[Abernathy]

a very impressive snatch

FNARR.

[Youngian]

Not as impressive as it looks after all. The CIA and US military have been in Venezuela for a few months negotiating Maduro's removal with rival party hacks who are now running the country with Trump's approval. The early warning systems were turned off when the US transporter planes landed and the army was ordered to stand down.
It appears the only interest the US has is to rebuild Venezuela's ramshackle oil industry.
Yet to have a second reliable source on this crucial point but the shale gas revolution to flatten US energy prices has been a myth for the past decade. Instead the US has been selling its oil reserves to keep prices down. Now they've run out and need another cheap source ASAP.

[Watchman]

I must admit, when I read the amount of oil reserves in Venezuela, I did think, "why isn't it Saudi on steroids"

[Youngian]

Chavez turned the state oil company into his personal piggy bank. Technocrats and business people who warned him of the consequences were ousted and hounded out as deep state traitors undermining him. So no money for reinvestment along with US sanctions which denied the industry vital equipment even if they did have any money to spend.

[Abernathy]

.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Chavez turned the state oil company into his personal piggy bank. Technocrats and business people who warned him of the consequences were ousted and hounded out as deep state traitors undermining him. So no money for reinvestment along with US sanctions which denied the industry vital equipment even if they did have any money to spend.

Worth recalling how some progressives fell hook line and sinker for the Chavez "miracle". There's loads of this stuff from Mark Weisbrot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mic-crisis

Venezuela is not Greece

Given the Venezuelan government's low public and foreign debt, the idea the country is facing an 'economic crisis' is plain wrong

The Soviet Union had low foreign debt and Belgium high foreign debt at the same time, FWIW.

Joseph Stiglitz was another.

[Youngian]

Worth recalling how some progressives fell hook line and sinker for the Chavez "miracle". There's loads of this stuff from Mark Weisbrot.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... mic-crisis

Venezuela is not Greece

Given the Venezuelan government's low public and foreign debt, the idea the country is facing an 'economic crisis' is plain wrong

The Soviet Union had low foreign debt and Belgium high foreign debt at the same time, FWIW.

Joseph Stiglitz was another.

When oil prices plummeted and the shit hit the fan, Corbyn and Livingstone claimed Chavez's mistake was not setting up a sovereign wealth fund like Norway. No mention of this when Chavez was spending like drunk sailor on shore leave.
Tony Benn and Alex Salmond also claimed they would have set up a sovereign wealth fund if they had power over the massive North Sea revenues in the 80s. Forgive me for being sceptical about that one.
I'm trying to think of a British politican who would have been wise enough to have avoided temptation and create such a fund.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Salmond might have done. I haven't done the math(s) but I can imagine that iScotland could have spent what the UK did under the Barnett Formula and a bit more, and started an oil fund. I think it's very unlikely that the UK would have done, and anyway it would have been spread much more thinly, so would anyone have noticed?

There was no Chavez oil fund because, as you say, he fucked up the state oil company.

[Abernathy]

This looks good. I think it basically amounts to : “Draw your fucking horns in, Donald - the USA is part of NATO, remember ?”

[Boiler]

James O'Brien on the future of NATO.

[Youngian]

Don't know how many years it will take Europe to decouple defence from America (this process should have begun in the nineties) but have Britain's political class, from Starmer to Farage, have the will? As they give off the impression that they still live in a world of Atlanticist delusion.

[Boiler]

A lot of people are shrieking "Chuck the Yanks out NOW!" (shades of Dom Mintoff and Malta, which gave a very young me nightmares because I didn't understand the newspaper headlines) but I wonder if they realise - or even care - just what that could do to local economies, at least in the short to medium term? It'd reduce Lakenheath and Mildenhall to ghost towns for starters - Lakenheath is the largest USAF air base in Europe.

[kreuzberger]

Forest Heath voted overwhelmingly to leave in 2016. Karma comes in many guises, including wearing a cheap, plastic MAGA hat.

Fuck them.

[Youngian]

Brandon's a pretty rough looking town anyway.

Its not a question of shouting 'chuck the Yanks out' but post Cold War America rebalancing its interests towards the Asia Pacific region and/or the Americas and choosing to leave Europe.
America now has a problem if it ceases to be an ally to Europe but wants to keep their bases here as geostrategic staging posts. Maybe that is the time to tell the Yanks to fuck off.

[kreuzberger]

... Maybe that is the time to tell the Yanks to fuck off.

Regardless of how reliable this ally might be, Putin would be delighted.

[Boiler]

US discussing options to acquire Greenland, including use of military, says White House

[Boiler]

Oh, this'll be "fun".

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy ... 026-01-07/

WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The United States is attempting to seize a Russian-flagged oil tanker with links to Venezuela after a more than two-week-long pursuit across the Atlantic and as a Russian submarine and warship were close by, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Wednesday.
The seizure, which could stoke tensions with Russia, came after the tanker, originally known as the Bella-1, slipped through a U.S. maritime "blockade" of sanctioned tankers and rebuffed U.S. Coast Guard efforts to board it.

[kreuzberger]

He's been at it for weeks now, and he still hasn't bombed Kiribati. (Yet.)

[Boiler]

What more will it take before someone fits him with a beautiful jacket - the best jacket, everyone tells me so - where the sleeves are tied up round the back?

[Boiler]

Trump actively discussing potentially buying Greenland, White House says

And if they do, what of the native people on that island?

For fuck's sake...