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| Home Front: Politix |
| Sometimes Less is More |
| 2017-01-19 |
| The Washington Post tells the interesting story of Trump secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson and Hugo Chavez. "Rex Tillerson hadn't been CEO of ExxonMobil very long when the late president Hugo Chavez made foreign oil companies in Venezuela an offer they couldn't refuse. Give the government a bigger cut, or else." Most of the companies took the deal. Tillerson refused. Chavez responded in 2007 by nationalizing ExxonMobil's considerable assets in the country, which the company valued at $10 billion. The losses were a big blow to Tillerson, who reportedly took the seizure as a personal affront. Only Tillerson didn't get mad, at least in public. He got even. Threatened with a weaponized state Tillerson ceded Chavez the physical ExxonMobil assets and took his company to neighboring Guyana. There it developed one of the largest oil finds in the world. Now Guyana is sitting pretty while Venezuela is in abject misery. |
| Posted by:g(r)omgoru |
| #6 Taking the phone system with them was a blessing to the new government. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2017-01-19 22:05 |
| #5 I seem to recall they took all the operating manuals with them when they left... In 1958, French overseas territories were given a choice. If they approved the new French constitution, they had some options: 1) Continue their then-current status. 2) Move toward full integration with metropolitan France. 3) Become an autonomous republic in the new French Community. If they rejected the new constitution, they would become independent. De Gaulle emphasized that the independent country would not get French economic and financial aid, or technical and administrative support. Guinea rejected the new constitution. The French pulled out and pretty much took everything 'French', down to the telephone system. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2017-01-19 20:28 |
| #4 No wonder the left hates him; to treat poor ole Hugo that way. He must be marginalized! |
| Posted by: Sonny Mussolini4178 2017-01-19 20:20 |
| #3 I seem to recall they took all the operating manuals with them when they left... |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2017-01-19 17:44 |
| #2 Erased all the SCADA drives remotely, did he? Heh. |
| Posted by: KBK 2017-01-19 10:22 |
| #1 True, Guyana does not seem to be the source of much bad news since that People's Temple kool-ade party thing... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2017-01-19 08:53 |