 Venezuela's president chairing the petroleum summit in Cuba has called on regional leaders to counter US influences by offering cheap oil.
| Hugo regards oil as easy money. Need becomes a weapon and an instrument of state. His problem is that most of the other oil producing nations have memories that stretch back to the oil embargo and the pressures it put on international trade overall -- in areas way out of the oil sphere. Hugo's not subtle enough to realize that the hip bone's connected to the leg bone. |
Hugo Chavez requested other countries to use their vast reserves to help create a "confederation of republics" free of US interests.
| This is Iran Press, so I'm assuming the Medes and the Persians were there. I'm also guessing the Soddies and the Iraqis and the other major producers weren't. |
Chavez spoke as leaders studied the Petrocaribe pact under which his country provides fuel to countries around the region through long-term, low-interest financing. Chavez blasted Washington's proposals for free trade pacts. "Free trade doesn't exist," he said. "What exists ... is a dictatorship of world capitalism." He said Petrocaribe is based on fairness and promoting social equality - not profit margins.
| In other words, as the steward of his country's wealth, Hugo wants to blow it on a Porsche, some bling, and some natty suits. That "dictatorship of world capitalism" has somehow provided the "long-term, low-interest financing" that's been raked off by dinky doinker tin hat dictators like Hugo would be if he wasn't sitting on top of a puddle of oil. The money flowed in, and the powers that were bought yachts. The guys living in the hovels still have hovels. |
Venezuela provides about USD 5b to countries in the region, according to Chavez, who promotes Petrocaribe as part of a larger effort to create a regional confederation from Argentina to Cuba that will help counter US influence.
| Certainly all of South America has the potential to form a counterweight to all of North America. The problem with that has been from the very first Bolivarian days that they've been suspicious of the "dictatorship of world capitalism," preferring instead the dictatorship of men on horseback. At the beginning of the 20th century, in fact, there was an approximate parity between the ABC countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile) and the USA. As each of them went down that long, weary road of dictatorship they were left behind. |
Venezuela sends nearly 100,000 barrels of subsidized oil a day to Cuba.
| So why would Cuba need subsidized oil? Couldn't have anything to do with their economy and their approaches thereto, could it? |
In exchange, it gets social services, including thousands of Cuban doctors who treat poor patients in the South American nation.
| Which brings up the question of why Venezuela, sitting on a large puddle of oil, can't train its own doctors. |
Venezuela's president also paid tribute to his friend and ally, the ailing Fidel Castro, who before failing ill had been the central figure at such regional events.
| That could also be why nothing ever came of them. |
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