Politics
Wings Over Scotland | And every day was exactly the same
before chavez, the US used to steal venezuela’s oil – it paid 1 cent on the dollar in royalties; they got it for free. When Chavez came in he raised the duty to 16 cents on the dollar (not 96, or 66 or 26, 16).
Sounds reasonable, but the rockefeller family decided they didn’t like their “pockets being picked” and so set their droogs, the US military and CIA, on him; I think they eventually got him, they induced cancer, probably via a radioactive element planted close to him (maybe in a table lamp, by his house cleaner, then removed later on).
– what just happened … there are rumours that the background was a big deal with the chinese to sell a lot more oil for yuan (= DEATH OF THE PETRODOLLAR = DEATH OF EMPIRE) – but let’s put aside these conspiracy theories that the US does geopolitical things for oil and not out of purest moral virtue … let’s just say it WAS about THEDRUGZ
oddly, most of the coke consumed by americans comes from colombia, which is a US client state and has not been targeted.
oddly, when the taliban took over the first time, they eliminated heroin production by over 90%; when the yanks took over, supply was restored and bumper harvests were achieved
oddly, during the period known as “the war on drugs”, the quality of drugs in america increased, while the price decreased; such things normally happen through investment in technology and logistics supply chains …
was “the war on drugs” actually “the war FOR drugs”? Drugs are only a problem, sometimes.
And so is this the problem : venezuela is not producing ENOUGH drugs for sale in the US, and the CIA is NOT GETTING its normal cut?
– sounds fanciful CIA = cocaine import agency, but if you are peddling guns one way, then having drugs come the other way, as payment, seems sensible; the old mafia don John Gotti said the mafia was not in the drugs business … “as they couldn’t compete with the CIA” (and they thought he was joking). If you think about it, the world’s best logistics network is the US air force, bases all around the world which never get raided; why would you not? The CIA also had its own “airline”, air america; hollywood even made a film about it.
Also, from a financial viewpoint, the drugs trade while immensely profitable if you are dealing, even if you are not, produces a lot of very hot money which needs to be “managed” back into the financial system; you wouldn’t want drugs money causing inflation. It’s technical, but because the US puts too many dollars into circulation, it has to carefully control how those dollars come back to it. Read Hudson. Point is, you have to deal with it, even if you hate drugs and want them illegal.
Drugs money, when laundered, produces a lot of “negative interest” i.e. really low cost financing for front businesses, which do actual service to the community. Running a taxi business, want a commercial loan from a bank?? You won’t be in business long. You are living in a narco state, kept alive by the flow of drug money, places like Florida, or Lanarkshire.
During the 2008 market crash, drugs money was the only thing providing liquidity to the markets.
HSBC bank was setup in Hong Kong to launder the profits of the opium trade, back in the day when China was British (by God!) – “its alright when we do it”; hypocrisy again, the disease of great powers
… and so what are we really talking about, are drugs good or bad, whose and where and how, what are we talking about, and if it “just depends”, depends on what … “bad people” says trump … yeah, all those parties on epstein island, all those photos and no one appears to be doing lines in any of them … I believe that but whatever just dont do drugz kids, its bad mkay except if trumpster offers you some panama red at mar a lago
smart play though is if you are going to do it, do it entirely legal like the sackler family, peddling oxycontin; hurray for the free market and the supreme court deciding political contributions were “free speech”
I love the renewables, but oil will remain with us for this century. Aside : “UK” oil seems tiny, but there is supposedly 15B barrels still there if you want it (and that is still only half of our waters, nor does it cover this incredible antarctic claim, which is 511B barrels of oil and gas)