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Old 04-30-2019, 03:13 PM   #1
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Couldn't find a threat to bump. But the country is flying apart.


https://twitter.com/user/status/1123332794011144192


https://twitter.com/user/status/1123256966963396609


Live updates


https://www.cnn.com/americas/live-ne...tes/index.html
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Old 04-30-2019, 03:48 PM   #2
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So does this mean we can send CUPE workers to prop up a sham Government?

Kill 2 birds with one stone? Wait...that denotes efficiency and Unions wont stand for that.
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Old 04-30-2019, 03:59 PM   #3
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https://twitter.com/user/status/1123343628838023168
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Old 04-30-2019, 04:02 PM   #4
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Ruskies want to get paid, same with the Chinese.
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Old 04-30-2019, 04:05 PM   #5
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Ruskies want to get paid, same with the Chinese.
Yup.
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Old 04-30-2019, 05:31 PM   #6
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Good reminder for the current generation of what the Cold War was like.

Global superpowers playing chess with the lives and economies of small nations.
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Old 04-30-2019, 08:43 PM   #7
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Good reminder for the current generation of what the Cold War was like.

Global superpowers playing chess with the lives and economies of small nations.
Venezuela was doing a great job of ####ing itself up without any interference.
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Old 04-30-2019, 08:46 PM   #8
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Ruskies want to get paid, same with the Chinese.
So does the US. They are the ones propping up Guaidó. His rise to 'power' is a CIA operation. Now the Russians and Chinese are fighting back.

What a mess....
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Old 04-30-2019, 09:16 PM   #9
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Venezuela has been an absolute mess for a long time now. Something's gotta give. The international interference is more like investors trying to get into a fallen market than outsiders trying to bring down a functional country. When the dust settles the mega petted want a foothold, but let's not pretend that Venezuela is being brought down by anyone.

Chavez managed to destroy one of the most oil rich nations in the world with his cronyism.
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Old 04-30-2019, 10:42 PM   #10
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And then there's always the oil...

Quote:
JOHN BOLTON: We’re in conversation with major American companies now that are either in Venezuela or, in the case of Citgo, here in the United States. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here. You know, Venezuela is one of the three countries I call the troika of tyranny. It will make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela. It’d be good for the people of Venezuela. It’d be good for the people of the United States.
https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/..._bolton_pushes

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Old 05-01-2019, 08:23 AM   #11
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Venezuela was doing a great job of ####ing itself up without any interference.
Exactly why they are now even more prone to outside influence. A strong robust democracy and economy doesn't really give a flying F what Russia or China thinks.

But a leader of a country that is struggling for power, foreign cash, etc, is probably going to take whatever handouts they can get, regardless of cost to the people.

Heck, just look at Cuba or any of the Iron Curtain countries during the Cold War. Its not like putting nukes in Cuba was in the best interest of the Cuban people.
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Old 05-01-2019, 03:47 PM   #12
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This has been the worst coup attempt in the history of coup attempts, maybe ever.
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Old 05-01-2019, 05:32 PM   #13
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This has been the worst coup attempt in the history of coup attempts, maybe ever.
That one in Turkey recently was pretty bad too. That sounded like Erdogan almost tricked a portion of the army into rebelling so he'd have an excuse to take out his enemies.
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Old 05-01-2019, 06:52 PM   #14
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Ruskies want to get paid, same with the Chinese.
And the United States really wants access to their oil. Not even a conspiracy considering Bolton literally said on Fox news he wants "american oil companies to access their market".
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Old 05-01-2019, 06:56 PM   #15
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Just wait until you see what happens to the Alberta oil market when the US companies have all that heavy oil access and can just ship it across the Gulf essentially.
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Old 05-01-2019, 07:20 PM   #16
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Just wait until you see what happens to the Alberta oil market when the US companies have all that heavy oil access and can just ship it across the Gulf essentially.
Where are the protesters and environmentalists?
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Old 05-01-2019, 07:44 PM   #17
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Where are the protesters and environmentalists?
Paying $2.10 per liter to fill up their 1970s flower painted VW van.
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Old 05-01-2019, 07:46 PM   #18
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Paying $2.10 per liter to fill up their 1970s flower painted VW van.
7 miles to the gallon
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Old 05-02-2019, 08:03 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski View Post


And then there's always the oil...



https://www.democracynow.org/2019/1/..._bolton_pushes
But then you have to share with the Venezuelans, It's much more profitable to use political and military influence (taxpayer funded) to just take it, and selling that intervention to the American people is cheap, as they already own the media.


