political economy. that is an explicit example of incompetent authoritarian rule by an unhinged despot with no checks on his power.

Communism is tied to state-run monopolies of companies. Yes, the main fault was an incompetent authoritarian rule, but it wouldn't have been possible if the oil company hadn't be nationalized.

If Venezuela has an incompetent authoritarian rule, but had a free market for oil companies and didn't harass the employees of oil companies? Then they'd still be drilling with a state-of-the-art technology & workforce today.

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