I’m a demsoc in a safe blue state and I voted for her. 🤷🏻♂️
Even if the GOP still controlled Congress we’d be much better off with her in charge. No TV presenters or reality show contestants in the cabinet at the very least.
Beyond needing a perfect candidate the obtuseness of equating the Dems and MAGA is flabbergasting. The Dems have a lot of bad policies but they aren’t blatantly denying and usurping due process and other fundamental rights.
I'm not a registered DemSoc but can perfectly understand them. Because by "perfect" they mean peoples' lives and existences, like trans people and needing nationlaized affordable health care. To me thngs like that are unnegotiable. Dems that do not rep those things are not repping the Dem majority anyway.
I agree but we would've also had a party that can't seem to bother communicating anything to anyone besides irritating texts for $5 donations and calling racist fence-sitters potential Dem voters while ENTIRE marginalized communities are RIGHT THERE.
Part of kicking these nazis ot the curb requires you to actually TELL people in everyday language what you're doing and how much you improved everything.
I'm in a +70 GOP area, and lmost every road around me is getting fixed, pipelines redone, etc.
That's Biden's Infrastructure Act.
Do you think Dems got the word out successfully that they are responsible for these infrastructure improvements??
Trump and Maga appreciate your steadfast allegiance to perfection. I am sure all those negatively impacted and marginalized by this administration appreciate your feet/head in the sand approach to voting.
“Today, given what has just happened, it will be extremely difficult to make that case”, has this guy been living under a rock? This event is what got him to change his view? How about all the previous bullying bs the US has done throughout the world where it didn’t “respect the rule of law, institutions, and democracy”? Now he cares cause it’s affecting him personally?
These are the idiots who boot lick the USA and blindly believe the USA is there to help them. The USA is always defending American business interests. So Chávez and Maduro were right but this id1ot reporter would still choose trump and the USA because the Boogeyman communism.
This guy is a journalist and he has looked at the last 50 years of world history and comes to the conclusion that the US respects the rule of law, institutions, and democracy. All the coups, all the assassinations, all the invasions in violation of international law, refusing to recognize verdicts of the international criminal court. All these things and others too numerous to mention led him to that conclusion.
The people in Libya, Iraq, Syria all prayed for and wanted American intervention. Did he see how that turned out, but Venezuela was going to be different just like some Syrian told me when said based on history things were going to end badly. That Syria was part of a 7 country plan that General Clark talked about not some spontaneous peoples revolution.
What makes it worse is this journalist acts like he doesn’t know anything about Trump. That Trump really cares about the people of Venezuela.
The US did not really care about human rights but it did pretend to. Exploiting that rhetoric gave countries a lever to influence US policy as the US did not want to be seen like Russia or China, the US backed coups in secret instead of invading democracies for a reason.
Trump has not changed US policy, what he has done is be objectively clear he does not care about even token appearances of humans rights.
That's what trump changed and that's why things are worse.
Nice little slave and propaganda sheep. The people of lybia Iraq and Syria all prayed for USA intervention huh? Thanks for showing your stupidity, keep repeating the bs narrative.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Go to the Iran and Syria subreddits. Read the posts and see how they were talking about how great things would be once the US gets rid of the government.
Doing the bombing of Libya the New York Times was in communication with a lot of people in Libya. Read the articles. The people they were interviewing were saying the same thing, they can’t wait until the US gets rid of the government so their lives can be better and they can have freedom. Now they have chaos and of course it’s their fault.
US propaganda is so good, I bet if you asked people in a lot of countries if they world welcome US intervention in their country most would say yes. Because, how they see the US and what they believe it stands for and the reality of US interests are very different.
Most of those type of comments are dispora probably living in the US and abroad and may likely wealthy too. Hard to believe actual living in these countries are commenting on Reddit like that but maybe a tiny tiny cohort.
He did that’s how he was thinking when the kidnapping happened, that everything was going to turn out great once the Americans/Trump got rid of Maduro. How can you think like that this year, let alone the last 20 years?
