Word: chã
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...near record economic growth, and they are driving up domestic oil demand: almost 500,000 new cars are expected to be sold this year. (Why not, with gas at 12¢ a gal.?) But the bolívar is sharply overvalued, inflation is the highest in Latin America, and even Ch??vez fears that his "21st century socialists" are living like capitalist nouveaux riches, the so-called boli-bourgeoisie...
...risk to Ch??vez is that his brand of socialism runs on oil. PDVSA sends more than a third of its revenue to the government, which spent more than $30 billion last year for a vast social-welfare crusade that has helped reduce official poverty and jobless rates appreciably. PDVSA runs many of the programs, and while that might sound more like Marx than Rockefeller, it "reflects our right to set globalization's terms in our people's favor for once," Ramírez has told TIME. Critics say it also means a hyperpoliticized PDVSA, in which Ramírez demands employee...
...irony is that Ch??vez and Ramírez are adamant that Venezuela can keep delivering to the U.S.--about 1.3 m.b.d., or 12% of U.S. imports. They also insist that in the next few years, investment and output will climb. In 2005 PDVSA launched a seven-year plan, but analysts consider its goals--5.5 m.b.d. by 2012 and $11 billion a year in total investment--a pipe dream. Investment reached half that last year...
Venezuela is counting on the state-run oil companies of allies like China to replace Western oil outfits--a prospect that pains Washington, especially since Ch??vez is ratcheting up oil exports to China to reduce dependence on the U.S. market. Chavistas argue that if the U.S. is so concerned about global oil supply, it should lean on its own petro-allies--like Mexico and Saudi Arabia--which ban the foreign participation in oil ventures that Venezuela at least still allows. (Oil production in Mexico is also in serious decline...
...Ch??vez can keep raking in tons of cash without expanding production--even with production declining," says David Mares, an oil-politics expert at the University of California at San Diego. "He's taking advantage of the situation we consumers dropped in his lap." Mares says Ch??vez has to invest more in his oil industry in the future. Although it also wouldn't hurt if Americans learned to consume less...