torresD
2005-08-26 19:10:34 UTC
Unlike Exxon/Mobil and the Big Oil fat cats,
who wallow in their record profits while the
rest of us pay,
Chavez is spreading the wealth around.
A dangerous man, indeed.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0825-30.htm
Published on Thursday, August 25, 2005 by the
New York Daily News
Oil Fat Cats vs. Hugo Chavez
by Juan Gonzales
I pulled into the Mobil gas station on 11th Ave.
in Manhattan yesterday for my weekly stickup from
the oil companies.
Their take this time was an astonishing
$3.05 per gallon for premium unleaded.
"Every three or four days the price goes up,"
said Patel, the man in charge of the station.
"Lots of complaints from my customers."
Complaints from everyone except oil executives.
Last year, Exxon/Mobil,
the world's largest corporation,
posted the highest profits of any
company in history -
more than $25 billion.
The oil giant, based in Irving, Tex.,
is on track to shatter that mark this year,
with revenues that now approach $1 billion per day.
Which brings me to Pat
Robertson and Hugo Chavez.
Robertson, the right-wing evangelist
and friend of the Bush family,
publicly called this week for
the U.S. government to kill -
or at least kidnap -
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"This is a dangerous enemy to our south,
controlling a huge pool of oil,
that could hurt us badly," Robertson said.
His less-than-Christian remarks ignited an
outcry and forced him to issue an apology
of sorts,
though he still insisted
that he had at least
"focused our government's
attention on a growing problem."
That "problem," quite simply,
is that Chavez,
a radical populist who has been voted
into office repeatedly by huge majorities
in his own country,
controls the largest reserve of
petroleum outside the Middle East.
Neither Robertson, nor former
oil executives George W. Bush,
Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice,
nor their buddies at Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron, etc., are happy about all this.
Even more scandalous for Big Oil,
Chavez is using Venezuela's windfall
not to fatten his own country's oligarchy
but to benefit the Venezuelan poor and
help neighboring countries.
Yesterday, while Robertson was issuing
his half-baked Chavez clarification,
the Venezuelan president was in Montego Bay,
Jamaica, where he announced a new oil agreement
with that country's prime minister, P.J. Patterson.
Under the agreement,
Venezuela will supply 22,000 barrels
of oil a day to Jamaica for a mere
$40 a barrel.
That's far lower than the current
world price of about $65 a barrel.
With the price of gasoline in that
destitute nation already more than
$3.50 a gallon,
the Chavez plan means more than half
a million dollars a day in savings
for Jamaica on oil imports.
Chavez also announced his government
will provide $60 million in foreign
aid to Jamaica and finance the upgrading
of that country's oil refineries.
The agreement is part of a broader Chavez
plan called Petrocaribe, which he unveiled
at a Caribbean summit in Venezuela last June.
At that conference, Chavez offered the
same kind of deal to the leaders of more
than a dozen other neighboring nations,
including Dominican Republic President
Leonel Fernandez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Fernandez jumped at the offer because
his government is nearly bankrupt from
oil prices.
Last year,
the Dominican Republic spent
$1.2 billion on oil imports;
this year,
it expects to fork
out more than $3 billion.
The price of gasoline in Santo
Domingo has zoomed past $4 a
gallon in recent days.
Pat Robertson looks at Chavez
and sees a devilish danger.
He wants our government to "take him out."
Over at the White House,
Bush and his aides may use
more restrained language,
but their goals are not much different.
But there's a whole different
view down in Latin America,
where a half-dozen nations
have seen liberal and populist
governments swept into office
in recent years.
Down there,
Chavez has become
the new miracle man of oil.
Unlike Exxon/Mobil and the Big Oil fat cats,
who wallow in their record profits while the
rest of us pay,
Chavez is spreading the wealth around.
A dangerous man, indeed.
who wallow in their record profits while the
rest of us pay,
Chavez is spreading the wealth around.
A dangerous man, indeed.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0825-30.htm
Published on Thursday, August 25, 2005 by the
New York Daily News
Oil Fat Cats vs. Hugo Chavez
by Juan Gonzales
I pulled into the Mobil gas station on 11th Ave.
in Manhattan yesterday for my weekly stickup from
the oil companies.
Their take this time was an astonishing
$3.05 per gallon for premium unleaded.
"Every three or four days the price goes up,"
said Patel, the man in charge of the station.
"Lots of complaints from my customers."
Complaints from everyone except oil executives.
Last year, Exxon/Mobil,
the world's largest corporation,
posted the highest profits of any
company in history -
more than $25 billion.
The oil giant, based in Irving, Tex.,
is on track to shatter that mark this year,
with revenues that now approach $1 billion per day.
Which brings me to Pat
Robertson and Hugo Chavez.
Robertson, the right-wing evangelist
and friend of the Bush family,
publicly called this week for
the U.S. government to kill -
or at least kidnap -
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
"This is a dangerous enemy to our south,
controlling a huge pool of oil,
that could hurt us badly," Robertson said.
His less-than-Christian remarks ignited an
outcry and forced him to issue an apology
of sorts,
though he still insisted
that he had at least
"focused our government's
attention on a growing problem."
That "problem," quite simply,
is that Chavez,
a radical populist who has been voted
into office repeatedly by huge majorities
in his own country,
controls the largest reserve of
petroleum outside the Middle East.
Neither Robertson, nor former
oil executives George W. Bush,
Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice,
nor their buddies at Exxon/Mobil,
Chevron, etc., are happy about all this.
Even more scandalous for Big Oil,
Chavez is using Venezuela's windfall
not to fatten his own country's oligarchy
but to benefit the Venezuelan poor and
help neighboring countries.
Yesterday, while Robertson was issuing
his half-baked Chavez clarification,
the Venezuelan president was in Montego Bay,
Jamaica, where he announced a new oil agreement
with that country's prime minister, P.J. Patterson.
Under the agreement,
Venezuela will supply 22,000 barrels
of oil a day to Jamaica for a mere
$40 a barrel.
That's far lower than the current
world price of about $65 a barrel.
With the price of gasoline in that
destitute nation already more than
$3.50 a gallon,
the Chavez plan means more than half
a million dollars a day in savings
for Jamaica on oil imports.
Chavez also announced his government
will provide $60 million in foreign
aid to Jamaica and finance the upgrading
of that country's oil refineries.
The agreement is part of a broader Chavez
plan called Petrocaribe, which he unveiled
at a Caribbean summit in Venezuela last June.
At that conference, Chavez offered the
same kind of deal to the leaders of more
than a dozen other neighboring nations,
including Dominican Republic President
Leonel Fernandez and Cuba's Fidel Castro.
Fernandez jumped at the offer because
his government is nearly bankrupt from
oil prices.
Last year,
the Dominican Republic spent
$1.2 billion on oil imports;
this year,
it expects to fork
out more than $3 billion.
The price of gasoline in Santo
Domingo has zoomed past $4 a
gallon in recent days.
Pat Robertson looks at Chavez
and sees a devilish danger.
He wants our government to "take him out."
Over at the White House,
Bush and his aides may use
more restrained language,
but their goals are not much different.
But there's a whole different
view down in Latin America,
where a half-dozen nations
have seen liberal and populist
governments swept into office
in recent years.
Down there,
Chavez has become
the new miracle man of oil.
Unlike Exxon/Mobil and the Big Oil fat cats,
who wallow in their record profits while the
rest of us pay,
Chavez is spreading the wealth around.
A dangerous man, indeed.