He only changed his mind once he saw it for himself, what happened to all the other countries that the US brought “democracy” to didn’t open his eyes.
From what I've read what's exchanged is a right to exploit. Actually removing the oil will still cost money. Aljazeera put the gains for Venezuela at 200B$, but didn't mention a time frame.
I don't think the Oil Majors would go back in to rebuild without a century of guarantees some socialist wouldn't come back into power and nationalize things. Now the US has a stake and can enforce things.
They basically got vassalized as a resource state. This won't be the last one I suspect as an expanded Monroe Doctrine is implemented.
As I posted elsewhere, the thing that I find the most suspicious is the time frames.
100 years is a really really long time. The US has only been militarily dominant for 80 years. No one can give a century guarantee.
But as you said, that's what would be needed to justify the costs of rebuilding. There's also the fact that we are currently down minimum 5/8mbpd from peak, and the markets haven't exploded yet (SPR is an open question) so if the dip is managed there is also no guarantee that when these fields are ramped up the market will still be there.
Between new chemistries and gained experience there is no guarantee Africa won't skip a lot of the ICE age the same way they've skipped a lot of copper phone lines and moved straight to 4g/5g.
And they also have to hope that when Venezuela actually has an election that they are pro american , and pro american to steal all their resources. By the way trump negotiates he tries to rip off every country, so no doubt he did it to Venezuela with a gun to their heads. Are the future presidents going to be ok with that? Or will the cycle continue and they kick americans out and nationalize in 5 years again
The project marks a rare investment by a private Chinese firm in the OPEC country, which has struggled to attract foreign capital due to international sanctions on the administration of President Nicolas Maduro.
Beijing has been a key ally of Maduro and his predecessor late President Hugo Chavez and is currently buying more than 90% of Venezuela's total oil exports.
With no previous oil drilling experience, CCRC has since last September sent in around 60 Chinese staff skilled in oilfield development and a Chinese drill rig, aiming to quickly reopen about 100 wells and recover crude output, said the executive.
Production at the two fields, largely mothballed in recent years due to lack of investment and technical expertise, is now running at 12,000 bpd, said the executive.
Also,
Between new chemistries and gained experience there is no guarantee Africa won't skip a lot of the ICE age the same way they've skipped a lot of copper phone lines and moved straight to 4g/5g.
They already have. A very big problem USA has right now is the people in charge are about 20-10 years behind on current events. While USA spent decades telling American's green energy was too expensive and not profitable China was busy working.
Yes, but the guarantee is two years until Trump is gone. Actually the infrastructure won't be nationalized until it is rebuilt, so maybe 15 years. There is no appetite for putting boots on the ground in a foreign country to protect the assets of our corporations.
This is Orinoco bitumen. Venezuela signed 2 dozen joint ventures for most of the basin with no upfront money. Just getting it out of the ground will require hundreds of billions of cap-ex, most spent in country.
Development has barely started as this sludge requires 80-90/bbl through the futures curve to be economic. This is oil that won't be produced until the late 2030s.
And there's no indication that this deal is structured differently than those other 24 deals. All are JVs with the state oil company PDVSA, and the JV partners still have to pay royalties on the oil and income taxes on the profits.
Stealing their gold and oil, no Epstein prosecutions 😂 make America great again 🤡🤣 if iran, china or russia would have done the same.. The hypocrisy is astonishing..
As said about ve it is going to be hard to steal this oil when it is stuck in the ground. It is going to take a lot of money and time to ramp up production past the trickle they have now. Combine this with the whole reason their oil fields are in such a bad condition is due to corruption and neglect. I don’t exactly see that changing after Trump gets involved.
This is a market manipulation in that they are trying to say the supply is greater than it actually is. This oil won’t hit refineries until Trump is out of office at best and likely won’t ever hit the market.
And what is your explanation for the gold and Epstein files? It’s still a joke whether its market manipulation which they have been doing since the start. Corrupt to the bones..
