Petro-Terrorism is Alive and Well

A friend from childhood is a professional in Venezuela. He has participated in protests against the Nicolas Maduro regime. He’s hiding now because kidnapping Nicolas Maduro in a country of 30 million people still leaves options for the oppressors. It’s hard to judge the extent or efficiency of their police state.

We’ve recently heard from our friend and he is safe. His complaints with the socialist government were empty store shelves, very rare gasoline (he had to walk or ride a bike anywhere), and general lack of a bill of rights (dictatorship).

I hope a lot of serious dialogue results from the kidnapping because so many of these issues are very consequential for us.

Gas and diesel prices have plummeted here lately. Trump will probably claim to have ordered it, but supply and demand probably has something to do with it. Business is not good. Costs are high and almost everyone is living paycheck to paycheck. People are spending less and driving less.

Venezuela’s socialist system doesn’t exactly inspire a vigorous work ethic. Imagine sitting on the largest oil reserves on earth and having gas shortages. You could claim that capitalist monsters sabotaged Venezuela's refining business, but the market always wins in the end. A free market would have found a way to protect that business. A centrally planned market doesn’t know what to do.

The Venezuelan oil industry simply relied on the government to protect them. But if everybody owns it, nobody owns it. The Chinese industrial espionage targeting plant genetics here and air travel security comes to mind. The owner always takes better care of their own property. Besides that, is it moral to burden someone else with costs that bring no benefit to them?

Before the socialists gained power in Venezuela, it was the most prosperous country in Latin America. Once the idea of government coerced income took hold and Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez was elected, it was off to the races, to the poverty that always results from the denial of human nature dictated by socialist policies.

As long as we are discussing economic systems we shouldn’t leave out fascism. As one of the Axis Powers in World War II, Italy’s Benito Mussolini founded the National Fascist Party. It was characterized by private ownership of the means of production but government control of it. Whereas socialism has “the people” owning everything collectively.

Venezuela had not sold any oil for dollars for years. They used several other nations' currency in an attempt to deny US dollars as the world’s reserve currency.

Much of the world’s trade has shifted away from dollars because manipulation of the dollar to create an illusion of US prosperity has made it unreliable. Rising prices (dollar debasement through increased supply) are evident all around us. But nowhere is the tanking dollar more evident than in precious metals. Gold (which is what the dollar should be pegged to) is up 68% in a year. Silver is up150%.

In other words our dollars are worth 68 to 150 percent less and it is a tax, every bit as much as tariffs are a tax. These taxes and the taxes that are called taxes are still not enough to finance empire. So US businessmen are now touring oil facilities in Venezuela. I bet the security for those guys would make any Tom Cruise movie look like Garth and Wayne.

We’ve backed coup d’etats in 16 Latin American countries. Now these John Wayne types are all over puffing out their chests, “We got another two-bit dictator!” No Iowa lawmaker has condemned this obviously unconstitutional act. “Look at me. I can break the law! Ain’t I cool?” These are grown-ups, educated, probably church-goers.

I grant that these dictators were probably power hungry and relentless. My friend in Venezuela is justly rejoicing in Maduro’s “capture”. I wish we could count on the government going around making everything fair. But remember those guys touring the oilfields. That’s not free market capitalism. That’s fascism. Long term disasters have followed every regime we’ve installed down there.

We are blessed to live in a country where we are free to travel and promote change. But those businessmen who do should bear their own costs.

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