“Cripes, are we going to piss off Blair and Bush or what?”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will supply cheap oil for London buses in exchange for urban planning advice from the U.K. capital’s mayor, Ken Livingstone.
Livingstone and Venezuelan Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro signed the deal at London City Hall today. Venezuela’s national oil company, PDVSA, will provide a discount of up to $32 million a year on the city’s annual transportation fuel bill of 100 million pounds ($195 million), the mayor said. The city will use the savings to offer half-price bus fares to 250,000 poor Londoners.
Chavez, who wasn’t in London today, suggested the plan during a meeting with Livingstone in London last year. London officials will open an office in Caracas to provide advice on issues such as traffic management.
Oil is as inexpensive for Venezuela as big-city management expertise is for London, the mayor said. “Each partner is drawing on something that for them is relatively cheap but for the other is vital and expensive,” he said.
The debate that follows deals like this really is dependent on context. There is an obvious economic benefit for the poorest in each municipality. Opponents of either of these politicians may consider that benefit meaningless in their own scheme of things.
If governments with serious economic clout wanted to prevent the mileage these two will derive from the deal — they always could have done something similar — first. Couldn’t they?
Gee, you’d think Bush and Saudis would come up with something like this. Right?
Yes, give cheap diesel fuel to one of the richest cities in the world, when in Venezuela the average joe has to live on less than US$2 a day. Woopie.
First the U.K. withdraws backing for U.S. policy in Iraq and now it’s withdrawing support for U.S. policy against Hugo Chavez. The rebuking of Bush foreign policy continues. The fact that it’s coming from one of our staunchest allies speaks volumes. I guess they really have handed off the poodle leash to P.M. John Howard of Australia.
Next thing we know Pat Robertson will be heating his churches with
Venezuelan Oil
http://mediamatters.org/items/200508220006
#4.
Chavez is a dipstick – no doubt about it. This is not a defense of him at all – in fact he will very soon show his real stripes and turn into the little Kim of Venezuela.
But Venezuela as a society & country along with other S American countries are an interesting case study in Oligarchy, not capitalism. In fact they were never capitalistic societies.
Until the very recently the rich in the country were taxed at half the rate of the middle class and poor. In some countries the wealth is concentrated in the hands of 20 or 50 odd families. Don’t be suprised when someone comes along and says “hey you want some food” he gets support from people that have been poor for generations with out hope of education or opportunity.
It could happen here too. Didn’t the CEO of Home Depot get like 300 million for fucking up & resigning? I could have fucked up Home Depot for a mere 30 million.
The robber barons are returning.
BTW we don’t have capitalism – we have tax payer funded corporate welfare. If we really had capitalism – then we would have let the airlines tank after 9/11 instead of giving billions to them to keep running the same crappy service. And why give Exxon-Mobile billions for discovery when they made a world record profit? Isn’t one of the tenants of capitalism reinvestment? Why pay a company for doing what they should be doing anyway? We also wouldn’t funding outsourcing with tax breaks if it was really a capitalistic system we have & in a company’s best interest to do.
#6 – Thanks for stating what should be obvious to anyone. Sometimes you just have to point out the obvious. Mussolini had a word for the system now in place in the U.S. if I could only remember it. One of its hallmarks was corruption tied to corporate hand-outs.
#5 – Why not? He was an enthusiastic player in the blood diamond trade. He don’t need no stinkin’ ethics.
I’m happy the 250,000 poor will get half fare on their bus rides to their menial jobs in London, where thanks to Commie Ken they can no longer afford to live, shop or drive.
As to Chavez……the people he claims to represent at home have needed someone on their side for a long time. It’s truly unfortunate that it has to be a meglomaniac dictator. Venezuala really is becoming a basket case, production has dropped in every sphere of the economy, crime is higher than it ever was, and anyone who is anti-Chavez is just plain disappearing.
jt….because Ken Livingstone made a deal with Chavez has no bearing on British policy towards the US……Ken is a **free wheeler**, shall we say. While Blair is pulling troops out of Iraq, he is increasing the number of troops to Afganistan. The British play a very minor roll now in Iraq, and by the time they finish their withdrawal, we will be heading for the door as well.
#10 No way the Home Office would have allowed this without coordination and tacit approval from the Foreign Office.
The Home office only has nominal power to stop this this. Besides, he’s a member of Labour again, so they aren’t going to say anything. Keep in mind that most of Blairs cabinet has never supported the war in Iraq, or much of Blairs foriegn policy.