The American playbook in South America since WW2 has essentially been a 3 step process:


1. Send in "Economic Hit Men" to convince countries to sign bad deals that hands their resources to American corporations. These deals usually take the form of taking out a big loan from the IMF, then giving that money to massive American engineering companies to extract the resources, while only allowing a pittance of the profits to go the country, often this is just enough money to pay off the people who hold influence in those countries.
2. If that doesn't work, start to use foreign relations and intelligence to place people who are agreeable with step 1 in positions of power. The CIA usually does the dirty work in this phase: blackmail, assassinations, threats, etc.
3. If that doesn't work, then direct or indirect intervention from the US military. Arming 'rebels fighting for the people' is a favorite tactic.


Sounds like step 3 is really heating up. The above only needs to be plausible enough for the media to sell it the American people, they don't even have to do that good of a job of selling it, just enough to make it divisive enough that people are too busy squabbling about it to get in the way. Brace yourselves for CNN and MSNBC to lie their absolute ####ing asses off about Venezuela.

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Old 05-02-2019, 08:19 AM   #20
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But then you have to share with the Venezuelans, It's much more profitable to use political and military influence (taxpayer funded) to just take it, and selling that intervention to the American people is cheap, as they already own the media.
Just need the USD to continue to be the petrodollar reserve currency to continue to get this exorbitant privilege - especially for the military. I wonder what happens to countries that don't want to use the USD?

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The United States dollar remains de facto world currency.[1] Accordingly, almost all oil sales throughout the world are denominated in United States dollars (USD).[2] Because most countries rely on oil imports, they are forced to maintain large stockpiles of dollars in order to continue imports. This creates a consistent demand for USDs and ostensibly supports the USD's value, regardless of economic conditions in the United States.

According to proponents of the petrodollar warfare hypothesis, this in turn allegedly allows the US government to gain revenues through seignorage and by issuing bonds at lower interest rates than supposedly they otherwise would be able to. As a result, the U.S. government, according to this theory, can run higher budget deficits at a more sustainable level than most other countries can. The theory points out that a stronger USD also means that goods imported into the United States are relatively cheap (although the country's exports become relatively more expensive for the rest of the world).

Another component of the hypothesis is that the price of petroleum is more stable in the U.S. than anywhere else since importers do not need to worry about exchange rate fluctuations. Since the U.S. imports a great deal of oil, its markets are heavily reliant on oil and its derivative products (jet fuel, diesel fuel, gasoline, etc.) for their energy needs. As the price of oil can be an important political factor, U.S. administrations are quite sensitive to the price of oil.

Political competitors of the United States therefore have some interest in seeing oil denominated in euros or other currencies. The EU could also theoretically accrue the same benefits if the euro replaced the dollar.

History
The petrodollar system originated in the early 1970s in the wake of the Bretton Woods collapse. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, feared that the abandonment of the international gold standard under the Bretton Woods arrangement (combined with a growing US trade deficit, and massive debt associated with the ongoing Vietnam War) would cause a decline in the relative global demand of the U.S. dollar.[3] In a series of meetings, the United States — represented by then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger — and the Saudi royal family made an agreement. The United States would offer military protection for Saudi Arabia’s oil fields, and in return the Saudi's would price their oil sales exclusively in United States dollars (in other words, the Saudis were to refuse all other currencies, except the U.S. dollar, as payment for their oil exports).

By 1975, all of the oil-producing nations of OPEC had agreed to price their oil in dollars and to invest surplus oil proceeds in U.S. government debt securities in exchange for similar offers by the U.S.[4]

Political events
In 2000, Iraq converted all its oil transactions under the Oil for Food program to euros,[5] even though the move was deemed by analysts to "fly in the face of financial logic.",[5] since, it meant that Iraq would earn less interest on its oil revenues, which were held in a UN-monitored escrow account in New York. Also, the switch would create "cumbersome new administrative processes" because Baghdad decided to keep also its existing deposits in dollars, which meant that the oil-for-food program would maintain two accounts, one in dollars and one in euros.[5]

After the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Iraq returned the denomination of its oil sales to the US Dollar, despite the greenback's then-fall in value.[6]

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran ostensibly takes this theory as fact. As retaliation to this policy, which is seen by Tehran as "neoimperialism",[7] Iran made an effort to create its own bourse, which started selling oil in gold, euros, dollars, and Japanese yen.[8] In mid-2006 Venezuela indicated "support" of Iran's decision to offer global oil trade in the euro currency.[9] Muammar Gaddafi, of Libya had tried to implement the gold-for-oil plan,[10] in 2011, and the introduction of a Libyan gold dinar.

In 2005, William Roberts Clark, Professor and Faculty Associate, Political Science Department, Center for Political Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, published a work which claimed that a "petrodollar warfare" was under way between mainly the Euro and the United States Dollar waged in the field of world petroleum trade.[11]

Over the years, multiple scholars expressed the view that the Iraq War was conducted to re-assert the dollar hegemony in the wake of Saddam Hussein's attempts to switch from petrodollar in the oil trade and to sell Iraqi oil in exchange for other currencies or commodities.[12][13][14]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrodollar_warfare

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