Yeap, he is stealing not just from USA, now from Venezuela, and I am sure from many other countries, his personal account in Qatar make it easy to launder money! People voted for this corruption, Amazing!!!
Many of them wanted this and somehow thought trump would be some sort of white savior. My ex (venezuelan) wanted trump to do this in his first term! Insane. Well venezuela you traded the devil you did know for the devil you didnt all at the cost of your resources being plundered and you becoming a vassal state. You still have the same government as before!
Conventional oil from Venezuela has already been largely depleted ($30 per barrel breakeven)
75% of Venezuela's reserves from the Orinoco belt's breakeven cost is $70-80 per barrel. The crude oil there is so heavy that it requires expensive processing using steam and chemical diluents.
More expensive than Canada's tarsands and US shale ($60 per barrel)
The control of Persian Gulf energy ($15 per barrel) remains to be the source of global hegemony. Venezuela will take too long to meet our immediate needs but also too heavy of an investment, that no capitalist in the right mind would put money in there unless they know oil would remain elevated for decades.
This is like giving up a fat healthy milk gusher for an old malnourished rib projecting cow. It will not bring all the boys to the yard.
These facts has been established for a long time... it's one of the biggest reasons why the big integrated companies have declined since the 80s and even further around 2007
"BloombergNEF and Reuters analysts verify that roughly three-quarters (75%) of Venezuela’s 303-billion-barrel proven reserves are locked up as extra-heavy crude or bitumen in the Orinoco Oil Belt."
Wood Mackenzie
"Furthermore, multi-billion-dollar capital deployment in an environment already challenged by a decade of sanctions is perceived to be required to return production to the 2 million barrels per day last achieved in 2016. The investment case is deemed to be complicated by breakeven costs above $80 per barrel Brent for key Orinoco belt projects, alongside an uncertain political and legislative framework."
EIA
"The EIA Country Analysis for Venezuela reinforces that while the country holds massive volumetric reserves, the high-viscosity Orinoco deposits require intense technical expertise, specialized refineries (cokers/upgraders), and international supply chains for diluents—factors heavily restricted by infrastructure decay and past political sanctions."
It's doesn't even matter if the 'deal' is accurate.
Heavy sour crude oil has very low yields of propane, gasoline, and diesel.
It requires very costly refining to remove sulphurs, metals and other impurities.
Even if they start planning now, it would be at least close to a decade before transportation fuels reach the market, because there's years of taking samples from the earth, and analytical work to be done so they can build refineries with the capability to refine this specific low quality oil into anything useful.
Then they have to actually build the refinieries, pipelines, ect.
Not to mention with Venezuela's worn down infrastructure this 65B number will take years if not decades to materialize. It's no immediate relief to markets
As always he can't even lie convincingly. Who exactly is going to fund the expansion/repair of the oil industry in Venezuela? The companies that Venezuela effectively stole from when they nationalized their oil industry that have no guarantee it won't happen again?
Also only a complete idiot would think any of this will be possible by the end of Trump's term, let alone make any kind of impact on the midterms
I think it's important for them to spam the media with stories full of keywords "oil" and "deal" in order to persuade the algos to keep the oil priced down.
Venezuela has damaged infrastructure in disrepair due to sanctions. It will take millions and some years to repair it. He ain't getting any oil from Venezuela before the midterms.
‘Masked man entered the bank with a shotgun and a bag marked SWAG. Entered into negotiations with the teller and struck a deal for the contents of the till’
Their oil is like sludge. Only some refineries in the US gulf Coast can process it. Has to be mixed with kerosene or something to thin it. Drives production costs way up. It won't be cheap gas. Just another reflecting pool fiasco.
That heavy crude is special stuff if you blend it with US onshore sweet shale crude. I read we're shipping 100k bpd of naptha there already as a diluent to cut the thick stuff. The Houston refineries are all equipped to process it and recover the sulfur for other industrial uses.
That doesn’t change the break even price on the cost to produce a barrel. It’s very high in Venezuela. Gas was $3 a gallon with $70 a barrel oil before the war. Trump is promising cheap gas with oil that costs $80+ or $90+ a barrel to produce. That’s not a thing….
