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Venezuela


               
2020 Sep 4, 11:54am   9,994 views  370 comments

by AD   follow (0)  

Venezuela’s oil industry—rich in reserves, a crucial Allied resource in World War II, a founding member of OPEC—is grinding toward a halt.

Venezuela has greater oil stores than any other country. But after years of corruption, mismanagement and more recently U.S. sanctions, its oil output has dropped to a tenth of what it was two decades ago.

From Lake Maracaibo in the west to the Orinoco oil belt in the east, abandoned wells rust in the sun as looters scavenge the metal. The last drilling rig still working in Venezuela shut down in August. The country is on course, by the end of this year, to be pumping little more oil than the state of Wyoming.

“Twenty percent of the world’s oil is in Venezuela, but what good is it if we can’t monetize it?” said Carlos Mendoza, an ambassador under the late socialist president Hugo Chávez, who enjoyed an oil bonanza when prices were high but starved the industry of investment and maintenance funds.

“We’re entering a post-oil era,” Mr. Mendoza said.

While petroleum is under stress world-wide from climate-change concerns and the rise of wind and solar power, what is happening to oil in Venezuela goes far beyond the global industry’s troubles. It is an existential crisis for a country long dependent on oil for nearly all of its hard-currency earnings.

This year, Venezuela’s oil income will probably fall below the limited funds coming in from other sources such as gold mining and overseas workers’ remittances, said Luis Vicente León, an economist and pollster. Venezuela’s economy is likely to shrink more than 30% this year from the oil collapse plus the pandemic, says Ecoanalitica, a Caracas business consulting firm.

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364   Ceffer   2026 Jan 12, 12:16am  

Trump musta wiped out more than just soldiers. To make such a claim, he had to have also taken out an entire top governing layer(s). Jail yard dominance.

366   Tenpoundbass   2026 Jan 12, 8:27am  

Yeah that guy knows more than you.
For the love of God please stop listening to prognstticators and armchair pundits.
The most qualified person to say "this is what's going to happen" and "this is what's going on" was actually put in place to do something but came back out throwing heat on Trump supporters for being suspicious of asking questions about the veracity of what's really going on. If Bonghitamigo is full of shit, what is this guy full of.
369   Patrick   2026 Jan 12, 12:19pm  

https://x.com/nettermike/status/2009843044028428714


This account from a Venezuelan security guard loyal to Nicolás Maduro is absolutely chilling—and it explains a lot about why the tone across Latin America suddenly changed.

Security Guard: On the day of the operation, we didn't hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn't know how to react.

Interviewer: So what happened next? How was the main attack?

Security Guard: After those drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, but there were very few. I think barely eight helicopters. From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number. Maybe twenty men. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn't look like anything we've fought against before.

Interviewer: And then the battle began?

Security Guard: Yes, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed... it seemed like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute. We couldn't do anything.

Interviewer: And your own weapons? Didn't they help?

Security Guard: No help at all. Because it wasn't just the weapons. At one point, they launched something—I don't know how to describe it... it was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.

Interviewer: And your comrades? Did they manage to resist?

Security Guard: No, not at all. Those twenty men, without a single casualty, killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology, with their weapons. I swear, I've never seen anything like it. We couldn't even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever it was.

Interviewer: So do you think the rest of the region should think twice before confronting the Americans?

Security Guard: Without a doubt. I'm sending a warning to anyone who thinks they can fight the United States. They have no idea what they're capable of. After what I saw, I never want to be on the other side of that again. They're not to be messed with.

Interviewer: And now that Trump has said Mexico is on the list, do you think the situation will change in Latin America?

Security Guard: Definitely. Everyone is already talking about this. No one wants to go through what we went through. Now everyone thinks twice. What happened here is going to change a lot of things, not just in Venezuela but throughout the region.
370   HeadSet   2026 Jan 12, 3:01pm  

Patrick says

all our radar systems shut down without any explanation

I wonder if this was coordinated by Maduro insiders who helped the US. I can see how even higher ups would tire of Maduro and his Cubans destroying Venezuela.

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