Word: petros
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...been a pain in the rear to U.S. oil companies, and he has cozied up to Iran and staged military maneuvers with Russia in the Caribbean. But Chávez, unlike U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, at least still lets U.S. oil firms have stakes in Venezuelan petro projects. And no one recalls any Venezuelan names on the list of 9/11 hijackers. Whatever the geopolitical calculus of Washington's coddling of Riyadh may be, Latin Americans still see the U.S. as giving Saudi Arabia's repressive monarchy a pass while reviling a democratically elected government in Venezuela. They see the same...
...Weisbrot, head of the Center for Economic Policy and Research in Washington. "So I don't think Chávez will have too big a problem getting through the crisis." But other economists say Chávez won't be able to sustain the social largesse at home and petro-diplomacy abroad that have made him the standard bearer of Latin America's resurgent left...
...Despite all that, Chávez vows to keep spending, especially on social programs such as public housing and health. He has also flaunted his petro-wealth over the past few years, by giving money and free oil to allies like Bolivia and Cuba. Such generosity may be unsustainable, as Chávez is discovering. He provided cheap heating oil to poor Americans in New York, Massachusetts and elsewhere until last week, when Venezuela's financial meltdown forced him to scrap the program...
...America's fat petro-cats will probably be off the hook again. They'll remain safe inside their arguments that heating-oil aid to the poor should be the purview of the government - as strange as that may sound coming from an industry that was so tight with an outgoing President who championed private charitable initiative over public handouts. What's left is the irony that for four winters now, hundreds of thousands of Americans have had more reason to thank one of the world's most anti-U.S. leaders than their own President or oil companies...
...Caracas, for example, Chávez has poured billions of dollars from his petro windfalls into admirable social projects for the long-neglected barrios. Yet those slums are reminders of his failure to stem plagues like violent crime (Caracas has about 40 murders a weekend), corruption and insufficient garbage collection. "It should make Chávez realize that instead of traveling the globe promoting socialism, he needs to address basic issues back home," says Chávez biographer Bart Jones, author of Hugo...