Venezuela

Q&O passed along an interesting tidbit from a recent Rasmussen survey:

A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 29% of voters favor nationalizing the oil industry. Just 47% are opposed and 24% are not sure.

Death of the free market predicted.  Film at 11.

Seriously, 29% of Americans want to nationalize the oil industry?   29% of Americans want the oil industry to be run by the same folks who bring you the Department of Motor Vehicles, Social Security, and Homeland Security?

Are we that dumb or blind?!

Folks, the free market is a good thing.  In theory, a true free market should lead to maximum efficiency, minimum wastage, and generally optimal conditions for everyone.

Yes, the government has a place, providing necessary services, maintaining the level playing field,  ensuring that participants are playing fair, and perhaps stimulating movement to “more optimal” solutions when the market (through structural inefficiencies or incomplete/inaccurate information) gets stuck on a “false optimal” peak in the market plane.

I can only imagine that Big Oil being moved into the federal bureaucracy would lead to inefficiencies and corruption that would only exacerbate existing problems.

If We The People want to collectively own Big Oil, we already have the right to do so, by buying shares, either as individuals or as pooled entities, on the open market.

Isn’t such nationalization at the core of our official beefs with Cuba and Venezuela?

I mentioned a few days ago that Chavez was threatening to cut off oil exports to the U.S. unless he got his way in a lawsuit brought against the Venezuelan national oil company by Exxon over the nationalization of Venezuelan oil projects.

Well, maybe Chavez’s temper-tantrum has eased just a little bit. From an AP story:

Venezuela’s state oil company said Tuesday that it has stopped selling crude to Exxon Mobil Corp. in response to the U.S. oil company’s drive to use the courts to seize billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets.[...]

The U.S. remains the No. 1 buyer of Venezuelan oil, and Chavez relies largely on U.S. oil money to stimulate his economy and bankroll social programs that have traditionally boosted his popularity.

Some analysts say it would make little sense for Chavez to follow through on his broader threats to cut off oil sales to the U.S. because Venezuela owns refineries in the United States that are customized to handle the South American country’s heavy crude.

About a week ago, I gave Chávez credit for respecting the outcome of the referendum in Venezuela. However, if Jorge Castañeda is to be believed, maybe that credit was misplaced. Quoting Castañeda’s editorial in Newsweek:

[B]y midweek enough information had emerged to conclude that Chávez did, in fact, try to overturn the results. As reported in El Nacional, and confirmed to me by an intelligence source, the Venezuelan military high command virtually threatened him with a coup d’état if he insisted on doing so. Finally, after a late-night phone call from Raúl Isaías Baduel, a budding opposition leader and former Chávez comrade in arms, the president conceded—but with one condition: he demanded his margin of defeat be reduced to a bare minimum in official tallies, so he could save face and appear as a magnanimous democrat in the eyes of the world.

I suppose that it’s still something to respect the outcome of the vote…even if that is tarnished by tweaking the results so as to enhance propagandic value.

Perhaps credit really belongs to the Venezuelan military for holding Chávez’s feet to the fire.

So, Chávez’s quest to become President for life has been defeated. Quoting the Washington Post:

Venezuelan voters delivered a stinging defeat to President Hugo Chávez on Sunday, blocking proposed constitutional changes that would have given him political supremacy and accelerated the transformation of this oil-rich country into a socialist state.

Hours after the final ballots were cast, the National Electoral Council announced at 1:15 a.m. local time Monday that voters, by a margin of 51 to 49 percent, had rejected 69 reforms to the 1999 constitution. The modifications would have permitted the president to stand for reelection indefinitely, appoint governors to provinces he would create and control Venezuela’s sizable foreign reserves.

Chávez immediately went on national television and conceded before a roomful of government allies and other supporters. “I thank you and I congratulate you,” Chávez said calmly, directing his comments to his foes. “I recognize the decision a people have made.” Chávez admitted, though, that he had found himself in a quandary on Sunday night as votes were being tallied, because the vote was so close. But he said that with nearly 90 percent of 9 million ballots counted, it became clear that his opponents’ victory was irreversible. “I came out of the dilemma,” he said, “and I am calm.”

I doubt that I was alone in expecting Chávez to win, in which case many folks (myself included) would have speculated that the vote was rigged.

However, despite how misguided I think his efforts are, Chávez at least deserves credit for respecting the vote…this time.