Chávez’s Vision Shares Wealth and Centers Power - New York Times

Chavez is a wily leader. He proposes changes in the Venezuelan constitution that would give him the possibility of becoming president-for-life, among other things. All this seems to be happening in a popular vote. He is able to do this because of the high price of oil and the revenues that flow from the vast reserves in and around lake Maracaibo. The NY Times Magazine piece describes in detail the rape of the Venezuelan oil company to pay for Chavez's 'buying' of the people without the needed investment to keep the oil flowing.

Unfortunately, with friends like Iran and the need for oil in China and India, he may likely have the markets for oil and refined products (Iran imports gasoline; Venezuela owns Citgo), but without the continued investment in the oil infrastructure, Chavez and his cronies may soon find that the oil revenues cannot sustain the economy and social giveaways that he promises. Nevertheless, Venezuela is the fourth largest supplier of imported petroleum to the United States.

What would be our response if the spigot from our fourth largest supplier were closed?

I fear we have some painful times ahead in the next two decades with Venezuela.

“There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way,” said Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Mr. Chávez who broke with him in a stunning defection this month to the political opposition. “This is not a reform,” General Baduel said in an interview here this week. “I categorize it as a coup d’état.”

Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries. Soon they could control even more.

But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While opinion polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest that the referendum could be Mr. Chávez’s closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he may well win.

Total Imports of Petroleum[all products, not only crude oil] (Top 15 Countries)
(Thousand Barrels per Day)

Country	Sep-07	Aug-07	YTD 2007	Sep-06	Jan - Sep 2006
CANADA	2,467	2,510	2,430	2,340	2,330
SAUDI ARABIA	1,560	1,499	1,462	1,564	1,465
MEXICO	1,429	1,474	1,563	1,569	1,763
VENEZUELA	1,325	1,330	1,353	1,386	1,458
NIGERIA	1,181	1,208	1,085	1,078	1,138
ALGERIA	701	827	732	796	660
IRAQ	603	520	494	655	572
ANGOLA	591	412	544	678	526
VIRGIN ISLANDS	381	320	332	396	324
RUSSIA	348	416	409	537	385
ECUADOR	239	240	205	326	280
BRAZIL	232	280	218	191	194
COLOMBIA	186	175	148	185	178
UNITED KINGDOM	185	174	289	239	290
KUWAIT	163	139	191	227	172

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Nov. 14, 2007

---

Chávez’s Vision Shares Wealth and Centers Power - New York Times