Slaughtering a sacred cow in Venezuela

Posted By Francisco Toro Thursday, March 1, 2012 - 7:05 AM Share

Observers of the Venezuelan oil sector did a collective spit-take on Tuesday when the proudly socialist administration announced that it intends to privatize part of the state-owned oil industry. It's a decision that barbecues perhaps the most sacred of all sacred ideological cows in the Bolivarian Republic. In a first for the Chávez era, a portion of Venezuela's vast oil industry is to be floated on the stock market. (Characteristically, perhaps, the stock exchange involved is Hong Kong's, rather than New York's or London's.)

The decision involves Petropiar, a joint venture between Venezuela's state-owned oil firm, Petróleos de Venezuela (known as PDVSA), and U.S. oil major Chevron. Petropiar, which has the capacity to transform 190,000 barrels of thick, tar-like, extra-heavy crude into 180,000 barrels of light, easy-to-refine synthetic crude every day, has been 70 percent PDVSA-owned for years, while Chevron holds the remaining 30 percent.

On Tuesday, PDVSA announced that it would sell a 10 percent stake in the company to Chinese state holding firm CITIC. In itself this was unremarkable; the Chávez era has often seen Venezuelan state firms selling stock to state-owned companies in other countries. The surprise came later in the same announcement, when PDVSA announced it had agreed to allow CITIC to float a portion of its share on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, essentially allowing any Tom, Dick, or Harry to buy into Venezuela's state-owned oil sector with a simple call to his broker.

For Venezuelans, the irony here is impossible to overstate. For years now, whenever someone even hinted at the notion that it might make sense to sell off part of Venezuela's state holdings in the oil sector, the Chávez Administration invariably reacted with outraged revulsion, branding any such move as tantamount to "selling out the homeland." Emotional, often borderline-hysterical denunciations of opposition politicians as schemers intent on handing over Venezuela's hydrocarbon birthright to foreign speculators have been at the heart of chavista resource nationalism from the beginning. And while pragmatic acknowledgement of the need to attract foreign investment into the oil sector have been known to lead the government to specific partnership deals with given companies to operate given oil fields, floating any part of the industry in foreign markets crosses every ideological red line chavismo was supposed to hold dear.

That PDVSA would allow CITIC to privatize any part of the oil industry speaks to the government's increasing desperation to attract investors into the country's vast but hard-to-develop extra heavy oil fields. Though Venezuela boasts the world's largest recoverable oil reserves on paper, tough geology and one of the world's most hostile investment climates have left PDVSA short of the huge capital flows needed to develop the area properly. With the need to bring production online to help finance chavismo's unlimited thirst for fiscal largess, PDVSA is left with an increasingly weak hand in negotiating with potential partners. So weak, in fact, that it has now willing to compromise one of the most hallowed principles of the Chavez era in its desperation to entice investors in.

 

RAMON SAHMKOW/AFP/Getty Images

EXPLORE:DEMOCRACY LAB POSTER 6, FLASH POINTS, LATIN AMERICA, SOUTH AMERICA, BUSINESS, CHINA, DEMOCRACY LAB, ECONOMICS, ELECTIONS, ENERGY, OIL
 

ZAIN5

10:37 AM ET

March 2, 2012

nice

October 19th, 2010 at 9:44 am
You’re only allowed to disregard the rules once you’ve mastered them. Assuming that guns are always loaded is a safe rule for beginners. Remembering to check your backstop is a good rule for beginners as well.
October 19th, 2010 at 9:44 am
I’ll go with Cooper’s rules.
The fact is, that a gun is worthless if it’s not loaded. So anybody who wants a gun around keeps it loaded. (Except those few minutes of the year when you spray a little bit of brake cleaner and drop one drop of CLP into it.)
Not pointing it at anything you don’t want to kill is a no-brainer. Keep it holstered or point it at your balls.
Backdrop. You want to kill a baby a mile away?
Finger off the trigger? Sometimes that’s how how you bring the gun into target. But the other three rules control.
october 19th, 2010 at 10:15 am
The only time a gun is unloaded is when I unload it and have it in my immediate control.
Once it leaves my control, it becomes “loaded” until I clear it again.
HardCorps Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 10:51 am
He doesn’t have a very compelling argument. Look at outcome #16, which apparently can’t result in a ND, but then #13 can?

