Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

Closer? I would say that Venezuela is already a narco state, I mean, there a literal drug lord working with the government

Edited by KazuyaProta on Apr 17th 2019 at 10:55:38 AM

Wikipedia's page on Narco-state

Huh, someone did decide to add Venezuela to that list after all.

Fun fact: the British Empire was apparently the first known narco-state what with the Opium Wars.

Stay classy Brits

Maduro's already ordering a recruitment drive to the militia.

I swear sometimes it feels like Maduro and co have decided that the best way to discredit their opposition is to act in such a way that a factual account of what they're up to sounds like one of Cobra Commander's schemes in an episode of GI Joe.

Meanwhile, the vulture (funds) are circling Venezuela and PDVSA:

Creditors are coming for Venezuela's assets

Essentially, one of Venezuela's creditors, the bankrupt Canadian gold miner Crystallex backed by hedge fund Tenor Capital (the vulture fund thing wasn't entirely a joke on my part — hedge funds are called "vulture" funds for good reason) wants the hundreds of millions of dollars Venezuela still owes them. Their strategy to get their money back is to prove in court that the state-owned PDVSA is so intertwined with the Venezuelan government that it's effectively an "alter-ego" of the Venezuelan government. If they pull it off, it'd be open season on PDVSA's assets (including the ones in the USA such as Citgo shares).

Note that the title says creditors. As in plural. The rest of Venezuela's creditors also want their money back, and are waiting for the results of this strategy. The vultures are circling.

So far it looks like Crystallex's arguments are working, meaning a ruling in their favor might actually happen.

And if that happens...PDVSA is fucked.

Or it gets thrown out because PDVSA is entwined close enough to the Venzuelan government that diplomatic immunity applies. I've seen investors in other bankrupt countries encountering this issue.

Yeah, I think the article brings up that possibility too.

In fact, it says that a lot of the assets in question already fall under DI. So I suspect that the impact on Venezuela might be much less than expected. Assuming that they don't have assets outside of the US, of course - what an US court says does not necessarily mean any other polity has to follow it.

OTOH, PDVSA is already in not great shape. So losing any assets to pay off Venezuela's debt might have serious consequences.

I see I've been missing things.

As flattering as it is, I gotta agree that relying on one single person's perspective is generally not a good idea, ultimately I'm just another human being who can be and often is wrong.

I had more to say on the matter but I'm stuck using a phone for the time being.

Exclusive: Venezuela skirts U.S. sanctions by funneling oil sales via Russia

https://reut.rs/2IpEu6o

Not surprised by this at all.

It's not exclusive to Venezuela, but this sort of thing is why sanctions pretty much never achieve what the people who impose them want to.

At their best they're the 'thoughts and prayers' of international politics: Something meaningless that those who don't want to put effort into affecting actual change do in order to make it seem like they're not just doing nothing.

At their worst they're kicking someone when they're already down, usually everyone but the leadership of the country that the sanctions are imposed on and supposed to affect.

And above all when you impose economic sanctions, all you're really doing is force the people you're sanctioning to focus more on trading with those who won't respect your sanctions, usually your enemies.

And the Kremlin continues to try to expand its military presence in Venezuela. This time by sending riot gear there on a warship.

Russia Wanted To Load Riot Gear On Venezuela-Bound Warship In Malta

This is why it's a bad idea to "ally" with the Kremlin (or the CCP for that matter). They are even less good faith allies than other nations.

Edited by M84 on Apr 19th 2019 at 2:39:30 AM

The fact that this article is on oilprice.com feels like a personal attack. (That's sardonic. I'm joking.)

I wonder how long it will take for Russia to send a shipment of 'construction equipment' and the 'agricultural specialists' to assemble and calibrate them.

Robrech is somewhat right about ationalization being used as way to stop the favoruite treatment of internacional companies and so own, but the problem was that.....well, simple chavez double down on the mistake caldera and other made before in using oil as source of economic panacea, in part help by is populist rethoric that doing so was "taking oil back to the people", in short, the same paradox of prosperity.

Basically, he threw oil to stop the fire.

The oil analogy obviously international.

'Operation Blackout is underway': Russia blames US for Venezuela power crisis

Somehow, the Kremlin backing this theory doesn't make me inclined to believe it.

Pretty much, in US term is kinda trump double down on everything bad he said the other did.

"It's fine when I do it"

Juan Guaido is leading a military uprising against the incumbent regime, with a number of soldiers standing besides him. My country's news sources have gone as far as to call it a coup attempt. I don't have much hope, like always, but we shall see.

Yeah. It's all a massive wait and see.

This was so...sudden?

Myself, I find it rather difficult to call this a coup.

Evicting the previous tenant who has refused to leave even after the landlord sent notice of the eviction weeks ago, more like.

Not really sure how to feel about this tbh. I'm curious what our Venezuelan posters think about this development.