Trump's "Coalition of the Willing" Against Venezuela Has Legitimacy Issues of Their Own

[Miguel M]

[2naSalit]

1. Ya think?

Never forget, the School of the Americas, a militia training school for maintaining banana republics in the southern latitudes is still in business. Like, where do you think Elliot Abrahms and his ilk have been hiding all this time?

[Iliyah]

2. t-rump and the GOP are eying the "oil" . . .

They don't give a shit about the country nor her people. The Venezuelan people are in deep trouble. Blackouts are intentional. The people of Venezuela have endure ongoing nightmares.

[GatoGordo]

3. Two things

1. Venezuelan oil is shit. Its thick and sulfurous (aka "heavy sour" ). It takes a lot of effort ($$$) to get it out of the ground (high lift costs). It takes diluants (Venezuela must import) to get it ready to be pumped and that is before it even gets to a refinery. As opposed to just pumping it out of the Bakken oilfields in the United States and Canada.

2. Venezuela has a daily output of about 1 million barrels per day. That is 1/3 the output of 20 years ago. The last time that Venezuela pumped less than 1mbd was 70 years ago. Result? It would take $60 billion to get PdVSA back up to where it was 20 years ago. No one is going to invest that kind of money in Venezuela unless they felt it was safe.

Know also that Venezuela is on the hook to various mining and oil companies after Chavez nationalized them. (Conoco Phillips, Crystallex). Maduro and the Chavistas can't pay its oil shippers the $15 million it owes them to move their oil... I doubt the $8 BILLION they owe to Conoco is high on their agenda.

The oil angle in Venezuela is a red herring.

The current blackout (day 4) is possibly intentional. Someone posted a Tweet last week that the Castroists were up to some sort of nationwide infrastructure electrical/internet shenanigans. Three days later? Entire country without power. Hmmm.... But, Venezuela has been suffering rolling blackouts for years due to neglect.