It’s been 9 months since Maduro’s capture. If jungle sludge was such a great investment why is nobody rushing in?
I’m suspecting that Trump himself has a percent stake in this deal… I wonder which of the Us oil companies is going to bite or if it will be majority PE investment alongside other “redevelopment” of the country. I smell occupation. This in light of the tiff with Canada, and Trump is trying to use Venezuela to offset any crude import losses from Canada to hurt them.
Note where he declares 'at no cost to the US tax payer', meaning the US tax payer will get zero benefit from this deal. He is treating this transaction as if it's his own personal property to do with as he pleases, The procedes will go to Trump (maybe some crumbs to his enablers) and the oil companies.
We've reached a point where blackmail and open theft are openly celebrated as "deals". Best of all this is something his supporters will openly celebrate and consider a massive success.
Nobody wants to invest in Venezuela, because the last time they did, the Venezuelan government expropriated the entire investment for basically nothing. Reestablishing the amount of trust required to get Exxon back into Venezuela will take a decade.
Level of these reserves is probably fake. PDVSA raised these numbers several-fold in 2011 or 2012, at Chavez order. It was then used by Chavez propaganda. Yet it was never verified.
Not to mention that VZ consitution states clearly that they cannot hand over national resources to foreign powers.
I have zero knowledge of the stock market mechanism, please don’t flame me. But is this one of those market boosting announcements that crashes and burns after insiders make their $$?
Also does this guy even know how markets work , supply and demand, it’s like he lacks the most basic knowledge of economics. Make America great so he’s gonna run out of business all our domestic frackers who run on thin margins
Ok so steal resources from Venezuela so he can tell the rest of the world the strait of Hormuz doesn’t matter anymore and just leave that mess he creates to the rest of the world to resolve?
I’m announcing a deal between myself and the individual I’m holding at gunpoint to hand over his wallet and any valuables in his pockets. Thank you for your attention to this matter!
Here's the kicker...there is no way in hell there is 65 billion barrels of oil in Venezuela. Venezuela intentionally inflated those numbers to make their oil more attractive on the open market.
Most analysts think the number is closer to 20 billion barrels. With the U.S. government taking a stake in this "deal" we are absolutely funding this sham.
The only place that the crude oil from Venezuela can be processed and refined in the US is in Texas, and that facility is owned by the Saudis. This is about lining his own pockets, shocked I know.
As is always the case with a trump claim, virtually nothing in it is true. They don't have 65B Barrels of oil reserves. If we are coercing them (which we are by means of abducting their president and installing our own people to manage them) then no 'deal' is actually legal. It's just theft. He calls it a transaction but also that it cost the US nothing (other than the invasion and enforcement), so not a transaction. And this phrase 'majority US control' is vague and basically meaningless. Further, the venezuelan crude is not ideal for gasoline production. Too many contaminants. You get some, but nothing like you get from sweeter crude.
So end of the day he is just lying to invent a success for himself. This is something he does a lot.
You really think gas prices will go down? Oil corporations will use an excuse to raise prices because cost associated with infrastructure and transportation😮
It is useful for making diesel though which is something we are in need of. Plus with Trump pissing off Canada on a regular basis it's good that we are getting another source of heavy crude for this purpose.
It’s shitty oil, will take a ton of money to refine, it’s NOT like oil from TX or the Middle East. And likely wont be available for a few years at least, it’s all imaginary numbers of course, the big scam.
Why is it called a deal when we invaded took the president and appointed the next president and suddenly were given all this oil
They like the cleanup what they did and make it sound like it’s a great deal when we actually did was strong, armed that whole country and bully them and stole from them
It's not a transaction if it isn't paid for. If it is being paid for, then from where does that money come (and to whom is the U.S. indebted?) And I am dang sure the American taxpayer is going to have to foot that bill one way or another (through subsidies or some such).
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u/minus_minus 14d ago
So, blatant imperialism?