Sunday, February 10, 2008

Who Supplies the US with Oil?

In light of Hugo Chavez's complaints that Exxon Mobile plans on taking back what he stole from them (I love how he paints himself as the victim here) and how he's threatening to cut off the US from his oil, I thought it would be of benefit to all the junior, deputy, aspiring, official or otherwise economists out there to review just how much the US imports from Venezuela;


I also thought that Hugo might like a vocabulary lesson. Today's word is called "fungible."

Meaning, "If you don't want to sell us your oil. Fine. We'll just buy it from somebody else. And we'll probably not pay any more for it since by you supplying a different country really doesn't lower the global supply of oil and thus has no real effect on supply and thus price."

Of course you really could affect the price of oil by not selling oil at all. That would increase prices. But then half of the Venezuelan budget would go unfunded.

And then how would Hugo bribe the masses then?

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