Oil driven

Mr Chavez is spending this on building infrastructure and increasing the minimum wage and improving health and education in the poor ranchos which surround the cities. He has also spent some of the dollars which have come in from the US to support Fidel Castro in Cuba. In return Cuba has supplied the thousands of doctors and teachers who are transforming conditions in the barrios of Caracas.
The rich are another matter, however. They’re not used to sharing with the poor, especially in Venezuela. So Chavez’s form of socialism to distribute the wealth a little more equitably is certainly not a hit.
They’re worried that they’re going to have to give up most or all of their wealth. Global oil production curve is simply a composite of the contributions of individual nation.The last time this happened, in 1973, it allowed them to trigger a world oil crisis. Still, if there is a major supply disruption, the world will have to get by with less oil, and the only way that can happen in the short run is if there is a world economic slowdown.
But there is a problem, he supplies almost 15 percent of America’s oil. Up to $200m a day - half of it from the US - is flooding into Caracas. So America can’t do much against him publicly, but I imagine they have plenty of people there stirring things up clandestinely, trying to convince his own people to overthrow him. That’s a very well-practiced ploy of the CIA, one which has worked for them time and time again when it came to getting rid of people and regimes they didn’t like, so you can’t tell me they’re not at it again.
An oil-driven recession does not look at all far-fetched. So is Venezuelan next? Bush was itching to attack Iraq, so he put the mother of all deceptions across on people with his phony "weapons of mass destruction" story and the result has been more than 2,100 Americans killed and 16,000 wounded “so far” as well as tens of thousands of Iraqis killed or wounded.

Ted Rudow III,MA