paulitician
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- Oct 7, 2011
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This title could just as easily read, 'The Cost Of America's Crony Socialism.'
A recent Al Jazeera report suggests that one of the main culprits for the recent rash of spills by Venezuela's state oil company is the decision by Hugo Chavez in 2002 to hand 18,000 jobs to party loyalists. Call it crony socialism.
In the case of the most recent spill, the state oil company claimed the pipeline break was the result of "sabotage," but the locals weren't buying that excuse:
"We don't share the view that it was sabotage," Sair Martìnez, governor of the indigenous community of Tascabaña I, was quoted as saying in newspaper El Nacional...
Lawmaker Omar González Moreno visited with [secretary general of Venezuela's Oil Workers Federation José] Bodas to show that the pipelines included were "deteriorating" and "there was no maintenance on them for years" and the accusation that they were purposefully attacked is a "means to try to hide the inefficiency in the oil industry." He added that there were 12 oil spills between January 2011 and February 2012 in Anzoátegui.
Venezuela's oil company was sanctioned by the Obama administration for it's contacts with Iran in May 2011, but many observers considered the sanctions toothless. Reuters described them as "the least severe of a range of options available to Washington." Forbes called them "silly" and suggested they were counter-productive.
The Cost of Venezuela's Crony Socialism
A recent Al Jazeera report suggests that one of the main culprits for the recent rash of spills by Venezuela's state oil company is the decision by Hugo Chavez in 2002 to hand 18,000 jobs to party loyalists. Call it crony socialism.
In the case of the most recent spill, the state oil company claimed the pipeline break was the result of "sabotage," but the locals weren't buying that excuse:
"We don't share the view that it was sabotage," Sair Martìnez, governor of the indigenous community of Tascabaña I, was quoted as saying in newspaper El Nacional...
Lawmaker Omar González Moreno visited with [secretary general of Venezuela's Oil Workers Federation José] Bodas to show that the pipelines included were "deteriorating" and "there was no maintenance on them for years" and the accusation that they were purposefully attacked is a "means to try to hide the inefficiency in the oil industry." He added that there were 12 oil spills between January 2011 and February 2012 in Anzoátegui.
Venezuela's oil company was sanctioned by the Obama administration for it's contacts with Iran in May 2011, but many observers considered the sanctions toothless. Reuters described them as "the least severe of a range of options available to Washington." Forbes called them "silly" and suggested they were counter-productive.
The Cost of Venezuela's Crony Socialism