These rules aren’t just regarding the physical operation of the gun, they are designed for human safety which only a proper, responsible mindset can achieve. There should be no difference in how we treat a weapon, I don’t even check to see if a weapon is loaded if it’s handed to me. CCW holders should understand this concept and those in the military that spent a lot of time at condition 1, that loaded guns are the norm, but respecting the rules will help handling a dangerous tool safer.
Wolfwood Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 10:59 am
Jim W nailed it. By the time you’ve mastered the rules, you’ll have enough perspective and maturity to understand the necessary fiction in Rule One.
Gunmart Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 11:04 am
Damn you Uncle! I do not have enough popcorn for this thread! :D
October 19th, 2010 at 11:18 am
I like Uncle’s rule #5: don’t try to catch a dropped/falling firearm.
alan Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 11:36 am
16 can’t be an ND because the gun isn’t loaded. 13 is a ND because it is loaded. How is that hard to understand?
The point of all this is to show the logical fallacies inherent in the traditional 4 rules.
The question to ask is how are any of these rules tested to see if they’re actually effective? Lots of things sound good but fail in practice. Unless we subject the rules to logical analysis and real world testing all they are is magical thinking.
Freiheit Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 11:53 am
Part of the four rules is forcing you to *THINK*. Rather than following the rules by rote, you have to consider “is this safe, am I violating any rules”.
Think of them as a generic “driving distracted” law rather than a “no texting while driving” law. The former, like the four rules, is broad and requires you to think about your actions. The latter is merely a “no-no”.
Compare the four rules to the 10 foot tall rules list on the wall at Knob Creek. Which one is easier to follow, harder to argue with the RO about, and will actually be understood and implemented by shooters?
trackerk Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
The fact is, that a gun is worthless if it’s not loaded. So anybody who wants a gun around keeps it loaded.”
That’s just not true. Guns are used as training aids in classes all the time. They most certainly aren’t loaded at the time. I still won’t break rule 2 with them except under very specific circumstances. Guns in my safe are not usually loaded. Guns I am cleaning or working on are not loaded.
The 4 rules are much like the laws of robotics. A good starting point, but not 100% in every situation.
Shootin' Buddy Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Ummm, yeah, couple of points:
1. It was actually Crazy Uncle Clint that brought us the Four Rules. API had one rule “all guns are always loaded”. After discussions with Jeff and their common USMC background the Four Rules came to be.
2. It is not necessary to despress the trigger in order for a firearm to discharge. E.g., anytime one loads or unloads a firearm, especially those with inertia firing pins, the weapon may discharge.
alan Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Shootin’ Buddy, I specifically mentioned problems with loading semi-auto firearms as a special case.
Did you not read the post?
Shootin' Buddy Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
Alan, yes, but the problem is deeper than you state. ADs upon loading or unloading can transpire in all types of manual or self-loading repeaters.
My AD upon loading was with a slide-action shotgun, 870, which, of course, has an inertia firing pin. Fortunately I was following the Four Rules and no one was injured.
Pol Mordreth Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Well, I have to disagree a little. Rule #1 is absoultely fundamental to training yourself in good weapons handling. However, I have always heard it as “treat all weapons as if they are loaded”. If you have one way of handling your weapon when you believe it to be loaded and a different way of handling it when you believe it to be unloaded, eventually you will make an error of fact regarding the condition of the weapon and that could result in a hole in something you’ld rather not have a hole in.
Regards,
Pol
mariner Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
I teach that Rule 1 is “A firearm is always loaded, until you prove to yourself that it’s not.”
Once you’ve proven to yourself that the firearm in your hand is not loaded, then it’s safe to do things with it that you’d never do otherwise — dry fire, for example.
l further teach that once I have put a firearm down, when I pick it up again it’s loaded … until I again prove to myself that it’s not.
The idea is to develop a habit of safety.
tam Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Once you’ve proven to yourself that the firearm in your hand is not loaded, then it’s safe to do things with it that you’d never do otherwise — dry fire, for example.
So, once you’ve “proven” it was “unloaded”, you would dry fire it at your child’s head?
Standard Mischief Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
You’re only allowed to disregard the rules once you’ve mastered them.
The truth is that people violate the four rules all the time. You’ve got to keep them simple, they would not survive as memorable with a thousand exceptions written in.
You keep the them in mind, and more importantly in muscle memory because you never want to violate a rule in condition white. Every violation is a calculated risk.
So you latch open the action of your Garand, check the chamber, check the chamber with your finger, use your the pink flesh of your finger to bounce light from the overhead lamp into the chamber, and check the rifling of the barrel while doing a rule 2 violation.
You walk into your house after a bit of shooting into your private berm at the back forty. You are not willing to destroy the ceiling or the floor, but you don’t want to leave a rifle uncased outside unsupervised. Since there’s someone sleeping in the upstairs bedroom and nothing but canned peaches in the basement, you decide to carry your rifle muzzle down until you can put it in the strongbox.
You want to clean you rifle first so you take it down into the basement. You put it in the cleaning fixture and keep the muzzle pointed at a wall where you know there is three feet of dirt beyond the cinderblock. You are not suppose to clean a loaded gun so you check that it’s unloaded. You remove the bolt and leave it on the bench. You are ready to run a patch down the bore, but guns are always loaded. You check that it’s unloaded again and get ready to start cleaning, but guns are always loaded. You check that it’s unloaded again and get ready to start cleaning, but guns are always loaded. You check that it’s unloaded again and get ready to start cleaning, but guns are always loaded. Finally you decide that guns are always loaded, but you checked 6 times and it’s OK to shove the patch down the barrel.
junyo Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 8:21 pm
I’ve always taken Rule #1 to not literally mean “A firearm is always loaded” but more along the lines of “Never assume/take anyone’s word/guess that it’s unloaded”, and thus as Rustmeister said one would always verify the status of a gun that’s not been in your immediate control.
Tam Says:
October 19th, 2010 at 10:44 pm
What Standard Mischief said.
dave Says:
October 20th, 2010 at 4:58 am
lol well-said, SM.
mariner Says:
October 20th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
Tam,
I admire your considerable rhetorical gifts and generally agree with you.
But sometimes you write things as mind-bogglingly stupid as those you ridicule. This is one of those times.

thanks
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MAXIMB

6:24 PM ET

March 22, 2012

If one meeting on one day is

If one meeting on one day is enough to give someone foreign policy experience, then Angelina Jolie and Bono also have enough foreign policy experience to be Vice President..

"Is rio orange war always comparateur forfait inevitable ?"
MaximB

 

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